Claire and the Dragon

by sqbr

Morrigan and Leliana's daughter was not happy with her life, and unsure how to deal with the soul of the Old God within her. So she decided to go seek her fortune. Urthemiel/Endrin, set after "Bedtime Story" but can be read on it's own. Moderate violence.

Once, in the great city of Val Royeaux, there lived a bard, a witch and their daughter. The three of them shared a small townhouse in the nice part of town with a cat, two servants, and an unusually large nug named Schmooples. The two parents were as different as night and day: the bard, Leliana, had golden skin and copper hair that shone like the sun, and she was loved by all who knew her for her cheerful nature and generous spirit. The witch, Morrigan, had skin as pale as the moon and hair as black as pitch, and her strange and unfriendly behaviour made the neighbours whisper amongst themselves that she was secretly a mage (and of course, they were right). But despite these differences the two women seemed very happy with each other.

The daughter, Claire, seemed by comparison to be a rather ordinary girl, and the neighbours liked her well enough. She had no particular talent for singing or combat, and while she shared her mother's magical abilities had never learned to entirely control them. About the only thing she was really good at was being beautiful, her pale narrow face and blue eyes set off by her dark hair, and in a city like Val Royeaux beauty be a very useful talent indeed. But it was not one she seemed very interested in pursuing.

By the age of eighteen Claire had been proposed to twice, and she could not walk down a crowded street or boulevard without being accosted by some man or woman trying to curry her favour. After a few bad experiences Claire rejected them all, for though they might claim to love her all these people really wanted to do was bask in her presence, and this got boring after a while.

There was one thing about Claire that the neighbours did not know, and that she and her parents took great pains to hide: beneath her ordinary exterior Claire contained the soul of a dragon. While pregnant Morrigan had taken into herself the spirit of the Old God Urthemiel, Archdemon of the last Blight, and had bound it with strong magics within the small life that would one day grow to become Claire.

Morrigan had never entirely explained her reasons for doing this. She had always told Claire to see the god's presence as a gift, a unique well of power and knowledge, but to Claire it was only a burden, a dangerous potential lurking in her mind, extending a subtle malign influence over her thoughts. She knew that were it not for Urthemiel she would not be as universally admired, and it bothered Claire not to be able to know if anyone actually liked her for the person she really was.

Urthemiel was not an inherently evil being, but though old and weak it craved power, and it took all of Claire's strength to keep the god from influencing her. She reacted to it's attempts to sway her by compensating in the opposite direction: When it said that she should dominate others, she was passive and polite and listened to their opinion. When it said that she should strike out in anger, she remained calm. And worst of all, in the eyes of the Old God of Beauty, when it said that she should make herself beautiful she cut off her hair and wore unflatteringly sensible clothes.

One day Claire said to Morrigan "I wish you had not made so. The spirit of the dragon itches in my mind, it tells me that I should bind others to my will and use my beauty to gain wealth and power. And I worry that it is getting worse."

"I am sorry that Urthemiel troubles you," said Morrigan "But if I had not bound the creature within you it would have killed your father when he slew the Archdemon, and that was not a price I was willing to pay. An Old God is not an ordinary spirit, I know of no way to dispel one from the mortal realm without killing it, and I would not willingly destroy such an ancient and glorious being. Wealth and influence are not inherently bad things, can you not harness the power of the being within you to attain whatever it is that you desire?"

"And if you do not wish to use it to find money or power," said Leliana "perhaps you could use your abilities for the benefit of others. I agree that Morrigan was wrong to do what she did, but that is no reason not to make the best of your situation. If you joined the Chantry I am sure you could persuade many lost souls to find solace with the Maker."

Claire did not like either of these suggestions, but she decided to try to find some use for her abilities.

First she tried joining Morrigan in her work as an underground mage, but while Claire's magic was very powerful she could not always control it, and even a simple fire spell could either form an explosive ball of fire or be too weak to light a candle. Then she tried being a bard. But although she had a serviceable singing voice she could never remember the words, and would lose track of any story she told before she got to the end. Next she tried being a fighter, but whenever she felt afraid or angry Urthemiel would stir within her and she was not sure she could control it should the god take hold. Claire did not consider joining the Chantry. She had never felt much affection for this god that had created the Blight and so encouraged the persecution of mages, and anyway felt that it would go against the principle of the Chant for the Maker's message to be spread by one whose soul contained the essence of one of his archnemeses.

Eventually Claire decided that whatever purpose she was going to find in life, she was not going to find it in Val Royeaux, and she told her parents that she was off to seek her fortune.

"Oh!" said Morrigan. "Well, remember to be brave, and clever, and to never let yourself be deluded by others or yourself. But as Leliana will tell you, it is important to let yourself trust others sometimes."

"Oh!" said Leliana "Well, remember to be brave, and observant, and to never lose hope. And when in doubt, be kind. As I have told Morrigan many times, it is often the best way to get what you want."

And then her mothers kissed her, and wished her well, and sent Claire on her way.

Having no specific plan to her quest, Claire decided to head towards Ferelden, since it had been the location of so many of her parents stories about their childhoods as well as the dramatic events of the Blight and many of Leliana's folktales.

To begin with this path took her even deeper into the forest. Claire was not afraid of wild beasts, for they instinctively avoided the being within her, but she did worry that she might lose her way on the many winding paths through the wood, and as the days wore on and the forest grew darker she began to wonder if it would have been better to go the long way around via the Imperial Highway.

It was as she stumbled over roots and logs, the glow of her staff barely penetrating the gloom, that Claire encountered the dragon.

She was a very large and very old dragon, and she was completely blocking the path. For a moment Claire hoped that the great beast was asleep, so that she could quietly sneak around it, but she soon realised she was being balefully regarded by a pair of large reptilian eyes.

"Hello, grandmother dragon," she said "Would you be so kind as to let me pass?"

"Perhaps," said the dragon, "I do not often meet human travelers who can speak my tongue. Or perhaps I will eat you. Where are you going?"

"I am off to seek my fortune," said Claire. "Though beyond that I cannot say for certain."

"And what manner of fortune do you seek? Will you marry a prince and become trapped in the golden cage of marriage? Will you become a great sorcerer and be hunted down by narrow-minded priests? Or will you perhaps seek to slay a great dragon and be eaten for your trouble?" As she spoke the dragon drew closer, her teeth gleaming in the darkness, and Claire could feel the wet warmth of her breath as it blew through her giant jaws.

"I have not decided." said Claire. "But I do not think I would slay a dragon, for I myself contain the spirit of a dragon in my heart."

The dragon laughed, a strange booming sound that made the leaves fall off the trees. "You are very small for a dragon," she said. Her face drew even closer, the golden glow of her eyes boring into Claire's, and she could feel tendrils of power poking at her mind. "I see," said the dragon at last. "Perhaps I will not eat you after all, though you are no more a true dragon than I am."

The dragon, or whatever she was, turned into a spider and crawled to the side, leaving space on the path for Claire to pass. "I wish you well on your quest, little granddaughter," she said, "Please give my regards to your mother." As she crawled into the trees and out of sight, Claire could just make out her saying "…and if you are looking for a prince, I saw one a little further down the path."

Claire wasn't sure she would want to marry a prince: she'd met many nobles when they lived in Val Royeaux, and most of them had been quite obnoxious. But she decided to look for him anyway, so that she at least would have someone to talk to.

As day turned to night and she began to think that the dragon had been lying, Claire came across a small and apparently empty camp. She would have thought it abandoned, but a small fire still burned merrily in the centre.

"Hello!" she said.

"Are another dragon come to try and eat me?" said a male voice.

"I promise that I am not here to eat you," replied Claire, because her mothers had always taught her that often the most effective lie is the truth. "My name is Claire, and I am on a quest to make my fortune."

To her surprise a friendly looking dwarf popped his face out from the branches of one of the trees. "Glad to hear it!" he said, before jumping gracefully to the ground. He had short brown hair and a friendly, clean-shaven face and did not look very old, perhaps only a little older than Claire. "Pleased to make your acquaintance, Claire," he said, bowing and kissing her hand. "My name is Faren, and I am on a quest to find my mother."

It was a very courtly bow, and Claire was surprised to find herself noticing that Faren was quite handsome. "You wouldn't happen to be a prince who's been cursed into the form of a dwarf would you?" she asked.

"Indeed not!" said Faren, "I am happy to say that I have always been a dwarf. I might as well ask if you've been cursed to take the form of a human."

"I apologise," she said. "That was very rude of me. Is you mother lost in the woods?"

Faren sighed. "No, she is not. I do not know where she is." And then he told Claire his tale of woe.

"I was born," he said "to a well-to-do family in the dwarven city of Orzammarr. My father was high-born but my mother is not, in fact she came from the lowest rung of society, the casteless, who even the servant caste see as beneath contempt. Such liaisons are not unusual, but what made my father strange was that he treated my mother as an equal, listening to her advice and including her in his decisions. This angered the other members of my family, who resented that such a low born woman was given more power in the running of the family affairs than they were themselves.

Their resentment did not extent to me, since I am the only child of my generation and have great value to them as heir. But my family tried to poison me against my mother and even my father, planting evil gossip about his involvement in the unfortunate deaths of his siblings many years ago.

