PART VIII

She found him sitting by a pond well away from the campfire, idly tossing rocks into it. He would throw a stone in and watch the ripples dash across the surface of the water, staring blankly at them until the pool was mirror-clear and motionless again. And then he would toss another.

Zevran's hand was searching for another pebble to throw in when one was simply handed to him.

"What are you doing sulking here like a little boy, Zevran? You are the hero of the hour, no?" Leliana straightened as she laughed down at him, her eyes twinkling. She was a picture of relaxed ease, save for the pommel of a dagger at her belt. She had shed her armor again, and was clad in her undershirt and a slim pair of trousers. A towel was draped over her arm and she had one of her precious lumps of soap in her hand. She made them when she had the time, by sifting through the cold fire after breakfast for a certain color of ash and with help from a small bottle of yellow liquid and petals of Andraste's Grace.

"And what are you doing here, lovely Leliana? I would think the others would be pestering you for the story."

"Oh, they tried. But I insisted on a bath first. The grass is very itchy." She raised her hand, displaying the dried mud-and-grass camouflage they had rubbed on her. "You do not mind some company, I hope?"

"I can find somewhere else to, er, sulk." He stood.

"Please, stay. Let us chat, it will help me take my mind off of how cold the water surely is!" She set her towel down and began shedding clothes, folding each piece into a neat bundle as she removed them. "And you can keep an eye out for darkspawn. Or Oghren."

"As you wish." Zevran sat back down and plucked a stalk of grass, sticking its end into his mouth to give it something to do while Leliana undressed, removing even her smallclothes. It was hard not to watch her. She was deceptively lithe and efficiently muscled, built like the slim hunting dogs he had once seen in an illustrated book in the Wonders of Thedas that depicted ancient court life in the early history of Ferelden—perhaps an ancestor of the much sturdier mabari warhounds in favor today. Her movements were studied and graceful, and he had no doubt that she had seen much success in seduction during her life as a bard.

Leliana turned before dipping her bare foot into the water and caught him staring before he could look away. She arched a crimson brow at him before turning back to the water and slipping inside, barely disturbing the smooth surface beyond the faint ripples of her entry. "I can feel it when you stare at me, you know, Zevran," she called over her shoulder before fully disappearing below the surface.

Zevran grinned and waited for her to resurface before replying. "It is purely complimentary, my dear. You are a marvel to gaze upon, although I dare not touch."

"I am sure Daen will be much relieved to hear that when he wakes up," she returned.

Zevran winced inwardly. "A low blow."

"But much deserved." She bent her head forward, soaking her hair and scrubbing mud from it with brisk strokes of her hands. "How are you feeling, Zevran?"

"A bit winded from the return trip, but otherwise, I am feeling as fine as always. And much better with the scenery before me."

She sighed. "I had hoped you were more mature than that. Do I need to ask you to leave?"

"No, no. But do you expect me to look away with such beauty before me?"

"I suppose I cannot stop you, although if you insist on persisting, you may find yourself short a gold bar or two when you wake up tomorrow. Consequences, you understand."

He grinned and averted his eyes. "Fair enough. I am looking away now."

"Good. Then I would like to talk to you about today, if you please."

"Talk? How boring. And what is there about today to speak of?" he queried.

She was half-turned away from him with her hands in her hair, but she still managed to shoot him a look between the crook of her raised arm. "Well, how sloppy you were, for one thing."

Zevran studiously kept his gaze focused on the ground. "No more than usual, especially with such a lovely distraction by my side."

Leliana sighed again. "Daen has mentioned how deceptive you can be. He is all that is keeping me from strangling you right now, believe me." Her arms dipped into the water, rising again to pour a handful over her shoulders. "Deflect all you want, but you were uncommonly distracted today."

"I think you will agree that there was much to be distracted about today." He raised a hand in a peaceful gesture. "And I am not speaking of you this time."

"But that is exactly what I am speaking of." Leliana turned, up to her shoulders in water. "Hand me my towel, would you?"

Zevran picked the fluffy bit of cloth up and extended it in her general direction, deliberately a little off center from where he knew she stood to demonstrate that he was still not looking at her. He heard her exhale once again and slosh forward, plucking the towel from his outstretched hand.

