If you haven't already, please take a look at Chapter 3 (Lost Control) - Totally revamped it.
I've torn Elissa down, now it's time to start rebuilding. This is the good stuff!
Some very slight spoilers from The Stolen Throne here - Bioware owns all, I just like to muck around with their characters' emotions.
Her companions were worried.
Their glances in her direction were still full of suspicion, but it was a suspicion born out of concern; she had not spoken a word to anyone since she had returned to the campsite.
Wynne blamed her renewed pain – and the consequential tears that streaked the young rogue's face – on Loghain, throwing every invective she had ever learned at his head as she used the last of her mana to heal the younger woman.
Elissa did not correct her; the truth was far too convoluted, far too raw to try and explain.
He had not yet returned, and his pack was missing from his tent.
She experienced conflicting emotions at the thought of his permanent departure. She was relieved to have him gone, to not have to bear his knowing countenance a second longer; it was disturbing how deeply he saw into her, how effortlessly he did so. Yet she felt strangely wary and defenseless without his presence hovering nearby.
Wynne's magic eased her physical hurts, but it could do nothing to suture the gaping hole he had ripped open inside her. She was damaged, could taste the same bitterness on her tongue that had defiled her the day she drank from the Joining chalice.
As there was no cure for the taint, there was no remedy for the darkness that swirled within her now.
The healing energy itself was alleviating, however, surging and soothing just under her skin; she had plunged into its flowing depths, not denying the mage when a thick sleeping potion was poured down her throat.
When she awoke hours later, it was dark outside, firelight sliding along the canvas sides of his tent.
His spot was empty; he had not returned while she slept.
Her uneasiness at the discovery forced her from the shelter of the bedroll. She pulled one of his furs with her, wrapping it around her shoulders against the evening chill. She staggered to the campfire; many of her friends were gathered there, murmuring to one another as they soaked in the warmth of the flames.
They greeted her differentially as she seated herself on an isolated log to one side of the group. She did not reply. They tried to draw her in to their quiet conversations, periodically asking her opinion or outlook on matters; she heard them without really listening, and did not answer, staring lifelessly into the flickering blaze.
Her hound, Wolf, trotted up next to her. When his presence went unnoticed, he whined in his throat, laying his heavy head on her knee. The weight drew her eyes downward, and their gazes met.
They worry.
The words were not spoken, nor did she hear them in the telepathic fashion with which some claimed to communicate with their mabaris. It was a sense, a feeling, a shared perception she could no more define than describing color to a blind man.
It was also a two-way street; she knew his anxieties, he knew her sorrows and fears.
He whined again.
She could not console him because she could not console herself, but she lifted one hand to rub at his ears; between master and mabari, it was enough. He closed his dark eyes with a canine sigh, his hind-quarters absently wriggling in the dirt.
They sat there for a long time, her leg slowly going numb under the heft of his jowls; her thoughts were stilled and stagnant. She resisted any urges toward contemplation. Her eyes rested on the fire, but her gaze was empty and far away; she had the look of a soldier who has seen her own death and could not understand why it was denied her.
The night progressed and the others drifted away until only Wolf and Sten were left. The great Qunari was an apparition in the night, his outline barely discernable as he soundlessly stood watch.
Her awareness was towed somewhat back into camp when Wolf's ears twitched, his head lifting to glance around the fire. She heard muttering, two deep voices speaking softly; another ghostly frame had joined Sten's. She could not hear what they were saying, but the Qunari disappeared into the night after they had exchanged a few words.
Changing of the guard.
The new figure hovered just outside the firelight; when he stepped forward, her heart clenched so tightly that she drew in a sudden, involuntary breath.
Loghain hesitated at the faint gasp, and they studied one another over the top of the flames.
Wolf whimpered, peering up at her.
He is sad and troubled.
Startled, she jerked her gaze down to the hound, frowning at him. She had never doubted the dog's assessments before – he was astonishingly good at reading human mood and behavior – but she wondered at this.
Sad seemed a ludicrous description of the normally stoic Loghain.
The man moved again, walking towards her around the fire.