Despite all this, my life was quite happy until a year ago, when my father died. I was away from Orzammar at the time, making a visit to the other great dwarven city of Kal Shurok. I returned as soon as I heard what had happened, but by then my family had already moved to revoke my mother's acquired higher caste and manufacture some reason for her exile from Orzamarr. I followed her trail to Dust Town, the home of the casteless, but she had already moved on, and those who knew her there said she had left word that she was headed for Val Rouyeax." Faren sighed. "But when I got to the city noone had heard of her," he said "And there are few enough dwarves living there that her appearance would have been noted. It is a long journey from Orzamarr to Val Royeaux, it would have made more sense for her to go to Denerim, so that's where I'm going to check next."

Claire imagined how she would feel if something similar had happened to one of her mothers and her heart filled with sympathy. "I am travelling to Ferelden myself," she said. "If you will accept my help I would gladly join your quest."

Faren gratefully accepted her offer, and the two of them started the long trek to Ferelden. Faren was a charming young man, and had many entertaining stories of life in Orzammarr, as well as of his amusing misadventures as he adjusted to life on the surface. He in turn enjoyed hearing about Claire's life in Orlais, and her various failed attempts at finding work, though of course these stories required a certain amount of judicious editing on her part. Although their lives had been very different, their characters were quite similar. Faren too was a minor disappointment to his parents for being too soft hearted and a terrible fighter, and he claimed to have only survived so long in the wilderness by himself as a result of being particularly good at hiding. They slipped quickly into an easy camaraderie.

To Claire's surprise Faren showed no signs of finding her attractive, nor did he spend his time rhapsodising about how good and beautiful she was. Not that everyone Claire met fell in love with her, but there was usually at least some tendency towards deference or worship in their manner. Then she remembered that dwarves are immune to the effects of spirits and magic, and felt happy in the knowledge that any liking he did take to her was a result of her and not Urthemiel.

Urthemiel of course did not like this at all, and Claire could feel it pushing suggestions into her mind, encouraging her to hurry up and get back to the main road where she could meet some more expressive admirers.

The forests this far south were thinner and less lush to those of the north, and Claire enjoyed comparing the local varieties of plants and animals with those she had grown up with. Though she and her parents lived in the city at Leliana's insistence, Morrigan sometimes grew tired of all the people and took Claire with her into the forest to learn how to survive in the wild. Faren had been this way before, but having grown up underground saw the forest as an undifferentiated mass of bewildering and inconvenient life, and was constantly trying to learn more from her about what plants were safe to eat and which were more likely to bring him out in a rash.

This peaceful journey was interrupted shortly after they passed Lake Celestine, when they were attacked by two darkspawn. Before the attack Claire felt their approach as a sickly pull in the pit of her stomach, like a horribly magnified parody of the vague buzz she got around Grey Wardens. Though she had only heard of darkspawn in tales there was no mistaking these mindlessly violent creatures for anything else. She warned Faren, who pulled them both into the bushes. But Claire did not share his ability at stealth, and despite her best efforts to be still the darkspawn soon noticed her little shifts and rustles and rushed towards them to attack.

They ran, but were soon surrounded. Faren drew his blades. "Good luck," he said with false cheer. Claire hoped she had not just doomed them both to an unpleasant death.

Ducking away from one of the darkspawn Claire found herself suddenly face to face with the other, it's eyes wide open and a large knife drawn up in a wide arc heading towards her. She tried to dodge and wished fervently that she had not left her staff by her pack…only for the knife to whiz past her and into the darkspawn's own arm. The creature held up the wounded limb, dripping with gore, and made as if to reach towards her face, but Claire only had time to wonder that it's expression looked almost reverent before the Old God screamed in her mind and the darkspawn was engulfed in flame. "By the Ancestors, was that magic?" asked Faren. Claire turned and saw him staring at her, the other darkspawn dead at his feet. Endrin looked only slightly more alive than the darkspawn, he was covered in cuts and bruises and barely standing.

"Yes," she replied. She rubbed her face nervously, and then since there was no reason not to cast a healing spell over Endrin. It didn't come out as strongly as she'd hoped but he started to look a little less unstable. "I am sorry I didn't tell you that I was a mage. But I have learned to always keep it a secret, for the punishment for being an apostate mage is imprisonment or death."

Faren's face wore an expression of disappointment but he did not question her choice. He looked like he might say something, but then he swayed on his feet and stumbled away to vomit into the bushes.

"I really don't like killing things," he said. "I'd like to avoid doing it again in future if we can help it, especially if it involves all that…charring."

"Agreed," said Claire.

That night she dreamed of the Blight. Usually when Urthemiel sent her dreams they were of it's glory days as a god, commanding the love and worship of tens of thousands of followers and ruling the earth and skies with it's sibling gods. But now she dreamed of corruption and death, she felt her mind tainted into madness and destruction, the song of the Archdemon calling the darkspawn to swarm the surface killing all in their wake. And then she dreamed for the first time of the Blight's beginning, Urthemiel's long lonely underground imprisonment ended by a strange being with sad eyes who fed it blood and dark magic, the darkspawn Taint quickly overcoming the Old God and transforming it into an Archdemon. She understood the Old God's message: "This is what happens if I come into contact with darkspawn blood." When Claire awoke Urthemiel had shrunk itself down into the darkest reaches of her mind, it was almost as if it was not there at all.

In some ways it was easier now that Faren knew that Claire was a mage. She could light their fires with magic rather than flint (though once or twice she had to quickly douse the resulting fireball with ice), and was able to heal their scrapes and cuts. But she couldn't help but notice that when she did these things Faren's face wore a subdued mixture of wonder and fear.

"Is it true that the dwarves do not have any mages?' she asked.

"Indeed," he said. "Yours is some of the first magic I have ever seen. We do not go into this "Fade" either, I have often wondered how restful your nights can be if your minds are awake in this other realm."

"And what do your people think of mages then? Do you see us as a threat the way the Chantry does?"

He did not reply immediately, which Claire took to mean that the answer was yes. At length he said, "We are very cut off from the surface in Orzammar. Apart from the odd visitor from the surface, all we hear of strange creatures like mages and dragons is half remembered anecdotes and merchant's tales." They walked quietly along the path, their feet rustling through the dried leaves and dust. "I did meet a Tranquil mage once, he was in the Commons selling enchantments." Faren looked at her thoughtfully. "He was not very much like you."

So Claire told Faren about magic, how it felt to draw on her mana to cast a lightening bolt or heal a broken bone. She told him about how unless they hid like her and her mother, human mages were taken from their families as children and sent to a Tower where they were watched constantly by guards and killed or made Tranquil at the slightest hint of trouble. And then she showed him how beautiful magic could be, casting spell wisps to float in the air around them and causing an old dead bush to come into bloom. He smiled and put a flower behind her ear. "You could make a fortune with this ability in Orzammarr." he said "There is no limit on what vain nobles will pay for fresh flowers." After that he didn't seem to find her magic quite so intimidating, though it still sometimes seemed to give him pause.

Shortly after their path rejoined the Imperial Highway they encountered a merchant train. Many of the merchants immediately started to pay their attentions to Claire, offering to give her jewels and fine furs if she would spend an afternoon with them or travel with their caravan for a while.

Faren expressed surprise at their behaviour.

"Are you saying you do not think I am beautiful?" she asked, with good humour.

"I am sure you must be very beautiful to other humans," he replied. "And you are certainly not ugly by dwarf standards, I might almost call you pretty."

She laughed. "Why ser, what flattery!"

"Oh, I thought you wanted my honest opinion," said Faren. "If it is only flattery you want then I am more than able to oblige." He coughed and then leaned in towards her, his face heavy with mock seriousness. "I could write you a poem about how your eyes are like gold, but both more precious and more pure. Or how your hair flows like quicksilver, and your skin is as smooth as the finest porcelain." He held her hand to his chest and struck an artistic attitude.

Though she had heard such platitudes a hundred times before, and then more sincerely meant, Claire could feel herself blushing, and thought herself a fool.

The train also contained a contingent of dwarves returning to Orzammarr. Faren asked them about his mother, but none had seen her. One of these merchants, a noble fallen on hard times, said "I think I did meet a Rica Brosca once, in the Diamond quarter. But this was many years ago. Come to think of it, you look a little familiar yourself, good ser. Have we perhaps met before?"

"You are mistaken," said Faren, though as he explained later to Claire this was untrue. He did not like to lie, but worried that if his family heard that he would be passing back through Orzamarr they might prepare to trap him there. Claire and Faren agreed that it would be better to avoid the main roads from now on, and they returned to following the winding hunter's paths through the forests along the coast.

Claire's dreams did not trouble her again until they had nearly left the Dales. This time they were not of death but of life, vague visions of greenery and a quiet yearning for home, but like Urthemiel's dreams they still felt alien and not her own. In many of the dreams she could almost make out the face of a blond man with elven features and a tattooed face, and she wondered who he was. In a secret corner of her heart she nursed the hope that this man might be her father, of whose appearance she knew little except that he was a blond Dalish elf.

Claire had never met her father. She had been conceived at the end of the Blight, during which period her parents and their companions had celebrated defeating the archdemon and then gone their separate ways. Morrigan had aways insisted that it was better she never meet him, since he knew the nature of her birth and could not be trusted to be reasonable about it, but despite this Claire could tell that her mothers both held him in high esteem, and she had always hoped that they could meet.

Meanwhile, as they drew closer to Orzammar Faren's thoughts returned more and more to his mother. "Sometimes I think that I will walk through the gates and she will be there waiting for me, having returned on her own," he said "While at other times I think that her message was a lie left by my family to hide the fact that they had had her killed."

Orzammarr was not as unwelcoming as it had once been, the great king Bhelen having opened it up to the outside world when he came to the throne nearly twenty years past. But for the most part the dwarves still kept to themselves, and though it was no longer forbidden for it's citizens to return once they had left it's gates for the surface such returns were still considered strange, and the guard at the gate was not happy to let Faren back through, let alone his human friend.