He waited a few minutes for the sounds of rustling cloth to cease before speaking again. "May I face my accuser now?"

"Yes, you may."

He turned around again. She stood barefoot before him, her skin gleaming once more beneath her clothes, and her hair tucked into the neatly bundled towel on her head. She had her hands on her hips and the pommel of her dagger flashed once more at her belt.

"Your distraction today was telling, and I have yet to hear you admit this out loud yourself. Trust me on this, there are certain things that must be given life through the breath of one's own lips before they can thrive like the beautiful creatures they are meant to be."

"I do not understand. I am afraid you lost me in the middle of your poetics," Zevran said flatly.

Leliana laughed, laying her hand on his arm. She did have a beautiful laugh, one suiting a bard. "Oh, Zevran! I am a bard, I know lore! And when love is involved, it is my favorite! What you do not understand is what our dear Grey Warden means to you. You love him!"

Zevran recoiled, shaking her hand away. "Ah, I believe you are mistaken," he said smoothly. "The boy has his charms, much like you, my dear. But it is lovemaking he and I share, not love. Crows do not love. It is unnecessary. And burdensome."

"But you are no longer a Crow, are you not? You have said this time and time again." Leliana tilted her head to the side and sent her blue eyes searching into his. Shasta, but the woman is good with those eyes! Zevran thought.

"And tonight you behaved as delicately as a mabari charging headlong at a fallen beef bone, not at all like the trained assassin you are. And let us not forget, you did all of that and acted that way because of someone. For Daen." Leliana placed a delicate alabaster hand on Zevran's chest, at the point where his ribs curved to meet, like the teeth of a trap jealously guarding its catch. "Zevran, mon am', do you truly not know what everything you have been doing means? Or are you only too afraid to accept?"

Faster than the bard could blink, Zevran grabbed her extended hand tight within a gloved fist and stepped forward, leaning down and forcing Leliana to the ground. Her head bumped against the grass. Zevran loomed over her, one hand keeping hers planted against his chest, the other curved lightly against the base of her throat with just enough weight to convey a threat just as much as a caress. His head blocked the moon and all she could see of his face were his amber eyes, deliberately emotionless and still. Leliana could feel his heart beating like the wings of a bird fighting against the wind, throbbing below the webs of her hand with the heavy determination of a creature set on survival. The rhythm meant that he was alert for something—and it also meant that he would not hurt her. Leliana chose to relax, and looked into his eyes again.

"Shall I show you exactly how little the Warden means to me?" Zevran purred. "You did say you wanted to see me with my pants off, did you not?"

His face dropped towards hers. Lips found lips, teeth nipping at flesh in anticipation. When he raised his eyes, she was still staring at him. He reared back.

"Zevran, you and I have never spoken to each other of our pasts, but surely Daen must have mentioned something to you about mine."

"No. Nothing." Zevran smiled, a little bitterly. "I did ask—about all of you, as a matter of fact. Our Warden is very tight-lipped. He has his own reasons for keeping each of us under his wing, I suppose."

Leliana chuckled. "Well, he is the quiet type, isn't he. May I tell you a little about me?"

Zevran arched an eyebrow at her. "Really, my dear? Is now the right time?"

"Let me up."

He rolled to the side, keeping his seat on the ground. Leliana sat up and turned herself so that she faced him squarely, her legs crossed. Zevran quirked the corner of his mouth at the expression in her eyes. When they had come across the Dalish camp in the Brecilian Forest, there had been an apparently sick halla who had eyes like that—limpid, like they were begging you to fall into them. Daen had been unable to resist helping, of course, and it had turned out that the halla's mate was sick. Her eyes were all the creature had had to communicate with, and she had pushed every ounce of her desperation into them, hoping someone would understand what they meant.

Leliana laced her fingers together and rested her joined hands on her crossed ankles. "I was in love, once, with a woman who could not trust anyone. Marjolaine. You met her. Do you remember how she smiled, how her hair was so perfect, how she moved like the wind? She was always like that. Carefree, and headstrong. I thought nothing could shake her. Marjolaine took me by the hand and helped me to stand when I thought that there was nothing worth standing up for. She was wild, and free, and she wanted to train me, and give me important things to do. Oh, I loved her, Zevran. I loved her with all of my heart. I wanted us to be together forever, and I would have done anything that she had asked me to do, without question.

