Elissa has formed the opinion that whoever drew her map of Ferelden was a liar and a cheat, and as such she wants her money back.
The Wardens' plan of travelling across the country and enforcing the various treaties they possess to call for aid against the Blight is a sound one, which is lucky since it is also the only plan they've got. However, it's beginning to dawn on her that whilst the Tower of Magi looks close enough to Lothering on paper, when it comes to actually making the trip on foot, the distance is a whole different story. The blisters on her feet have blisters. She idly wonders if Sten could be persuaded to hold Bodahn Feddic upside down by his ankles and shake him until her silver falls back to earth. She could always ask.
The other idea which occurs is that perhaps she could save her feet completely, and ride to the Tower on the Qunari's shoulders. In fact, she manages to entertain herself for a good half hour, coming up with various harness, bridle and saddle arrangements for the looming warrior. She doesn't think she'll mention this one to him though. Sten brings many things to the group, but she reckons he left his sense of humour back in Par Vollen.
Luckily it's not all doom and gloom. The notoriously temperamental Ferelden weather has been giving them a let-up from its habitual state of enthusiastic drizzle, and they've only run into marauding darkspawn a few times since their departure from Lothering; small groups who are soon soundly beaten down. This doesn't stop her worrying though. She knows that she and Alistair are safe from the effects of darkspawn blood (in relative terms at least, 'safe' taking on a whole new context these days), but that protection doesn't extend to their companions. Still…
Dog has found a new friend in Leliana, who in turn has a brand new audience for her stories. The mabari is quite happy to pad alongside her as she spins epic tales of battles or romance, in exchange for the odd stick being thrown or a sly treat from their rations. Sten prefers to walk behind them, ostensibly acting as a rear guard and all-round deterrent to passing bandits, but Elissa is of the opinion that secretly he enjoys hearing the bards' tales as much as Dog does.
Deprived for the time being of her favourite sport (mocking Alistair having been outlawed for a day or two), Morrigan has chosen to put her shape-shifting abilities to good use and scout out the terrain ahead of them. The witch effortlessly flits between human form, wolf and bird, briefly reporting back every few hours before roaming off again. Elissa has to admit that it's a talent that's coming in remarkably handy, though seeing the transformations first hand can be unsettling. She finds herself intrigued, and sometimes even a little jealous, wondering what it must be like to run through the forests or soar on the winds. When the Warden first enquires, Morrigan is as brusque and standoffish in her replies as always, but at the genuine interest in Elissa's face, she gradually reveals more about the ancient magics she has learned from Flemeth.
It's fascinating, really. What Morrigan does is not blood magic, simply old; though over the years the Chantry has blurred the lines until the two are synonymous in most peoples' eyes. Elissa gets the distinct impression though that the swamp witch looks down upon blood magic with contempt - she's inferred more than once that its practitioners are weak, without the strength of will required to control the magic that Morrigan herself possesses.
For the most part, Elissa splits her time between listening in on Leliana's storytelling and talking with Alistair. Unless you happened to be an apostate mage from the Wilds, the young man is extremely personable and near on impossible not to like. She also finds he makes her laugh, a commodity she heartily appreciates considering there has been precious little to laugh about this past month.
For some reason, she can't quite shake the feeling that he's awfully familiar to her, but she has a good head for remembering people and is positive they've never crossed paths. Still, that doesn't stop the nagging feeling she gets every time she looks at him, like something is jumping up and down in her brain, desperately trying to get her to take notice of it. And it doesn't quieten the little voice that says she'd never in a million years forget meeting someone quite so...
Anyway.
She was right about one thing – having recovered his sense of purpose and for all intents and purposes got his groove back, it's now exceedingly difficult to keep him quiet. She's noticed though that Alistair is exceptionally good at talking a lot whilst saying absolutely nothing. He doesn't do it all the time, but over the course of their travels it's something she's beginning to pick up on.