She stiffened as he neared, and Wolf's muscles rippled under his fur as he detected her tension. The mabari bared his teeth, getting to his feet with a short bark, searching for the source of her agitation; tension meant preparation, and preparation meant battle.
"Easy," Loghain said softly, undaunted in his approach; she was unsure whether he spoke to her or to Wolf.
When he was near enough, he ran one hand down over the hound's haunches for a few stiff pats. "There now," he said, as the dog leaned into him, relaxing, "I'm not going to hurt anyone." He looked at her as he spoke, but his gaze was unreadable in the faint light. "I brought you something."
His pack was strapped along his back; he pulled from it an elongated bundle which he sat lightly at her feet. He then immediately drew back to the opposite side of the fire, settling himself on the ground.
The bundle appeared heavy but was actually incredibly light at she picked it up. She distinguished what it was; she had been around weaponry long enough to know what a wrapped sword looked like. Still, she blinked in amazement when she unbound them: not one sword but two, both of them brilliantly crafted dragonbone that glittered from refracted firelight.
Grasping one pommel in each hand, she raised them with ease; she had always been astounded at the lightness and precision of dragonbone blades though she had never owned one. A hint of blue shimmered along their lengths, and she brought them nearer to her face for inspection.
"Runes," he told her, noticing her scrutiny, "They are both infused with numerous Hale runes."
Hale runes, runes of physical resistance; signified by the old Tevinter symbol for endurance, they would summarily decrease the force of an attack against her, allowing her to retain her stamina against even the most brutal of assaults.
Meaning even an overhead blow would not betray her flawed sword arm.
She looked from the beauty of the blades to him, found him still watching her, judging her reaction. In subdued awe, her voice low with disuse, she asked, "Where did you get these?"
"From the dwarf," he answered, nodding in the direction of Bodahn's wagon.
Weapons such as these would not come cheap; she had not even known that the merchant carried items this valuable. "But – how?" she pushed, curious as to where he had found the coin to purchase them.
His response was simple – and profound. "I traded my armor," he replied, shrugging one shoulder.
She was dumbfounded. No matter what tale you believed about him or his reasoning for taking it, that armor was priceless to any Ferelden man or woman.
As if she were holding glass, she very carefully set the blades back onto the cloth out of which she had taken them, and began wrapping them back up. "I can't accept," she muttered.
"Yes, you can," he said, and his words were hard as he slipped back into command mode. "You will never live to stand before the Archdemon without them."
He was right, of course. Her own weapons had taken her far, but they would only perform as inhibitors with her current weakness. The thought of giving them up or selling them was not a pleasant one, but if she understood nothing else, she knew she still had a duty to end the Blight if she could.
He apparently had been developing his talent for reading her mind; he said, "If it is the thought of your own blades that forestalls you – "
"I know," she cut him off with a snap, suddenly irritated, "I shouldn't be so sentimental." He had sold his armor, after all, his badge of pride for having defeated the chevalier. Clearly sentimentality was not something he suffered.
He did not suffer from predictability, either. "What I was going to say," he continued, "Is that if it is the thought of your own blades that forestalls you then I will wield them. If you don't object, of course."
She snorted, shaking her head. "You? Fight in such an archaic manner?" she sneered, throwing his own words back in his face.
He did not rise to her bait. Instead, he raised an eyebrow, replying with a rusty chuckle, "I am archaic, but I know the basics of the skill well enough. After all, I didn't always fight with a sword and shield."
Wolf nudged her hand with his nose, seeking an ear rub, and it gave her an excuse to look away. She absentmindedly scratched the mabari's head; when she spoke, her words were just as distracted. "My blades, they – they were Duncan's. They belonged to him." She shook her head, muttered, "We found them at Ostagar, buried in an ogre. That's where we also found –"
She stopped abruptly, loath to speak of what else they had stumbled upon within the ruins of that place.
Wolf whimpered; he remembered.
The smell of death mixed revoltingly with the sick sweetness of the taint. Lots of dead things, some that came back to life and attacked us, hurt us. A king, hung and left to rot, left for the wolves. A body being burned.