"She returned my love by stabbing me in the stomach, framing me for treason, and abandoning me to be a plaything for a beast's amusement. And we killed her. And that is how my love ended."

Zevran quirked the corner of his mouth. For a moment, Leliana glimpsed what must have been the ghost of the boy Zevran had been before his full indoctrination into his life as a Crow—a little surprised, a little bitter, a little uncertain. Trying hard to hide that he had dreamed of a different life, because it would mean weakness if he let that hope show. "And this is supposed to help me? You yourself know how this emotion leaves you open to things you do not want entering."

"That isn't why I told you that." Leliana shook her head. "It is true that I felt that way. I ran to the Chantry because I needed to feel safe—safe from Marjolaine, and the knowledge that I might one day become just like her. But since traveling with the Wardens, I have realized that I could live another way, a way that did not mean I would become another Marjolaine, a thing hardly human and so afraid of betrayal that I would rather slit an innocent throat than consider any other solution."

"I believe that is called self-preservation, Leliana. Or did you not learn this in your training as a bard?"

She sighed. "Maker's breath, you are so stubborn. You are just like Morrigan." He bristled at that, but she continued. "You have been very busy keeping Daen away from her lately, which means you must have noticed how close Morrigan and he were. She would not say it herself, of course, but I was with them on their last trip to Soldier's Peak and I overheard Morrigan talking with Daen." Leliana hesitated. "I would not be telling you of this if I did not think you needed to hear it. She gave something to him, a piece of jewelry, I think, and she said that it would allow her to know where he was at all times. It was a gesture she seemed willing to make. But then Daen asked her whether it would also allow him to know where she was, and her face changed. She had not considered the full implications of that link between them until he asked that question. Morrigan had just handed him a piece of herself. And then, by the next week, it had fallen apart between them." A smile played on Leliana's full lips. "And you were well on the way towards moving Daen into your tent."

Zevran spotted Daen looking toward Morrigan's makeshift lean-to Morrigan, his expression pensive, arm cocked at his side as if poised to remove something from within his beltpouch. The shapechanger witch constructed her lodgings from whatever materials she found every time they set up camp, but always built it well away from the others. The distance had its uses, as she never failed to point out when asked if she would like to move closer to the rest of the group; she had warned them of a bandit attack on three separate occasions, and held off a pack of wolves on her own at least one time that Zevran knew of. It also meant, as the witch surely intended, that few in the camp bothered to drop by for a visit with much consistency. Except for Daen.

"Ah, Warden. Care for a game of Diamondback?" Zevran inquired, slinging a friendly arm over Daen's neck and casually scooping the smaller elf into his chest—and turning him well away from Morrigan's lean-to at the same time.

"Oof. Come on, Zev," Daen mumbled into Zevran's neck. He pulled away, just enough so that they stood comfortably abreast, but allowed Zevran's arm to remain draped across his shoulders. He wasn't much for physical contact in public. Neither was Zevran, ordinarily, but he enjoyed Daen's reactions. "Oghren always gets mad at someone and Alistair always ends up in nothing but a loincloth and his socks. And you never lose a hand. Would it kill you to take it easy on us for once?"

"I could, but then it would not be a challenge! Where would be the fun in that? No, this time I was thinking it could be...mano a mano. How do you say...hmm, a private game. Just you and me, no?"

"Hah! Loser gets his hurt feelings massaged away?" Daen grinned, then leaned in suddenly and bumped his forehead under the Antivan's chin. It was a very catlike gesture. Zevran looked down in surprise.

"How nice. Are you feeling well, amora?"

"Of course." He stayed tucked there, body relaxed and warm. One arm slid up Zevran's back, coming to a comfortable rest between his shoulderblades. Daen always found a way to fit himself to the lines of Zevran's body.

Hmm. This, I could get used to.

Through the cornsilk tips of Daen's hair, Zevran saw the witch staring straight at them. Her yellow eyes narrowed, nearly imperceptibly over the distance between them; but if looks could kill, a lesser man might have turned tail and headed straight back to Antiva.

Well, I do love a challenge. Zevran broke eye contact with the witch first, intending to take advantage of Daen's proximity. But just as suddenly as he had come to Zevran, the Warden backed away.