She's given him a thorough grilling about the Grey Wardens and he's willingly answered her constant stream of questions to the best of his ability. To be perfectly honest, she knows if she'd been on the receiving end of that particular barrage, she'd have taken it with considerably less grace than he has, and told her questioner to sod off long ago. Their biggest frustration is that he doesn't really know all that much more than she does. The extra months he's been a Warden have obviously furnished him with a broader knowledge of basic functions, avenues of communication, operation, overall numbers and some of the less desirable aspects of the Order, but when it comes down to the finer details there's a lot that Duncan hadn't yet shared. Not least of all is how exactly one goes about killing an Archdemon, as neither of them thinks that politely asking it to leave Ferelden alone is going to do the trick.
No, it was when she started asking about him personally that she hit a bit of a roadblock. He'd given up the basics – Chantry, Templar, Warden – easily enough, but every time she tries to delve deeper, he somehow manages to divert the conversation. He's very skilled at it. The first few times she never even noticed that whilst he'd talked and talked and brought a smile to her face, he'd never actually answered the bloody question.
She wonders where he got so good at doing this.
That's not the whole of it either. Though technically speaking he is the senior of the two Wardens, he's quite happy to take the back seat and defer to her decisions. She doesn't mind – issuing orders is something a Teyrns' daughter does without thinking, and she's been twisting Fergus round her little finger since she was three – she's just surprised more than anything. Most of the knights she knew at Highever would leap at the chance to be in charge, but not Alistair. He'll offer his opinion readily if asked, and he's voiced concerns about courses of action more than once, but otherwise for all intents and purposes, he's content to act as her second. It's like he's trying to fade into the background behind everyone else, which is quite a party trick for someone over six foot who looks like he stepped out of a book (one of the ones she'd kept under her bed and hoped her mother hadn't known about).
She'd quizzed him about that too, and asked whether he wanted to lead instead. But he'd just laughed and explained that unless they wanted to end up lost, dead or pant-less, it probably wasn't a good idea. Elissa chuckled along with him, because she has to admit that the mental image is quite an amusing one (especially when combined with that of a saddle-wearing Qunari), but she thinks he sells himself short a little. After all, it wasn't so long ago that he'd taken three very scared and confused Grey Warden recruits through the Wilds, and throughout he'd been calm, composed and disciplined. He'd even managed to stop Ser Jory from turning into a gibbering wreck. Well, at least for a while.
It's a different story when he gets a sword in his hand though. There's no hiding in the background going on if there's a fight to be had. Unlike her, Alistair favours sword and shield, preferring to get right up close and personal, using his size and strength to overpower whatever it is that's in his way. He professes not to have been the greatest student training in the Chantry, but Elissa decides early on that if that's the case, she's not going to be pissing any Templars off in the near future.
All of this aside though, she finds she honestly enjoys his company (not least because it takes her mind off just how many miles she's walked), and conversation becomes almost a game between them. She makes an inquiry, he deflects; she returns the shot and turns it back on him, giving as good as she gets. Her tactic seems to take him a little off guard initially, but he rallies well and soon enough they're trading quips back and forth.
"Did I say that? I meant I was raised by dogs. Big slobbering dogs." He nods sagely. "From the Anderfels."
Elissa is pleased that her voice doesn't betray her amusement. "That would explain the smell" she answers, straight faced. No amount of effort can keep the twinkle out of her eyes though. A glint that's mirrored in his own.
"Well I was eight before I learned you didn't have to lick yourself to get clean..."
A raised eyebrow gives away her amusement, but her perseverance pays off in the end. It's a strange feeling, as if she's scored a point, though her pleasure at wheedling some truth out of him is tarnished by the picture he paints.
The Couslands have always been a tight knit family, so she's shocked to hear about what passed for Alistair's childhood. Whereas hers was filled with love and the support of her parents, his was spent as a lonely orphan, taken in by Redcliffe's Arl Eamon when his mother died in childbirth.