A new king mourned his brother, openly weeping next to the funeral pyre as his father's sword glowed dimly at his side.
Loghain waited, but when several minutes passed and she did not proceed, he said, "I had no love for Duncan, nor did he foster any for me. But the man had his honor and he was a marvel in combat. If you do not object," he repeated, "I will wield his blades for you."
She blinked up at him, tearing herself away from Wolf's recollections. She said, "I don't know how to use two full longswords. I never have."
"It's not all that dissimilar from wielding a longsword and dagger, especially with weapons as light as those," he told her with a nod at the parcel that still lay at her feet. "And you have remarkable dexterity. I can begin instructing you in the morning." When she shot him a questioning look, he arched one mocking brow and scoffed, "I have been drilling men in the lessons of war for decades, girl. Just because I choose not fight with two blades doesn't mean I can't."
She sighed softly. There was nothing left to her but the Archdemon and the ending of the Blight. She would need to fight with her old vigor if she was going to see it through; if that meant learning how to manage double longswords, then so be it.
"I will also purchase you some new armor," she said, her words picking up where her thoughts trailed off.
"Indeed." He nodded towards the blades. "There was something else there. A smaller package."
She dug back into the cloth, found a small oiled skin wrapped around a few ounces of herb. It did not smell unpleasant, but she had never seen it before. She looked a question at him.
"It will help you rest," he answered, "Without dulling your senses. Hard to come by, that, but it helps." He scratched a hand along the back of his neck, clearly uncomfortable with the next admission. "Trust me, I know."
When she said nothing more on the matter, he considered the discussion closed.
He reached into his pack for more supplies, laying the items out one by one in his distinctive ritualistic process. He was methodical; only when all was prepared did he begin his task.
He was making traps.
"I didn't know you could do that," she said, observing his practiced hands twist bits of leather and metal together.
"For hunting," he grunted in return, his concentration on his work, "The stew's getting a little thin."
She agreed that it was, unable to recall the last time one of her companions had slaughtered fresh meat for the pot.
Not one of member of her company had a forte for crafting any sort of trap, and the party had thus relied on the skill of its archers when it came to hunting. With winter wearing out her welcome, however, prey that was not snapped up by a starving predator was likely smart enough to remain well hidden; without the snares and lures to make the similarly ravenous prey an easy target for capture, pickings had become slim for the group. Leliana had purchased a few skinny conies in the Denerim marketplace when last they had been there, but that was weeks ago, back before the Landsmeet and Howe, and Fort Drakon and Anora; back before the entire world shattered.
The extreme turmoil of then contrasted against the peacefulness of this moment. She sat watching him labor as if in a Fade-dream, the comfortable silence in which they resided surreal in comparison to even this past afternoon.
After a few moments of idle deliberation, she came to a realization that jolted her: she trusted him.
She knew he felt the burden of loss, knew he felt the crushing weight of its denial. He had endured them both for more years than she had yet lived. Using the knowledge he had gained in their bearing, he had laid waste to all her well-fortified walls in barely a few days. He had laid bare the true Elissa, the coward and the quitter. He had shown her to the world, to her friends – and then he had turned and walked away.
But he came back.
Rather than leave her to suffer, he had returned. He had done so with an apology she could understand, had proven he understood her. In so doing, he had somehow created a bond between them that was deeper than even the darkspawn taint that corrupted their blood.
She broke the silence by blurting, "I'm sorry, you know."
Wolf snuffled irritably at the interruption from where he was curled on top of her feet.
Loghain's deft fingers did not even pause. "I imagine we are both sorry for a great deal," he replied with dark humor, "Maybe you could explain just why you are sorry."
"For what happened," she softly clarified, "At the Landsmeet."
"Again, something I imagine we are both sorry for," he returned in a low a voice. He did not look at her, and if his hands faltered at all, she did not see it.
"Did you – did you really want to die?" she stuttered out, half afraid to hear his answer.
If she concentrated, she could remember that instant as if it just happened; she could recall the look of serenity in his eyes when he had ordered her to end his life, recalled how that same look frozen into disappointment when she consigned him to the Joining.