"The game sounds...interesting. I'll drop by later. I just have to talk to Morrigan first."

"Oh?"

Zevran kept his voice nonchalant, but something must have leaked through. The Warden paused, then hesitantly reached out and took the assassin's hand in his own, his hold gentle but firm. Once again, Zevran found himself wondering at how strong the Warden's hands were, at odds with the rest of his bony frame. They were nearly as big as Zevran's, and too large for his body, like a puppy's paws. But they were muscled and calloused with the practice of holding daggers and climbing trees, the fingers long like a bard's and nimble at disarming traps. They were the first things to move in battle and the last when alone with Zevran—hesitant hands, inviting the lover to act first, but not shy about responding in kind.

Sometimes, Zevran was not sure who was leading who in their relationship. He had told the Warden a long time ago that he would ask for no more than what the Warden was willing to give, and he had meant it. But as forthright as Daen could be about inviting himself into Zevran's tent, he was remarkably more cautious about everything else.

But sometimes a little more giving was a necessary encouragement. The reward was always worth it.

"It's nothing, Zev. I just have something of hers. I think she needs it back."

"You and Morrigan are so very similar, you know. You are both afraid of love, thinking of it as a weakness in your armor. It is not so. Love comes in many forms and many ways. Love does not make your life, but it does not break it. Yes, sometimes it makes us fall, but it also makes us stand."

Zevran cocked a brow.

Leliana giggled. "Not what I meant, Zevran, you know that. Morrigan let Daen go. I do not think she really wanted to. I saw Daen giving a ring to her not too long ago, and at first I thought it was another one of those little trinkets he keeps finding everywhere for us. But then I knew it was the ring that Morrigan had given him before, the one that let her hear him and him hear her. When he gave it to her, she looked as if he had just handed her a piece of herself. She let him go because she was afraid of losing that piece. For someone like Morrigan, it is a weakness to not be able to control all of yourself. It is how she survived in the Wilds, and it is how she survives now. She sees herself as...a vessel, a vase. She is afraid that losing a part of herself means that she will no longer be able to hold the rest of herself inside. I wish it was not so. No one is a mere tool meant for specific purposes, utterly useless once broken." She met his eyes. "Not even you, m'sieur Crow.

"You said once, when we were searching for the Ashes of Andraste, that you trusted your friends enough to have faith that they would stab you in your back. Who did you mean when you said that? Was it us?"

"I had forgotten that I said that. I think it was more out of frustration at that bloody bridge." Zevran shrugged, aware that Leliana was waiting for an answer. This conversation was turning into the most uncomfortable challenge he had ever endured. "At the time, I might have meant all of you."

"Do not lie, Zevran. You still mean us, don't you?"

"I...of course not. That would be foolish. I most certainly would not be traveling with you for as long as I have if I expected a betrayal around every corner."

Leliana looked at him, her blue eyes soft, and said nothing.

He ran a hand irritably through his hair. "Fine. Yes. But it is always a possibility."

"Zevran, do you believe Daen will betray you one day?"

Zevran looked away. He said nothing.

Leliana reached out and clasped one of Zevran's hands earnestly between her own. He chose to concentrate on them. He had always liked her hands; they belied the rest of her. All of the fine clothing and lotions and training in the world could not change her Fereldan hands. They were narrower than Daen's, but even larger and with square-tipped fingers. They did not look like the hands of a minstrel, yet they handled a lute with ease, and the size made them well suited for stretching to extreme chords on a harp. They were soft hands, worked at daily with some kind of Orlesian cream, but calloused on her fingertips and along the part of her palm where she held her bow.

"Oh, Zevran."

"This is silly."

"Please don't ignore it, Zevran. It would break my heart to see you throw away what you and Daen have. And it would break Daen's, too."

He shook his hands free from hers and stood without thinking. When he realized that he was poised to walk back to the camp with the others, he forced himself to stay in place. A Crow would flee, having no use for Leliana or her interference. But he had left the Crows.

And that makes me...but an elf? With fancy weaponry.

"We are a broken people," he remembered Daen saying. "Not cowards."

Not cowards, amora? I might surprise you with how cowardly I can be.