The city was a marvel, giant stone carvings flickering in the light of lava fountains and tall graceful buildings carved cunningly into the rock. As they walked through the hall of Paragons Faren explained that these exemplary citizens, the likenesses preserved in stone, were the closest the dwarves had to gods. "My mother had a brother who was determined to be a Paragon," said Faren, "But he never even made it out of Dust Town, he was the first casteless to win the Provings and all he got as a reward was to be killed like a dog."

Faren was becoming increasingly morose as it became clear that his mother was not here either. He tried asking around Dust Town again to see if anyone had seen her but the inhabitants were wary of this apparent stranger, and the more he asked around the more worried he became that his family would catch up with them.

Claire found being surrounded by dwarves very strange. It was one thing to have Faren treat her like an ordinary looking woman he saw as a friend. It was another to experience constant hostility from the dwarves who did not see her as a friend but as an untrustworthy surfacer. She had grown up knowing at worst mild dislike from the people around her and to suddenly experience such consistent dislike was very jarring. For the first time she understood how much Urthemiel's presence had benefited her, even while it caused her problems. And yet as much as she found being in Orzamarr difficult Claire wasn't sure she wanted to leave: she wanted to see Faren happy, which meant finding his mother, but if that happened they would no longer have any reason to travel together. She herself unexpectedly upset by the idea of leaving him behind, as well as by the certainty that he would never see her as anything but the nice if odd-looking human he'd traveled with for a little while. Claire wasn't sure that she would classify what she felt for Faren as love but she certainly liked him a great deal, and as they walked the streets trying to find clues about his mother Claire wondered what she would do if they found one.

And then they did: a letter from Faren's mother Rica, sent to one of her friends in Dust Town to avoid being intercepted by Faren's family. She said that she was well, and living in the Ferelden town of Amaranthine, and that she was very sorry to have left so suddenly but she had felt that her life was in danger. Faren surmised that the "message" he'd received before about Rica going to Orlais had been created by his family.

"You don't need to continue with me if you'd rather not," he said to Claire, as they perused the stalls of the commons to buy supplies for the trek further east. "We're a long way from your home and only getting further. Furthermore…" he paused and looked at his feet before raising his head and smiling at her. "Whether or not you choose to come with me, I want to say thankyou. I could not have done this without you, your companionship has been…invaluable."

"Of course I will come with you!" said Claire. "I have not come so far to give up on this quest now. And I must thank you for your companionship as well, I have very much enjoyed travelling with you and would not gladly part from your company. In fact," she said nervously, "I…I have sometimes thought…" But at that moment they were interrupted by a scream.

To their right lay the entrance to the Deep Roads, the underground tunnels which had once connected the great dwarven cities but were now mostly overrun by darkspawn, their entrances boarded up with rock and thick sheets of metal. One of these entrances was now open, the boulders blocking it knocked back by the powerful arms of the ogre currently heading towards the Commons. The ogre roared with anger, it's face dripping with the blood of the guards it had encountered as it entered the city.

"Stand back!" shouted Faren but Claire couldn't hear him. After lying dormant for weeks Urthemiel was awake again, it's power coursing through Claire's body and it's screams filling her mind. The stress of travel, the worry about her future, all of these things had weakened Claire's mental strength, and Urthemiel pushed past it's wards further than it ever had before. Her magic expanded out past her body and into the commons, a wall of fire sweeping through market stalls and food carts, culminating in an intense conflagration that incinerated the ogre and the other darkspawn behind it, coursing down the tunnel to kill everything in it's wake until eventually extinguishing itself against the cold rock many feet underground.

Claire leaned against a pillar in shock. As she returned to herself she noticed that she was still surrounded by shouting, and then came to the horrible realisation that they were the screams of the dying, two merchants who had been caught in her wave of fire. "What did you do?" asked Faren, aghast.

"I…I must heal these people," she said. But before she could do so a wave of healing magic flowed over them from further within the commons.

"Thank the Maker I was here," cried a an elderly mage as he walked over to check that their wounds had healed. "As for you…" he said to Claire, and then cast a powerful paralysing charm. "Guards! Arrest this maleficar!" And so Claire found herself bound in a dwarven prison, accused of grievous bodily harm, property damage, and, most damningly, apostasy. The dwarves were not too concerned with the rules of the Chantry, but had a severe mistrust of magic, and had said they would hand her over to the old mage if they did not sentence her to death themselves.

Farin took her hand through the bars of her cell and gave it a squeeze. "Don't worry," he said "I can get you out of this."

"So can I," said Claire, "I'm just not sure I can do it without killing anyone."

"It won't come to that," said Faren. "But first there's something you should know about me." He sighed and sat on the dusty floor. "I lied to you when we met. My name isn't Faren."

Claire pulled back in shock and he let her take back her hand, his own falling softly to lean against the bars. "Faren was my mother's brother's name. I took it at the same time as I shaved off my beard, to prevent anyone recognising me and sending word of my location. I am actually Endrin Aeducan, son of Bhelen Aeducan. And if I had not left when I did I might well be King of Orzamarr by now."

Claire tried to reconcile the story Endrin had told of his father with what she knew of the old King Bhelen. Her mothers had met him during the Blight and had described him as cruel and manipulative, but there were many who might say that of Morrigan too. There was always more than one side to the truth. "So you are a prince after all," she said.

"Not exactly, now that someone else has been sworn in as King I am just another noble lord. But I was a prince until not that long ago," he said. "I must admit that at first I didn't trust you to keep my secret, and after that I grew to prefer being Faren to being Endrin, it made it easier to forget the responsibilities I'd left behind. By the time that I decided that I should tell you it had been so long that I felt worried that you would take offence, and of course the longer I left it the worse it got." He looked into Claire's eyes and smiled nervously. "Can you forgive me?"

"Of course I can, Fa...Endrin," she said, his true name sounding strange upon her tongue. "I didn't tell you about being a mage until I had to, we all have secrets. And if you being Bhelen's son means you can get me out of here then all the better."

He sighed. "I'm afraid it's not as simple as that. My family has agreed to have you released, but only on the condition that I give my word to return with them immediately and take up the mantle of deshyr and…and send you away beyond the bounds of the city." he said, his face drawn. "I had every intention of returning eventually, but not like this. Could I..could I ask you to send my mother a letter once you reach the surface? I don't trust the mail here with my family watching."

"No I will not send a letter. I will continue our quest and find your mother in Denerim," said Claire, placing her hand back on his. "I'm so sorry. This is all my fault, if only I could control my magic better."

"You saved us from an ogre, that makes you a hero in my book." said Endrin. He held her hand and then kissed it. "If we do not see each other again, I…". He stopped and made a groan of frustration. "But it's too late now. This would have all been much easier if you were a dwarf."

"Why?" she asked.

"Because I can't marry a human," he said sadly.

Claire stared at him, her eyes wide. It felt like her heart had stopped beating. "Marry? You wish to marry me? But you never…you said you didn't even think I was beautiful!"

"I take it all back," he said "You may be a little tall and bony, but I would take you over any other, were they human, dwarf or elf. I would have said something weeks ago, but I knew that amongst humans it is considered immoral for a man to declare his interest in a woman unless he is able to marry her, and I cannot."

"Oh Endrin," she said, "Perhaps in theory but not in practice. You should have just told me."

"I met some very angry fathers when I first came to the surface who were quite clear on the subject," he said, looking a little embarrassed. "But why didn't you, I mean, if you…uh…" He looked into her eyes with a combination of hope and fear. "Noone ever stopped to care about whether or not I liked them before." she said. At his unspoken question she added "But I do. Very much. I just…wasn't sure how I was going to go about telling you."

He stood up and opened his mouth as if to speak and she leaned across and kissed him. Endrin leaned into the kiss, reaching his arms through the bars to touch her face and tangle his fingers through her hair before pulling away to smile at her with affection. His expression was tinged with annoyance and lacked the mindless adoration she was used to, but Claire liked him all the better for it. "What fools we both are," he said.

"Well, at least that's something we have in common," she replied, resting her head against his. They held each other until the guard came to take Endrin away.

The next day Endrin returned with two other dwarves, who introduced themselves as his second cousin and father's widow. (Endrin had made it quite clear that Claire should not to refer to her as his stepmother) The two pillars of House Aeducan looked at Claire like she was some stinking cur that had followed Endrin in from the street, but after about a week of wrangling they got the charges dropped. Endrin came in each day and they made the most of what time they had together, but before long it was time for her to go. She was walked once more through the hall of paragons to the entrance to the city, Endrin standing by to make sure she was released unharmed to the surface. They shared one final embrace and then the giant metal gates of Orzammar were shut behind her. A guard walked Claire past the boundaries of the camp outside the gates. The path was cold and covered with ice, and Claire shivered in the shadows of the giant pine trees surrounding her. "Don't even think about trying to get back in," said the guard. "We guards have all been given your description. If you try anything you'll end up back in a jail cell, and there'll be no last minute reprieves for you this time. The dwarves will have no more to do with you."

He left Claire alone on the empty path and turned to walk away. Just as Claire was preparing herself for the long trek down the mountains she felt a strange drain on her mana. She suddenly felt herself weaken and a cold pain bloomed in her chest, bringing her to her knees. "Help!" she cried to the departing dwarf.

"As I said," he responded, continuing to walk away, "The dwarves are done with you. The Chantry, however, is not."