She stopped concentrating.
It took him a moment to answer. When he did, it was as if he spoke to himself. "The greatest of fools can sometimes say the wisest of things, and the wisest of men can sometimes act like the greatest of fools," he muttered.
She tilted her head at the adage. "Which does that make you?" she asked.
Now he did glance up at her, but his eyes were too shadowed for her to see what was in them. All the same, one side of his mouth twitched upward in a wry semi-grin. "Why does it matter?" he asked, "They're the same thing."
She wrinkled her nose in a grimace; she had always disliked riddles. "But it doesn't answer my question," she grumbled.
He shook his head and said, "No, it doesn't." She saw his jaw clench as he reflected again; unable to stay idle for long, he returned to his task. "At that time," he said slowly, drawing the words out as he worked, "Yes. I wanted to die. There had been so many, many times when I should have been dead, and yet somehow wasn't. And then there you were, standing over me in all your fledgling glory, and I thought it had finally come at last."
"And then I spared you," she remarked, and her tone belied her melancholy.
"Yes, you did." He snorted a chuckle. "Regretting your decision, are you?"
"Only for your sake," she responded. She knew now what it was to long for her own demise and be deprived; she questioned herself, unsure whether she would have acted otherwise at the Landsmeet had she known it then.
"Do not assume that I regret it," he told her, unexpectedly severe, "Because I don't. If the Maker saw fit to spare me once more, I'll not pass that time bemoaning the fact. I learned a long time ago," he expounded, "That living is best abided one breath at a time."
One breath at a time.
While not always easy, breathing was relatively straightforward; she could see the next breath, as well as the next few after that, and it gave her a focus. She lamented the fact that she could not see into tomorrow, could no longer see the path before her, but breathing she could do.
She was speaking the words before she even realized they were at the back of her throat. "I did regret it for a little while," she told him honestly, "Because – because of what happened with him. Alistair." She swallowed hard; she had started now and she was going to finish it.
He knew where she was going, and identified her need for composure; he did not raise his eyes as she talked, nor did he stop the steady exertion of his hands. Had she not been as familiar with him as she was, she might have believed he was paying no heed whatsoever to her.
She knew he was absorbing every single syllable.
"He always found me," she continued, her voice soft and introspective, "He said it was the taint but it – it was something else. Something special."
She reached down to play with Wolf's ears, needing the tactile reassurance of a creature that still cared for her. The dog opened his eyes, tilting his head to look up at her in curiosity. She spoke as if only to the mabari, as if they were back in Highever and she was telling him stories; she had often done so back when both girl and hound responded to the call of 'Pup'.
"He used it to find me the other night," she explained to Wolf, "And he was so angry –I'd never seen him that mad. He said – some awful things. We fought," she whispered, her voice failing her, "I lost."
She drew in a deep breath, centering herself on each inhalation. They hurt, each one a burning agony, but it was an agony she could endure; she could survive a breath at a time.
"He wounded me – stabbed me, I think, right here –" she pointed out the spot for the hound, who whined in sympathy, "And then he – he left me."
She let the anguish wash over her, squeezed her eyes shut against its flood. She did not cry; she felt as if there were no tears left. The only sound was the snapping of the fire, a loud pop as a log died beneath the blaze.
She concentrated on each lungful of air, and knew she would not have to run from this particular memory ever again.
She blinked when Wolf licked her fingers.
You are strong.
There was a distinct trace of pride coloring the hound's declaration; his lineage was longer and prouder than most kings, and his being proud of her was a truly royal award. She grinned feebly, and ruffled the fur along his shoulders.
"So, Maric's bastard may have more of his father in him than we all thought," she heard Loghain mutter, and she looked up to find him staring thoughtfully into the fire.
When he did not readily continue, she prodded, "What do you mean?"
His gaze shifted slightly to meet hers. She could tell he was remembering something; he was musing about how much of it share.