Not that this extended to much beyond putting a roof over the boy's head. And gossip amongst the common folk being what it was, even this small mercy started tongues wagging about the possibility of him being the illegitimate son of the Arl. He wasn't, of course, but since when had anyone let truth get in the way of a good rumour? The problem only increased when his erstwhile guardian married; Eamon's new young wife had determined to put that kind of chatter firmly in its place by packing the now ten year old Alistair off to the Chantry to train as a Templar. He's never had the chance to have a say in the path his own life took, and she starts to understand somewhat why he'd jumped at the opportunity to join the Wardens.
Her face obviously conveys just how appalled she is at the treatment he had to endure, but Alistair simply shrugs and gives her that annoyingly distracting smile. He's a lot more forgiving than Elissa thinks she would have been under the same circumstances. But she's got him to open up a little, and that's a good start.
In retrospect, things were going so well Elissa knows she should have guessed it was all about to take a serious nosedive.
oOo
I'm in the Fade.
The realisation is slow in dawning, creeping up on her inch by inch. It's hard, as thinking is so difficult here, and whenever she tries to concentrate everything just skitters away from her. She knows she's in Weisshaupt, though she's equally positive she's never set foot in the place. How did she get to the compound again? But she's a Warden, which is right; and the Blight is defeated, which is right; and Duncan's alive, which is...
Wait, what?
Though she's clearly here so it must be OK, because... Because why, exactly? She wishes her brain would just work.
It's Duncan himself who gives it away. The certainty that he's dead rings in her mind, and the calm, soothing words that spill from his mouth jar with all her memories of the Warden Commander. The Duncan she knew would never have been content with this tame existence, to allow himself to become so complacent. Gritting her teeth, she throws his assurances back in his face, desperately clinging on to all the things that her consciousness is trying to make her forget.
I'm in the Fade!
As her sword plunges deep into the Commanders' chest, her suppositions are set in stone – she doesn't believe there's any way she could have bested the real Duncan. Elissa watches grimly as the guise of the Grey Warden crumples to her feet before evaporating into the ether. A creature of the Fade? A figment of her imagination? She doesn't know for definite, but the memory of how she got here is one thing that is now unshakeable.
Unfortunately.
Possessed Templars. Blood mages. Abominations. Demons. None of it was quite how she'd been expecting the visit to the Tower to pan out. To walk in and find the place in such a state of abject chaos did little to buoy her hopes of walking out again alive, let alone gaining their aid in raising an army. However they had secured a little more help for the time being in the shape of an elderly Circle Mage named Wynne; caught between the Templar barricades and her own magically erected defences, she and a few others had been holding out a small pocket of resistance. Morrigans' assertion that what she saw didn't surprise her in the slightest had even Alistair shuffling his feet and conceding the point; further proof, if such were needed, that the Circle was in a very bad way indeed.
She remembers now that for every minute that passes here is time that her body – her real body – is back in the Tower, dying gradually as the demon leeches the life from it. Her eyes turn flinty, and she determines she will not go down like this. She hasn't survived Highever or Ostagar only to die at the hands of some sodding creature from the sodding Fade. She's going to kill that thing, she's going to get out of here, and then she's going to find whoever let the demon out and kick their sorry hides into next week.
Anger drives her to cut a swathe through the demons' realm, temporarily pushing out the fear as she grimly hunts down the others that have been pulled here.
Her other companions are trapped inside their own nightmares, just as she was. Leliana prays for absolution, trying to find the peace she so desperately longs for. Wynne is ridden by guilt and despair over all those in the Tower she couldn't save. It takes some fast thinking and even faster talking on occasion, but the hold over each is broken. Then she finds her fellow Warden.
Alistair's nightmare... Isn't a nightmare. It's more like a dream, and as she sees it, it breaks her heart. He's not surrounded by death or destruction, but by family; his family - a sister, her children, the family he never had growing up. It's so simple and he seems so content, that she almost can't bring herself to wrench it all away from him. Maker help her, she thinks she's going to cry.
It's not real, you're in the Fade!
Her lips tighten into a thin line. Steeling herself against the sight in front of her, she draws her sword and steps forward.