And just like that she was surrounded by templars. There were four of them, three men and one woman, in the distinctive armour she had been taught to fear since childhood.

"Don't struggle," said one of the men, "If you surrender now we will do you no harm."

Claire almost believed him. Urthemiel did not. It roared within her, drawing on what remained of it's magic to try and strike the templars down. Claire resisted: darkspawn were one thing, but these were humans and only trying to do their job. She managed to gain control enough that they were only knocked down instead of killed but it took all her strength. "Run," she said weakly.

"I think not," said one of the templars, fiercely, and he blasted Claire with cold fire. After that she remembered nothing.

Claire woke to pain in all her limbs and a terrible headache. As she opened her eyes she realised she was being watched by one of the templars. To her surprise she realised the woman was scowling at her suspiciously without even a hint of grudging admiration. Either she was a very tall dwarf, a good actor, or…Claire poked at Urthemiel's spirit within her. It stirred, but only weakly. She realised that her mana was still drained, a feeling she had never fully experienced before. Perhaps the templar's attacks had weakened Urthemiel as well as her magic. Well, she would just have to persuade them not to kill her by herself.

"I'm very sorry I attacked you," she said, "I panicked." The templar merely grunted in response but her expression shifted ever so slightly closer to a smile. "That was amazing, the way you drained my magic. I have a lot of trouble controlling it, I would love to be able to drain the power away myself. Is that something you can teach me to do?"

This was enough to goad her into speech. "You want me to teach you how to cast templar attacks on yourself?" she asked incredulously.

As it turned out this was not a viable longterm solution. As the templar pointed out, if mages could survive being constantly drained by templars then that's what the Chantry would do as a matter of course. But Claire had shown herself to be sufficiently different from the typical power-hungry maleficar that she had taken her for that the templar seemed to view her with less suspicion. She introduced himself as Diana, and her companions as Silas, Rory and Jasper. They had been stationed in the nearby town of Jader to prevent apostates crossing the border and had been summoned by carrier pigeon. "So that's why the charges took so long to be dealt with," Claire thought to herself grumpily but there was no doing anything about it now.

The five of them began the trip towards the Circle Tower, and since that was the direction she was headed in anyway for the moment Claire was content. As Urthemiel regained it's strength she could see it's influence subtly affecting the templar's reactions to her. Their deep seated bias against mages meant they still kept a certain emotional distance, but they treated her with increasing trust. Silas in particular took a quite strong liking to her and Claire worried that he might be forming some sort of attachment. She found she liked the templars more than she expected, they were just people like any other doing their job, and while they certainly seemed to have a distrust of mages she detected no hatred in their voices when they described the inmates of the tower.

Feeling a little ashamed of herself, Claire took advantage of their increased trust to quiz them about their templar abilities and even managed to persuade Diana to make a minor demonstration. She experimented on herself and though she would never be able to force the ability on another mage Claire could almost convince herself she might be able to drain off some of her own mana, and could feel something strange happen to the link between her and Urthemiel. She might have expected the Old God to object but it remained oddly silent.

Claire put these experiments to a halt as they approached the tower, because she was going to need all her magic to escape. As they reached the shores of Lake Calenhad Claire looked up at the intimidating bulk of the Tower and considered her strategy. She decided she would wait until night and cast a sleep spell on the templar on watch, then transform into a bird and fly away.

"Don't worry," said Silas, "It's not as bad in there as you might think. And I'm sure the other mages will like you." He smiled at her. "I've been thinking of asking to be reassigned to the Tower, if I did we could see each other all the time."

Claire smiled weakly and waited for night. But somehow despite her best efforts she found herself falling asleep.

As always, Urthemiel was there in the Fade as an indistinct presence, an almost translucent image of a dragon bound in chains. For the last few nights Claire had not seen it in her dreams at all. But now it appeared almost solid and looked at her expectantly, it's claws flexing unconsciously on the ground.

"I should not be here," she said, "I must be awake to escape the templars."

Urthemiel looked at her and tilted it's head. It opened it's mouth to speak but Morrigan's wards prevented it, and all Claire could hear was a faint whispering at the edge of her awareness. Still, she had learned to read Urthemiel's emotions and it did not seem afraid. Expectant, yes, but in a happy and excited way, tinged with a preparation for violence.

"What's going on?" she asked, a sick feeling pooling in the bottom of her stomach.

But Urthemiel did not answer.

It is very difficult to wake oneself from a dream, but Claire did her best. She thought very hard about the sensation of her body lying asleep and the feeling of opening her eyes. Finally she awoke, her body complaining that it had not had nearly enough rest. She realised she could hear shouting, and came out of her tent to find herself face to face with another dragon.

Not Urthemiel this time, but the old dragon from the forest, now engaged in a fierce battle with Silas and Jasper. Diana and Rory lay dead at her feet, and the camp was half destroyed, the other tents a crushed and smoking ruin.

"Stop!" shouted Claire. "Come now dear," said the dragon, "I am doing you a favour. Can't have these nasty templars underfoot all the time. Your mother was never this squeamish."

"Flemeth," said Claire, for she was sure now that this was the dragon's true identity, "I beseech you. These people have done me no harm. Leave them alone and I will come with you, I will do whatever you want."

"You seek to bargain with me, granddaughter?" asked Flemeth. "A dangerous proposition. But I need no favours from you. It is only a matter of time before you realise that it is pointless to resist the power within you, and I can wait until then. For now I am happy to watch unless I feel you need my help, as now." She grabbed Jasper, shook him with a jarring jolt of her claws and threw him to the side. "I was glad to see you took my advice about the prince. Useful people to have around, princes, though you should never trust a word they say."

Claire felt overcome with anger and grief. But there was no accompanying surge of violent power from Urthemiel: the God approved of Flemeth's actions, and she could feel it curling joyfully around in her mind. She realised with shock that the feeling it was emanating was love. Claire also realised that Jasper was not dead, from the corner of her eye she could see that he he had pulled himself painfully off the ground and was reaching for his sword.

"This is your grandmother?" asked Silas, and for a moment he stopped fighting.

"Do not underestimate her on that account," said Claire, "She is a cruel witch, and would have killed my mother her daughter had my other parents not intervened." She turned to Flemeth. "You are Morrigan's mother, and thus grandmother to me," she said. "But who are you Urthemiel?"

Flemeth laughed as she dodged Silas's sword. "Very good! Yes, we are doubly kin, you and I. As you are host to Urthemiel so too am I host to Zazikel, it's sibling god, long left alone on the surface while it's family mouldered underground or stalked the earth as mad archdemons. It's really quite a touching family reunion."

She opened her jaws into a toothy parody of a smile over Silas's head. "Yes, little templar, your beloved Claire is an abomination. Her mother may have been very clever with her wards and spells but at heart she is the same manner of being as me. See for yourself." Silas instinctively turned to look at Claire and Flemeth reached down her jaws and bit him in half, his ruptured torso falling wetly to the ground.

Claire cried out but did not let herself lose her concentration. She felt Urthemiel itself object: Silas had been the most attentive of the templars, and the closest thing the god had had to a worshipper for some time. Claire bit down on her anger and sadness and took advantage of Urthemiel's own feeling of disappointment, drawing on it's magic to cast a cone of ice at the dragon's smirking face. Flemeth staggered back in surprise only to be stabbed in the side by Jasper's sword, the templar falling to his knees as he made the blow.

Flemeth roared in pain but did not fall. She crushed Jasper beneath he claws and then reared up onto her back legs, her massive wings sweeping through the air so that gusts and eddies whirled around the detritus of camp and blew Claire's hair into her eyes.

"The little hatchling has teeth, does she?" said Flemeth. "Not that it has done your friends here any good. Perhaps it is time I taught my granddaughter some discipline."

Flemeth roared and Claire found herself bathed in fire, the flames smouldering on her robes and licking at her face as she tried to drown them out with ice. Urthemiel joined the fight at last, lashing out with anger at it's sibling before swaddling Claire in healing magic. The last thing Claire saw before blacking out in pain was Flemeth standing over her, watching, with cold curiosity in her eyes, before flapping her wings and launching off into the sky.

Claire's next conscious thought was to wonder if she was dead. The Fade roiled around her, and she could see Urthemiel raging with anger, it's form slipping from dragon to human to something much stranger and more unnatural. It seemed genuinely upset that Claire had been hurt, though she couldn't be sure if it was just angry that it's vessel had been damaged. Claire was angry herself, for it seemed clear now that Flemeth had been communicating with Urthemiel in the Fade for some time, plotting with it's sibling against her. But now did not seem like the right time to accuse Urthemiel of betrayal. Claire felt weak, her mind barely able to rouse itself enough even for the world of dreams, and she soon drifted back into the deep dark of true unconsciousness.

When Claire next regained awareness she was properly awake, though what images she could make out through her bleary and gummed up eyes were still blurry and indistinct. She tried to sit up but her body resisted, arrows of pain shooting through her head and arms. Claire groaned and lay back down. Her first thought was to wonder how long she had been lying here, and how bad her injuries were, and how bad they had been before being healed by the magic she could feel tingling on her skin. Her second was to realise that she was lying on a bedroll, and that her injuries, while painful, were carefully wrapped in what felt like bandages and healing poultices.

The mystery of who had done this was soon solved: before long Claire found herself being tended over by a coldly efficient elven woman, who responded to Claire's groan by coming over and checking her injuries before offering a gratefully accepted drink of water. The woman was middle aged and very thin, her intricately tattooed face framed by long blonde hair. She wore an expression more of annoyance than concern.