He nodded decisively, and said, "During the rebellion, before Maric and Rowan were married, he - met - another woman. He claimed to love her – he honestly might have. But she betrayed him, betrayed us all." His eyes moved back to the fire, seeing another time in another place. "It was I that told him – when he found out, he ran her through with his own sword."
She recalled a flash of hazy blue dimmed by thick, running blackness; it was not the first time this blade had tasted the blood of one who was both lover and betrayer.
"The only difference," he ruminated, his voice holding a wry note, "Is that the bastard showed you far more mercy than Maric did to Katriel."
She almost laughed, had to hurriedly check her bleak amusement. To be fair she had not told him about Alistair's parting words, how the Theirin version of mercy was infinitely crueler in this younger generation.
You will suffer. As I suffer.
She remembered his look of hatred; she remembered his hurt and his strength. "He will be a good king," she said.
"The fact that you can still say that," he told her, "Makes me wonder."
Maric. Rowan. Loghain. They were names from her childhood stories. To hear about their actual lives, the fact that they had faults and fears like normal people, somehow helped to alleviate her own pitiful doubts."What did you think when King Maric killed this – Katriel?" she asked him, genuinely curious.
His smile was small, but it was there. "I thought – 'he will be a good king'," he confessed very quietly.
He sees.
She looked down to find Wolf awake again, staring up at her. He dropped his bottom jaw, letting his tongue loll out in a distinctly canine grin. He stood without explanation, and walked around the fire to Loghain.
The man glanced a question at her as the mabari laid his head on Loghain's knee, but she could only shrug in return. Wolf was not usually affectionate towards others. He rarely commented on them, either; apparently, Loghain had become an acception to many rules, and not just her own.
"I had a mabari once," the man said as he gingerly reached down to rub one of Wolf's soft ears. "She was an amazing animal."
Elissa grunted. "He's only annoying." She heard Wolf's deep ruff of denial, and raised one corner of her mouth in a half-smile. "Well, semi-annoying. Sometimes useful."
Loghain chuckled again, though his humor was short-lived. "We should start for Redcliffe in the morning," he told her, changing the subject.
"I know," she replied, not thrown a bit by his abrupt shifts in conversation. She watched him pat the dog, the gentle roughness with which he did so. "Can I ask you one more question?"
His answer was a single nod in her direction.
She took a deep, bracing breath. "How did you do it?" When she saw him scowling in confusion, she clarified, "How did you continue with everything so – changed?"
He did not reply for many minutes; she was beginning to wonder if he would when he finally said slowly, "I have lived a long time, and things have changed many times in my life. I've learned that sometimes it's not the falling that's the hardest part." He looked across the fire at her, the flames reflected in his gaze. "Sometimes it's the standing back up again."
She sighed and leaned her head on her hands. "That's not an answer." She stared into the fire, watched the blaze dance and weave without really seeing it. She whispered, "I have no family, no name, no home. I have no path to lead me – what does a person do when they have no path to follow?"
This time, his answer was immediate and strong. "They create their own path."
She blinked when he stood, ignoring Wolf's whine as he walked around the fire to stand in front of her once again.
She looked up at him in curiosity; he gestured at her with his chin. "Stand up," he ordered.
She ignored his demand, leaning away and curling her lips sullenly. "And what of you, Loghain? Where does your path lead?"
He held one hand out in front of him, an offering. When she did not take it, did not even acknowledge it, he replied, "Warden, if you defeat this Blight and save Ferelden, I will follow you." His words were solemn; she knew he meant them. "I swear it."
He sees.
His hand was still out before her, beckoning; she was still afraid. "You would follow me?" she scoffed. "I'm a traitor, a coward, and a quitter. You know all this."
"I have never followed words or titles," he said, "I will not follow what people call you. I will follow you. Now stand. Up."
She met his eyes, blackened by the night. Since becoming part of her company, he had never lied to her, had only ever watched and guarded her, tried to help her. She knew he was trying to help now.
She trusted him.
She took one breath. She took another. And another. And another.
One breath at a time.
She could survive one breath at a time. Maybe she could even create her own path.
She reached out, clasping her hand with his. He pulled at the same time she pushed. And she found that standing back up was not so difficult after all.