Zevran crossed his arms over his chest and shifted his weight to one leg, assuming a relaxed stance to hide that he had almost left her sitting there. "So then, Leliana, oh wise master in love, tell me: What is it? How does one know when it is more than a means of getting your mark to take down his guard?"

"Really, Zevran? You do not just feel it when you are with Daen?"

"I feel many things with the Warden, many of which I have felt before with others, often right before I slit their throats. As I have not slit the Warden's throat yet, I can only assume this feeling means something different. But I cannot say it is...what you say it is."

"Zevran..."

"Describe it for me, then. You are a minstrel, no?"

"This is a difficult thing you ask of me. Even the best minstrel will always fail to describe love when asked to do so. Love does not work that way. Sometimes it is sudden and sometimes it builds up, until one day...you realize that it can't be anything else, and you can't live with anyone else." Leliana settled back, raising a knee so that her other leg ran below it, like a river under a bridge. She clasped the raised knee and rested her chin on top. "You think about them all of the time. Then everything they do makes you want to laugh and hold them forever." Leliana paused. "What else? Oh, how about this: Everyone else says that there is something wrong with them—something like, oh, say, Daen is a packrat and never knows how to throw things away—"

"He is a little bit of a packrat, but he is just being practical. You never know when you might need a—er, silk carpet—"

"—and you make excuses for that flaw, or you think it's one of the charming things about them. Or both." It was her turn to raise an eyebrow at him. "Or maybe your bed feels empty when he is not there."

"He invites himself in almost every night, and I sleep perfectly well when he is not around. Better, even. There is more room."

"You help him with his grooming, even when he does not ask for it."

"I help all of you with your grooming. It is charity work."

"You tolerate friends of his that you do not like." She quirked her eyebrow again. "Such as a certain dark-haired enchantress?"

"I am not merely tolerating her, I assure you. I am working on getting into her graces. She is a challenge, our Morrigan."

"I suppose that's one way of putting it." Leliana coughed delicately and continued. "His causes become your causes, because you like the way his eyes come to life when he is pursuing them."

He was silent.

"You feel like you hurt when he hurts. You act to keep him from getting hurt. You want to hurt whoever does hurt him. You rush off on an impossible mission simply because it might save his life..."

"Would you have let him die?" Zevran shot back.

"No. Because I love him, too." She looked at him, and her candidness made him feel as though anything else he might say had just died on his tongue.

"As in some mandate from the Maker?"

"Not true. The Chant only requires that we not do harm to one another. It does not command love. Of course, having great love in your heart for the Maker's children—or at least saying you do—helps the unenlightened feel more receptive to hearing the Chant, but I am under no such illusions; I cannot love everyone. I love Daen, and Alistair, and Soris and Wynne and Shale. Sten is impossible to imagine loving, but I do like him, and I trust him to be who he is. Morrigan, I trust in battle, but I do not like her. And Oghren is a disgusting little man who I sincerely hope to see get crushed in a dragon's jaws someday or trapped in a nug farm during the mating season...Maker forgive me." Leliana smiled sweetly. "But I also trust him in battle. And you? You are hard to love sometimes, particularly when I catch you staring at my behind or hear you asking to use Wynne's chest as a pillow, but I like you, and sometimes I even love you."

"And you expect me to follow your example?" He laughed.

"Oh, no. People do not love the same. But everyone can love; it's just that they sometimes think that they do not need it, and they fool themselves into thinking they cannot as a result." Leliana put her knee down and scooted closer to Zevran. "In Orlais, any kind of affection is amour, and there are many types. Daen likes all of us, even Oghren, Maker knows why; he feels am'amour for us, the love of friends. For Alistair, he also feels something a little deeper; it is frer'amour, the love of brothers." She reached out and placed her open palm on the center of his chest. "But you are the only one he loves like a lover, the only love that eats you alive. You are la coeur—his heart. The thing that he cannot live without."

Zevran fell silent again.

Leliana took her hand away and rested it back upon her knee. "Do you know, Alistar has been very direct about what is going on between you and Daen when you are not around. He kept telling Daen that it is not a good idea, that you are an assassin and a Crow, and that he'll wake up one day with a knife at his throat—or more likely just not wake up at all."