"Who are you?" Claire croaked, her lungs feeling seared and clogged with smoke. "Where are the others, did... are any of them...?"

"I am Velanna," she said "And your templar friends are dead. Now sleep, we will talk again when you are healed."

When she woke again Claire was feeling much better. The combination of Velanna's poultices and Urthemiel's magic had healed almost all the damage, though she could feel the skin on parts of her hands and face pulling strangely as if it were scarred. She still tingled with magic, and there was a strange half-familiar tension in her stomach.

Claire sat up and looked around. She was back in the same tent she had ben in before being awoken by Flemeth, though it smelt of unfamiliar herbs. Claire thought of the battle and her mind could not contain it, so used to repressing her darker emotions that it pushed the grief deep inside to think about later. She could almost believe it had all been one horrible dream, but leaving the tent she saw not Diana and Rory but only this strange elven woman, standing over a small fire and stirring something in a pot which, like the tent, she seemed to have commandeered from the templars.

Claire always felt self conscious around Dalish elves. Whenever she encountered their understandable antipathy towards humans part of her always wanted to say "But my father is Dalish!", but of course that didn't change the fact that she was human and knew almost nothing of elvish ways. Velanna certainly didn't seem to be a friendly example of her people, she looked up at Claire from her pot with an expression of remarkable antipathy. From her robes and staff she appeared to be a mage, and despite being fair where Morrigan was dark, not to mention an elf, something about her reminded Claire of her mother. With a start, she realised that the tension in her stomach was because Velanna was a Grey Warden.

"Thankyou for looking after me," she said, walking a little unsteadily over the the fire.

"It was nothing," said Velanna, handing her a bowl of soup and motioning for her to sit down. The soup was very good, and Claire sat in silence for a while, eating and letting her mind clear.

"My name is Claire," she said. "I'm not sure how you feel about apostate mages, but…"

"I know who you are," interrupted Velanna, "And your apostasy is the least of my concerns, archdemon."

It turned out that Velanna had not encountered Claire at random, but had been following her for some time, and had seen the entirety of the fight with Flemeth.

Though Velanna was the first person other than her parents to come close to knowing her true nature, for now Claire was more concerned that Velanna had stood by while Flemeth murdered the templars. "Why didn't you do something?" she cried, "You could have saved them!"

"I think not," said Velanna "I know when I am outmatched, she would simply have killed me as well and then where would we be? And why would I sacrifice myself for a bunch of templars, I have seen what their kind think of elves and mages."

"They were kind to me," said Claire.

"Yes they were," said Velanna. "Suspiciously kind. And even I find you strangely likeable, though you are not only human but an abomination." She narrowed her eyes. "Clearly you are casting some spell. Stop it."

Claire eventually managed to persuade Velanna that she had no control over Urthemiel's affect on people, but she clearly was unhappy with the situation. And yet Velanna showed no signs of leaving now that Claire was on her way to recovery, claiming that since they were both headed to Amaranthine they might as well stay together for safety. Claire wondered what exactly a Dalish Grey Warden from the east coast had been doing up in the Frostback mountains.

"Do you know my father Curon Mahariel?" she asked. "He was originally from the Brecilian Forest, but I'm not sure whether he returned there after the Blight."

Velanna laughed, a short sharp snort that almost reached her eyes. "Yes, I have heard of the Hero of Ferelden." Seeing Claire's hopeful expression she added, "He's a decent man, I suppose. A bit too softhearted for his own good, and rather too fond of humans. " Here she looked significantly at Claire.

They were traveling now, though slowly, and Claire admired the confident way Velanna found an easy path through the tangled undergrowth so that Claire wouldn't stumble on her still weak legs. Velanna in return had expressed surprise that Claire was not completely incompetent.

Claire's skin was still healing, but she began to suspect that her hands would never regain their full range of motion. Luckily her left hand was more damaged than her right so she would still be able to write, but it was difficult coming to terms with all the little difficulties that came up when she tried to change her dressings or help with the cooking. Claire added it to the list of things to try not to think about.

After they'd walked a little further Velanna sighed. "Oh I suppose I might as well tell you. Your father sent me. He's been having these dreams. I've been having them too, now that I'm so near this being inside you, just another side effect of the wonderful Grey Warden curse I suppose. He didn't trust himself to be objective if his only child turned out to be some evil abomination that needed to be put down before it started another Blight so he sent me in his stead, to observe and if necessary kill you." As Claire coughed in shock Velanna added "Oh, don't look at me like that, if I was going to kill you I would have done so when you were vulnerable. As much as I can tell through this unnatural glamour you've put over me you seem pretty innocuous. And we elves are not as rigid as you human mages, as I see it all these old gods and demons are just Fade spirits, not inherently good or evil, merely potentially dangerous."

Claire realised that what she had always feared had come true: someone other than her parents had learned her true nature, and mistrusted her for it. And yet Velanna did not hate her, and in time they might even learn to trust each other. A weight lifted off Claire's shoulders, to know that she could be truly honest with someone for the first time since leaving Orlais, and she found herself starting to cry. She sniffed and felt very silly, to cry over such a little thing. And then she remembered the fate of Diana and the others, that she might never again see Endrin, that it was only a matter of time before she had to face Flemeth again, that her hands might never heal. She burst into tears in earnest then, wracking sobs that left her shaking and leaning on a tree for support.

"Would you rather I did think you were evil?" asked Velanna. "Because I can kill you if you like."

Claire shook her head wordlessly. When she ran out of tears she wiped her eyes and stood up, and they continued on their way.

Though she clearly still didn't entirely like Claire, Velanna seemed to feel at least a little sympathy for her, and though she made some complaints about irritating human ignorance seemed secretly pleased that Claire was interested to learn about her Dalish heritage. Claire found Velanna's brusque aloofness oddly relaxing, and over time felt herself coming to terms with her situation a little better, though she was still not happy. As they walked Velanna would tell Claire what elvish names she knew for the plants around them, and they would compare the difference between the words in Elvish, Ferelden and Orlesian. She also told Claire about what her father had been doing for the past two decades.

"The human King made him an Arl, if you can believe it, though that didn't last long. I'm happy to say that Curon soon came back to his true people, even if he brought that ridiculous lover of his with him. He managed to get some land for my clan near Amaranthine, it's…strange to have a permanent home, but I like it. I…well, I would show it to you, but we don't allow human visitors." Velanna's friendly smile suddenly shifted to a resentful frown. "It is very irritating to find myself being so nice to you. Is there truly no way to stop it?"

And so Claire took the opportunity to explain her experiments with the templar spells. "My mother put various wards on Urthemiel when I was a child and has explained their function to me, and by combining the templar techniques with magic I almost feel as if I can control them, make them stronger, and push Urthemiel down and away. But since my magical talent comes from Urthemiel itself the more I succeed the less I am able to continue."

Velanna looked thoughtful, the inward-turned expression of a mage with an interesting magical problem. As Claire demonstrated she said "Yes, I see what you mean. The…Call I suppose it is, the pull of the spirit becomes weaker. I suppose that it's not surprising that noone ever noticed this before, abominations do not usually make friends with templars."

That night Velanna visited Claire in her dreams. When Claire had said that no single mage could deliberately visit another in the Fade without blood magic Velanna had snorted derisively about the limits of human magic.

Velanna looked up at Urthemiel thoughtfully, the dragon watching her with suspicious eyes. She poked at the chains around it's legs with her staff and ran her fingers over the shining wards at it's feet.

"And you have had this creature inside you your whole life?" she asked. "It is a wonder you have not gone mad. Well, no matter. Try the templar tricks now, where I can see the effect more clearly."

By the time they approached the hills to the west of Amaranthine, Claire had discovered that not only could she increase the strength of the bonds on Urthemiel, she could weaken them. Velanna wondered if it might be possible to break them in such a way that Urthemiel might be released into the Fade rather than Claire's mind. Urthemiel, who had reacted to her experiments with increasing belligerence, responded enthusiastically to this. It stopped calling to her with visions of power and influence and instead called to her with visions of freedom. But while Claire had developed a certain grudging affection for the Old God through their years together, she wasn't so unwise as to trust it. She did pay attention when it became clear that forcing Urthmeiel down too much caused it pain, and she only pushed the bonds so far, but even with only a limited change she found herself vastly enjoying the sense of being more in control of her own mind. Velanna seemed happier too, her friendly overtures came less often but seemed less forced and were no longer followed by so much resentment.

It was then, just as Claire was beginning to pick herself back up from the pain of the months before and feel almost optimistic about her life again, that Flemeth attacked again.

She did not attack directly this time. First she assulted Velanna in her dreams. Flemeth obviously had some way to mask her true nature from the Grey Wardens and dark spawn, but whatever concealment she had been hiding behind for all these years she had removed it, and the dreams of death and violence she sent were so intense that Velanna would awake with a loud cry, often so loud that Claire would be awoken too. After a few days of this Velanna became even more irritable than before, her eyes bloodshot and dark.

And then Flemeth came to Claire's dreams. Not as a dragon this time but as an old woman.

"Hello granddaughter," she said, interrupting a dream Claire was having about searching endless corridors for a sister she'd never had. "You've recovered from our last meeting I see. You may not be so lucky next time."

"What do you want from me?" asked Claire.

"Your soul," she simply. "When I asked Morrigan to create a vessel for the archdemon I expected that vessel to be empty. But it seems she decided she wanted to control my poor sibling. Of course, as I could have told her, you can't control your children, human or otherwise." She smiled the wry grin of one who had survived for four hundred years by repeatedly killing their daughters. "And now I see you that are attempting to control poor Urthemiel even further." She walked up to Urthemiel and ran her hands gently over it's side. Urthemiel pulled away.

"You always were weak," said Flemeth to Urthemiel. "Content to passively accept others worship while the rest of us went out and actually achieved things, made something of this paltry mortal world and the puny beings within it. Four hundred years I've been stuck here, living in a dank miserable forest trying to find some way to release the rest of you, four hundred years as I watched Toth and Andoral rise only to be destroyed by these humans, the Grey Wardens too clever to let another of us escape as I did. And what did you do? Sleep, and wait, and then sit in the mind of this girl doing nothing but seducing peasants and doing a poor job of that. You were always weak, but you have fallen even lower than I thought possible, I am almost ashamed to call you sibling. I will not stand by and see you hobbled like this, even if you are so weak that you no longer see your imprisonment for the cage it is. I had thought you strong enough to overcome the girl yourself, but if you won't do it then I will."

"Stop!" said Claire. Sending a silent apology to Urthemiel she tightened it's bonds, and the dragon roared in pain (perhaps a little louder than was entirely justified given the pressure). "Come no closer, make no attempt to dominate my spirit, or I will crush Urthemiel. I don't know for certain if pushing these wards to their limit will kill your sibling, but I don't think you want me to make the experiment."

"Well," said Flemeth, "At least one member of my family has some backbone. Very well then, I shall withdraw for now, but we shall see each other again soon." And she walked away into the mists.

"Soon", as it turned out, meant two days later. Claire had warned Velanna about Flemeth and the two of them were as prepared as they were ever going to be as they crested a ridge and saw the dragon patiently waiting for them on the path leading to Kal Hirol.

"Go away," said Claire. "You have nothing further to say to me."

"Really?" asked Flemeth. "You don't want to talk to your prince? He's travelled a long way to come see you, all those miles across Ferelden and you don't even have time to say hello?"

Claire drew back in horror as she realised that Flemeth was holding Endrin, his stocky form hidden between her giant arms.

"Don't worry about me!" he said. "Your grandmother here has explained the situation, and I think I prefer you with your soul as is. Plus, technically I'm not a prince any more anyway."

"My apologies," said Flemeth to Endrin. "You did mention that your father had died, how rude of me to forget." She turned back to Claire. "Very well. Release my sibling or I shall eat your deshyr here."

"Endrin!" she cried, but wasn't sure what else she could say. Sorry for not telling you I had the soul of the Archdemon? I wish there was some way I could stop my grandmother from eating you? Because whatever Claire did to Urthemiel, once she did it she would no longer have any power to stop Flemeth from doing anything, and from what she knew of Flemeth the odds of Claire, Endrin or Velanna surviving seemed very low.

"Let him go!" she shouted at Flemeth. "Or you will leave me no choice but to kill Urthemiel."

"Go ahead," replied the dragon. "At least then it will stop living this pathetic half existence, and I can kill you and move on to trying to rescue the rest of my siblings."

Claire thought about drawing on Urthemiel's power, trying to force it to attack Flemeth. But she had no idea if that would work, and even with Velanna's help there was no way she would be strong enough to take down Flemeth using only the limited second hand echoes of Urthemiel's power. Plus it might kill Urthemiel, and despite her threats to Flemeth Claire didn't think she had it in her to do it.

"Fine." she said at last. She turned to Velanna, who had been watching the proceedings with a look of dark resignation. "If you survive, please give my regards to my father, and send word to my parents in Orlais." Velanna nodded.

Claire walked towards Flemeth. "Let Endrin go first and I will release Urthemiel," she said. "But I ask for your word that you will not harm him or Velanna when I am gone."

"That goes for you too," she said to Urthemiel internally.

"You have my word," said Flemeth. For whatever that was worth. Flemeth released Endrin, who walked out looking a little scuffed but none the worse for wear. Claire saw that he'd started to grow back his beard, it made him look endearingly scruffy.

He slowly walked to Claire then threw himself into a hug, his arms tight around her waist. "I'm so sorry," he said "If I'd have known that trying to catch up with you would have put you in this position I would have never come. When I found out from the surface dwarves of the pass what had happened I just left without thinking."

"It's not your fault," said Claire. "She would have gotten to me anyway. And at least this way we got to say goodbye." She reached down and kissed him. "I'm sorry I'm not who I said I was."

"You are you, like you've always been," he said. He ran his hand gently over the scars on Claire's face and she had a brief, belated moment of vanity. She'd almost forgotten they were there, there aren't many moments for looking at yourself in mirrors on the road.

"I love you," she said.

"I love you too," replied Endrin. He smiled at her and Claire thought her heart would break.

"You should go," she said. "Before Flemeth gets impatient."

"But I like it here," he said, burying his face in her chest. She laughed, and pulled his head up to kiss him again.

"Go," she said. Endrin left then, walking to stand with Velanna on the hill and looking at Claire with concern.

Flemeth smiled, as much as a dragon can smile, and sat back expectantly. "Goodbye, little granddaughter," she said. "You may not believe me, but I do like you well enough as mortals go. I just like my sibling more. And who knows, maybe you'll like being an abomination, many of my vessels certainly did."

Claire closed her eyes and concentrated. She saw the bonds holding Urthemiel inside her like glowing chains in her mind, reinforced with years of spells and mental resistance. She began to chip at the bonds piece by piece, drawing on Urthemiel's power to weaken the magical wards. To begin with it was very slow, it felt like she stood there for hours before she could feel the first few links fall away. But as she began to gain momentum it became easier, Urthemiel pushing forth more and more strongly to break away from it's constraints. Urthemiel roiled beneath the bonds like a force of nature, a being of pure magic too large and powerful for her to begin to understand. Before long there was only the very oldest wards left holding it in place, magics cast by Morrigan when Claire was just a half formed child in her womb.

"Wait," said Claire. "How were these enough to keep you constrained? They're so weak!"

"They didn't," said Urthemiel, casting them aside with ease and expanding out into her mind. It's voice was deep and gravelly, filling her consciousness like the roar of a waterfall. "Your mother tried her best, but for the first few years of your life there was very little of you in your body."

"Then how did I gain control?" she asked, as the world began to shift and darken, Urthemiel's essence pushing her down into the corners of her soul.

"I let you," said Urthemiel. "We are not all like Zazikel, and I have had enough of forcing others to obey my will. I would have preferred if you'd let me influence you a little more, but as Flemeth said, you can't control your children." She felt a wave of affection from the god around her, and for the first time she realised how powerful it really was. The very essence of magic coursed through her being, she felt like a dust mote in the face of a whale. Urthemiel spoke and she felt like a branch snapping in the wind. "I am going to do my best to return your body to you eventually, but for now you are going to have to let me have control, this is something only I can do."

And then everything became very distant.

Claire felt herself turning into a dragon. She'd never been very good at shapeshifting, and at best had managed to briefly turn into familiar animals like cats and chickens. This was something different entirely.

"I am free," said Urthemiel through the voice of it's new physical form. "Now go."

"Go?" asked Flemeth. "Yes I suppose I should. Perhaps we should go find my daughter, her body would be a little older than I'd prefer by now but it would still be preferable to this old thing. There's only so long you can keep animating a corpse before the novelty wears off."

"No!" shouted Claire silently.

"No," said Urthemiel. "Leave these humans be. We should not be here, it only causes trouble. Let us go back into the Fade, take back our city, punish the Maker for his treachery. What benefit is there in controlling these little human lives? The longer we stay here the weaker we become."

"The benefit is that it is fun, sibling," said Flemeth. "Not that we have much choice anyway, or have you forgotten that we are trapped in this mortal plane? At least it means we have a chance to save our other siblings when those horrid darkspawn Taint them. How much more will the humans suffer when they die by the thousands during a Blight? Recall that it was I that saved the last two Grey Wardens, I that gave them the help they needed to win and survive their confrontation with you, or do you not remember what it was to be an Archdemon? My attempts to save Toth and Andoral were less than successful, but working together we are sure to be able to save the others. Do you not miss them?"

Urthemiel paused. "Yes," it said. "I do miss them."

"Just think of what you could achieve," said Flemeth. "We may not have the strength to be proper gods any more, but it is amazing what a little power wielded the right way can do. Do you remember the artists you used to inspire, the temples and statues made in your name? Think of all the beauty you could create, the love you could receive."

Claire could feel Urthemiel wavering. She felt visions passing through her, of the Old God's past Empire, towering monuments surrounded by worshippers, the air filed with hymns.

"I cannot offer any of that," said Claire. She thought of what love and beauty meant to her. She thought of trees and flowers, of the sunlight reflecting off the tiled houses of Val Rouyeax, of Leliana's dresses, of Morrigan's jewels. She thought of her mother's love for each other, hidden sometimes beneath bickering and manipulation but never absent. She thought of Velanna's love for her people, of Endrin, who had sacrificed everything for his mother and then for her.

Whether because of Claire's thoughts or it's own judgement Claire couldn't tell, but Urthemiel stopped wavering. "No," it said. "That is not me any more."

"So be it," said Flemeth. She lashed out suddenly, her claws raking a gash across Urthemiel's stomach.

As Urthemiel flinched back Flemeth swept her tail under it's unbalanced back legs, knocking it to the ground. She pushed Urthemiel down and pressed her bulk against it, her claws rending great gashes in it's side, Urthemiel's blood spilling onto the grass. Claire could feel it quickly losing strength.

"As I said before, Urthemiel, you are weak." Flemeth opened her mouth, but whether it was to gloat some more or rip out Urthemiel's throat Claire never found out, for instead Flemeth's head was knocked back by a bolt of magic. Before she could fully react, vines swirled up from the ground and wrapped themselves around Flemeth, blood welling where the sharp thorns made it past her scales. Claire's heart fell: she was greateful for the sign of concern, but there was no way Velanna could defeat Flemeth now, not with Urthemiel so injured. Seeing a flash of blonde hair Claire wondered what Velanna was doing so close and prepared herself to see the elf die as the templars had. But as the small figure leaped up and grasped Flemeth's side in order to stab it with a set of small daggers she realised it was not Velanna, but the elf from her dream, who she now knew to be her father's lover Zevran.

"Greetings Flemeth, we meet at last!" he said cheerfully "I see that the reports of your death were much exaggerated. Yours as well, Archdemon," he added, nodding to both dragons before jumping away just in time to avoid being disemboweled by one of Flemeth's claws. The dragon strained against the vines imprisoning her, her thrashing tail swinging into the dirt and filling the air with dust. Urthemiel took advantage of her distraction to pull away, dragging itself to the side to cast a healing spell on it's ragged flank. She watched as Zevran taunted the dragon, running behind it to stab at it's belly before ducking away every time she turned to face him.

Their skin was barely beginning to knit when Claire felt a distant burn beyond the pain of their injuries, a familiar coldness contracting in her chest: a templar attack. It had only grazed them but the drain of magic still slowed Urthemiel's ability to heal. Urthemiel scanned the road and surrounding brush to find the source. Through Uthemiel's eyes Claire saw Velanna and Endrin striding towards them, and with them was a warrior in slightly oversized armour, his face hidden behind a dented helm. But it was no templar. And although Urthemiel had never shown Claire the moment of it's death, and she could not see his face, she immediately knew who this man was: Her father, Curon Mahariel.

He stopped and stared at her, at the giant, bleeding form of Urthemiel. This was not quite how she'd imagined their first meeting. Velanna tapped his shoulder impatiently and he turned away slowly, the three of them heading towards Flemeth. Velanna was talking into Curon's ear, presumably trying to explain the techniques that she and Claire had developed to try and contain Urthemiel.

"Come," said Urthemiel. It lumbered up, limping slightly, and they headed towards the fight.

Flemeth was standing on a small rise to the side of the road, breathing fire at Velanna and Curon as they approached. Zevran sat to one side, catching his breath, and was soon joined by Endrin, who watched the fight uncertainly.

Urthemiel rounded on Flemeth, roaring and breathing fire. At the same time Curon blasted Flemeth with a templar attack, the two strikes pushing her backwards towards Zevran and Endrin, who attacked her from behind. Flemeth, assulted on all sides, could only lash out in one or two places at once, and for the first time Claire let herself begin to have the slightest beginnings of hope.

Velanna left Curon to continue on his own and ran towards Claire. She waited to make sure Urthemiel wasn't going to accidentally knock her down then raised herself up on a platform of brambles and vines, smoothly rushing upwards until their eyes were level. "Claire…Urthemiel," she said. "Can you understand me?"

Urthemiel nodded.

"I contacted Curon some nights ago while you were asleep and explained what we had learned as best I could." Claire noted the implication that Urthemiel, and by extension Claire, could not be trusted not to warn Flemeth. "I think we can beat her in a physical fight," said Velanna, "But that won't solve the problem forever. We need to remove the Old God from Flemeth entirely, and that means going into the Fade. Can you do it? Are you willing to do it?"

"Yes!" thought Claire. But it wasn't her decision any more.

Urthemiel nodded again, more forcefully this time. "Yes," it said, though Velanna could not understand it. "Zazikel's time here is done."

To her surprise Claire felt her body changing shape, turning back into that of a human. "This form is better for magic," said Urthemiel in Claire's voice.

"But you are still no longer Claire," said Velanna.

"No," said Urthemiel.

Velanna frowned and her shoulders sank for a moment, then straightened. "Very well," she said. "Let us get on with it."

When they arrived in the Fade Claire found herself separating from Urthemiel, her astral body feeling weak but distinct. "Why are there two of you?" asked Velanna.

"It's me, Claire," she replied, her voice sounding soft and weak, as if coming from far away.

"Oh!" said Velanna. "I thought that you were permanently gone. I'm…glad that you are not. Can you cast magic?"

Claire tried to cast a simple glow spell. An almost invisible glimmer of light flickered in her hand. "Not really," she said.

"Well, try not to get in the way," said Velanna.

When they found Flemeth she was also in human form. "Have you come to join me at last, sibling?" she asked. Her tone was arrogantly confident but there was a look of distracted fear in her eyes.

"No," replied Urthemiel. And then the fight began again, one of elemental forces and magical hexes rather than swords and traps this time.

Flemeth was a powerful mage, but was no match for the six foes she faced simultaneously in the two realms. Claire could only cast weak bolts of magic, but Velanna and Urthemiel unleashed a constant volley of attacks, vines lashing out at Flemeth from the ground and fire blazing at her heels. As Flemeth twisted around to avoid being struck by an attack from Velanna Urthemiel cast a prison of magic around her, Flemeth's body rising above the ground to be bathed in a cold and painful light. "Depart this body," it said. "Return to the Fade and leave the mortal realm to the mortals. You cannot defeat me here and defend yourself from the attack on your physical form at the same time. Surrender, and I will go with you if I can, we can be together once more."

"You know that I can't surrender," Flemeth replied with difficulty, her throat almost paralysed. "The Maker has trapped me in mortal form as much as he has you. And if I were to leave the mortal plane somehow, who would save our other siblings?"

"I will," said Claire.

"You?" coughed Flemeth. "A little human mage with hardly any power? What can you do? What are you without Urthemiel?"

"My mother is just a human mage, and she trapped Urthemiel for eighteen years," replied Claire. "And it is not for nothing that I was it's vessel. I know what it means for an Old God to be trapped in mortal form, and how that trap can be broken. If we can release you then I am certain that I could do the same for the others. Would you rather wait until the next Blight? You may be able to block your true nature from Grey Wardens but I doubt that you could pass through the Deep Roads unnoticed by the darkspawn. But I can."

"You would really do this?" asked Urthemiel.

"Yes," said Claire. "I've been thinking about it since I realised I might be able to free you. If I have the power to stop another Blight then how could I not use it?"

She looked at Flemeth. The old woman's dead eyes glowed with pain and anger. Would she be willing to make this deal, to trust Claire with the work she'd been doing on Thedas for four hundred years? To give up her mortal form and stop fighting after all this manipulation and death? It didn't seem likely. The question was, if she wouldn't surrender, would Urthemiel be willing to kill it's own sibling?

Flemeth raised her head slowly and looked Claire in the eyes. And then she began to laugh.

"You are your father's daughter, child," she said. "I'm sure Morrigan never taught you to be so keen to sacrifice yourself for the greater good." Her head snapped back to it's upward position but she continued to talk. "Fine. I will go. I tire of the mortal world, and you are right, I am in no position to walk the Deep Roads and find my siblings myself. But take too long and I will find some incautious mage to possess and return to your realm to wreak what havoc I may."

"I would ask for your word if that meant anything," said Urthemiel. "But I will trust you anyway." It let Flemeth go. She collapsed to the ground then drew herself up, carefully, onto her feet.

Flemeth stood facing Claire. "When you see your mother next," she said, "Tell her she raised a fool."

"When I see my mothers next I will thank them both for raising me well," she replied.

Flemeth snorted derisively and turned to Urthemiel. Without speaking they clasped hands. Claire and Velanna cast the adapted templar cleansing spell upon Claire, Urthemiel and Flemeth, attacking the magical bonds that bound the Old Gods to their bodies and the mortal plane. Claire looked inside herself, beyond the remains of the magical bonds Morrigan had created, to the anchors that bound her soul and Urthemiel's to her physical body. Claire's connection was an inherent part of herself, one might even see her Fade self as an extension of her physical body. But Urthemiel and Flemeth were beings of pure spirit, and the anchors that bound them to their physical forms were more artificial, if not any less strong. Claire focussed her energy on these bonds, and showed Velanna how to do the same. There is not much they could have done alone, but the power of the Old Gods was behind them, Urthemiel and Zazikel pulling themselves out into the Fade, and Claire began the feel the ancient chains begin to snap. It felt like a heavy weight was lifting off her.

The two Old Gods began to glow with an intense light. They no longer appeared human, having shifted into forms much larger and stranger, tall dark shining figures towering over Claire and Velanna like giant statues come to life. They reminded Claire of a Shade she had once seen when helping Morrigan defeat a rival malificar, only larger and more magnificent.

The two figures began to draw apart. Claire felt strangely empty inside, like a part of her was missing, but she also felt her mind clearing, a constant pressure that had been restricting her for her whole life suddenly gone.

"Are you free of Urthemiel?" asked Velanna.

"Yes, I think so," said Claire. Her voice sounded much clearer to her now.

"Then we should go. From what I have heard of the Old Gods it is probably unwise to stick around when they're excited."

Claire nodded. She felt the wrench of leaving the Fade and then found herself by the road once more.

The fighting had stopped. Curon, Endrin and Zevran were standing in a small half circle around the dead body of the woman who had been known as Flemeth. Endrin was leaning against Zevran, his arm at an unnatural angle. Velanna bathed them in healing magic as she and Claire walked towards them. Claire took a moment to really look at Curon: he had removed his helm and looked much smaller and more mundane than the almost mystical figure she had constructed in her mind. She could see why Velanna had laughed when she had realised that Claire had gotten him confused with Zevran, the two men looked little enough alike apart from their race and age. Claire tried to see some similarity to herself in Curon's tattooed pointed face and almost white-blond hair, but he had more of a resemblance to Velanna.

Curon looked up. "It is done then?" he asked.

"Yes," said Velanna.

"Then this is…" he began, looking at Claire, but was interrupted by Endrin, who ran up to her and gave her a hug, nearly bowling her over in the process.

"You're alive!" he cried happily. "I thought your soul had been swallowed up by that dragon!" He pulled down her head and kissed her on the lips. "That's for coming back. Even if you did neglect to tell me that you had an Old God's soul inside you."

Claire laughed. "Well, I don't any more. I'm just a boring old normal human now." She thought about that for a moment. Who was she now, really? The presence of Urthemiel was definitely gone, it's subtle whisperings replaced only with silence. This would take some getting used to.

She looked over Endrin's head at Curon, who smiled gently. "Hello," she said. 'It's good to finally meet you…Father."

"It's good to meet you too, Claire," he said. "I'm glad we had a chance to do so. And this is Zevran." At this Zevran bowed and kissed her hand.

"Charmed," he said, smiling. He looked her up and down. "As lovely as your mother, I see. And you know Curon, she may be human but she definitely has your eyes. Lucky she did not inherit your chin, hmm?"

"Well, and then there's these," said Claire, gesturing towards her scars.

"They add character, my dear" said Zevran. "Some of the loveliest women I have known had scars. Do you remember Isabella, Curon? She had scars everywhere, I remember once I...Anyway. Quite rakish, I always thought."

Claire was not entirely convinced but appreciated the effort. There was a bit of an awkward silence.

"How is Morrigan?" asked Curon. "When she left I worried that…but there is time for this later. Perhaps I'm showing my age, but I'm sure we're all tired, and there are much more comfortable places to talk back in Amaranthine."

Velanna soon left them to return to the Dalish camp to the south. As she and the others walked to Amranthine Claire told them of her promise to Flemeth, and her plan to walk the Deep Roads looking for the other Old Gods. Endrin and Curon reacted against the idea strongly.

"You have not seen the true horrors of the Deep Roads," said Curon. "I still have nightmares of that place. It is no place for a child of mine, especially not a woman."

"You were not much older than me when you walked those roads," said Claire, "And you did it because it had to be done. This is my path, I'm sure of it." She smiled shyly at him. "But I don't intend to go right away. If…if it's alright with you I would like to stay in Amaranthine for a while and get to know you a little better." He was a stranger, her father, and Claire did not feel the love for him that she felt for her mothers, but she hoped that in time they could be friends.

"Of course!" said Curon, to Claire's relief. "Stay as long as you like! Your friend as well. Stay forever if you want." He looked away awkwardly. "Or don't stay, if you would rather not. I suppose you want to get back to your mothers."

"We should go visit," said Zevran. "Perhaps now that Morrigan and Leliana have matured we might be able to persuade them to agree to a…" Curon frowned and gestured with his head significantly towards Claire. Zevran smiled at him. "Perhaps we could settle our old differences and be friends," he finished.

"I'm sure they would be glad to have you stay," said Claire, laughing.

When they arrived in Amaranthine Curon took them to an inn near the main gates. "This is where we elves stay when we're in the city," he said. The woman behind the counter greeted Curon in recognition but looked askance at Claire and Endrin. "This is my daughter and her friend," he explained, introducing them.

"You had a child with a shemlen?" said the women with a look of disgust. But she gave him the keys to a set of rooms.

"Am I going to cause you trouble?" asked Claire.

"Nothing I can't handle," said Curon.

The rooms were large and well furnished, and they all sat together around the table in Zevran and Curon's quarters sharing a plate of fruit and cheese. They spoke for hours, Curon and Zevran reminiscing about their travels with Leliana and Morrigan during the Blight and Claire telling of her life with her mothers in Orlais. Endrin spoke too, telling the others how he and Claire had met and then been parted and then explaining how he had found out about his family's betrayal and left immediately to come find her.

"I visited the Circle Tower but you weren't there, and they were abuzz with talk of the malificar who had murdered the templars sent to capture her. With no other clues I decided to continue on to Amaranthine to see if I could meet you there, and it was on that path that I encountered Flemeth."

"I didn't murder them," said Claire, "That was Flemeth."

"Oh, that's ok then," said Endrin. "I assumed you'd killed them by accident and was worried about how you must feel."

Claire looked at him. "They still died," she said darkly, biting down on her anger. And then she realised, she didn't have to bite down on it any more. At which point she didn't feel angry any more. She laughed somewhat mirthlessly.

"At some point I think I'm going to have to sit in a dark room and have a good cry," she said. "This going to seek my fortune thing has been rather more stressful than I was expecting."

"Well I'm happy to have you cry on my shoulder whenever you want," said Endrin. "It's even at the right height."

"Thankyou," she said. "But what are you going to do now? Have you had a chance to find your mother?"

"Not yet," he said. "We can finish my quest together."

Endrin's mother had given an address on the other side of Amaranthine in her letter and Claire and Endrin went there together the next day. Amaranthine was the first human city Claire had been to for months, and while no Val Royeux Claire found she liked it's more simple bustling charm. As they walked along the busy streets Claire noticed how differently people looked at her now: rather than stopping in admiration they either ignored her or tried to surreptitiously stare. Having had a chance to look at a mirror she knew intellectually that her scars were mostly healed and that people were just as likely to be staring at Endrin for being a dwarf, but she still felt self conscious. Yet the people they asked for directions were still friendly enough, and she had started to get used to it by the time they arrived at Endrin's mother's small house and shop in the merchant's quarter.

The first thing Endrin's mother Rica said when they found her was "What have you done to your beard?"

"It's growing back!" replied Endrin, "It's nearly long enough to braid, see?"

Rica was a small friendly chubby woman who seemed quite happy in her new life, and she cheerfully welcomed Claire and Endrin into the little shop she'd started in Amaranthine. "All the contacts I made in House Aeducan have been very helpful in my new business," she said "Even if it is strange being a surface dwarf now. But you didn't need to come find me, Endrin! I sent you that letter so you knew I'd be safe! Not that I'm not glad to see you." She gave him a hug. "What are you going to do now? Do you think they'll accept you back into the House?"

"I don't care," said Endrin. "Now that she's helped me complete my quest to find you I'm going to travel with Claire and help her complete hers."

"What?" said Claire, "But you'd die!"

When she explained the situation Rica sided with Claire, pointing out that Endrin had only barely survived the tests of fighting ability he'd had to go through as a noble dwarf.

"I wouldn't need to fight," he said, "I could help in other ways. And I don't want us to be parted again."

They argued all the way back to the Inn. While she didn't like that there was this discord between them Claire found that she enjoyed being able to really shout at someone, and Endrin's very dwarven attitude to conflict meant he was unlikely to take offense unless she started coming after him with an axe. When they arrived at the inn they found Zevran and Curon in consultation with Velanna about matters concerning the Dalish, but they soon got drawn into the argument as well. To Endrin's annoyance, the elves agreed that Endrin was not a strong enough fighter to walk the Deep Roads. To Claire's annoyance, they tried to persuade her that she wasn't either.

She pointed out that she need not travel alone, that she could rely on the Legion of the Dead or Grey Wardens to keep her safe.

Velanna interrupted her. "I will go with you," she said.

Claire looked at her in surprise. Velanna looked back at Claire with her usual expression of irritation.

"You will not be able to sense the Old Gods underground," said Velanna. "But my Grey Warden senses will lead me to them. I'm also the only other person who has experienced the freeing of one first hand. Obviously I must go with you."

"Thankyou," said Claire. "But you don't have to…"

"It's better than sitting around for ten years waiting for the Call to come to me. And now that my mind is free of the influence of the Old God I find that I do actually like you well enough. For a shemlen, anyway. I would not like to think I'd let you go to your death for nothing when together we could prevent a Blight. And Curon cannot go, we need him here as a figurehead to keep the shemlen off our lands."

Curon looked as if he might argue but then acknowledged her point with a regretful nod. "Claire," he said "If you must go then I cannot stop you, and I will get you whatever men or supplies you need. The voice of the Hero of Ferelden does not command the same power it once did but the King is a Grey Warden, and a friend, I'm sure he would be willing to offer aid."

"Oh, thankyou!" she said. Despite her determination to fulfill her promise to Flemeth Claire had not had much confidence about her likelyhood of survival, but with the support of Velanna and the King she might actually have a chance to succeed.

Endrin had been watching this conversation quietly. He at last spoke up. "I am still determined to come with you." he said. "But regardless of your decision I will do whatever I can to help. I am, I hope, still head of House Aeducan, and my resources are at your command." He smiled at her. "The Deep Roads are a demanding path, you will need to return to Orzamarr for supplies quite regularly. And if you need somewhere to stay…"

Claire smiled in return. "Oh yes, resupplying is a serious business. It could take weeks or months to do properly. Assuming you wouldn't mind putting up with me as a guest for so long."

"I'm sure I could learn to live with it," replied Endrin.

As the six of them discussed logistics and made plans, Claire felt truly happy for the first time that she could remember. She was still going to have to deal with all the pain and anger she had spent so much time trying not to think about, but she could do that now without putting anyone in danger but herself. She grasped Endrin's hand and gave it a squeeze, and they smiled at each other. The path ahead was going to be difficult, but she was not walking it alone.