Zevran could not hold back his irritation. "Caro di feca putta—"

"And do you know what Daen finally told him? He said, 'Alistair, it is none of your business.' Of course, Alistair brought it up again. This time, he said, 'Alistair, if he leaves, then so do I.'" She shrugged. "And Alistair has not said anything since."

He deflated. "He said that? To Alistair?"

Leliana was not done. "Do you remember when we were going through the Deep Roads, and we came to that horrible thaig with the spider queen?"

"I do not recall much of that point personally." He grinned sardonically. "The Warden sent me ahead as a scout, and the next thing I knew there was a very persistent, very angry, very poisonous spider dropping down on my head. When I came to, it was dead, Morrigan was telling me to be more careful next time, and I had a headache the size of Shale's fist."

"You missed quite a bit while you were unconscious. We were waiting back on the little bridge just before that cavern for you to report back, and suddenly there was this...awful scream. Daen went whiter than a bone and ran off before we could stop him. Morrigan and I had to follow. We found him trying to drag you away from a group of spiders. You know how much bigger you are than he is—you are all muscle, and he was split between dragging you and fighting off spiders! He was getting very lucky with dodging the poison spit and the webs, but he had still been hit. Morrigan froze a few of them and kept yelling at him for running off, and he kept telling her to shut up and help him with you. And then the spider queen showed up before we could make it back to the bridge, so we had to fight her where we were, in the open. It was a horribly indefensible place to be."

"I cannot say I like the idea of being dead weight."

She waved a hand dismissively. "It happens to all of us, no? In any case, Daen didn't want to leave you, but he is terrible with a bow and I am not as effective at close quarter fighting as he is. I told him this, trying to reason with him while Morrigan tried to keep the queen at a distance on her own. He gave me a look that I will never forget, so full of sparks that I am surprised I did not catch on fire. You know how he is in battle, so commanding that you are almost compelled to do anything he asks?"

Zevran nodded.

"He grabbed my wrist and said to me, 'Don't leave him, Leliana,' and drew his daggers and went for the spider queen. So I did not leave you. It is a good thing Sten was not there for that fight; he would have lost patience with Daen, the way he kept turning around to check on you throughout. When the queen was dead, he dropped his daggers and ran back immediately for you. Morrigan had her potions ready, of course, and he wouldn't let go of your hand."

"So that is how he lost those daggers."

She laughed. "Indeed. But I think you might like this, Zevran—he was very, very sorry, your Daen. Apologizing to you, yelling for Morrigan to do something, babbling that it was all his fault. I have never heard Daen babble before then and I still haven't since. Morrigan finally sent him away, although honestly I think she was just trying to calm him down. I followed him because I was afraid there might be more spiders. He didn't go very far, just sat around a corner with his back to some stalagmites. I walked up to him and he looked up at me and said, 'Leliana, it's my fault.' He looked so much like Soris after Alistair caught him stealing a trout for his fish pudding. 'No,' I told him. 'It is Zevran's fault for letting that spider squish him.'"

"Oh, thank you for that."

"Just trying to lighten his mood, no? Maybe you are glad to know that it did not work? He didn't even smile. 'I should have gone myself," he said. 'It should have been me.' Making excuses, I thought. 'So it was not you,' I said. 'How could you have known? Sometimes leaders have to make tough decisions and sometimes the results are not what they meant them to be. You made the decision, and Zevran will be fine. It could have easily been you, or Morrigan, or me.'

"So. Now is the point where most people would say, Leliana, don't tell me he started to act like a plucked chicken about having to protect the love of his life, waxing poetic about giving his life to be the one lying back there instead."

"Oh dear."

"And I would tell that person, no. You do not know our Warden. Daen just sat quietly for a little. Then he told me that I was right. He asked you to go because he knew you were the best for what he thought was out there. There had been too many spiders along the way to rule out the possibility of there being more, and he had not sensed darkspawn. If there was something out there, then he needed to send someone who could look around quietly and had the best chance of surviving an ambush. In a word, you. The only thing he had not known was the chance of there being a nest with a queen. 'There,' I said. 'You thought about the possibilities, and picked the best odds to avoid a bad outcome, so it could not have gone any other way.' And he looked at me, and he said: 'I know, Leliana. But it still hurts to see him lying there, and knowing that he wouldn't be if I hadn't asked him to go.' Around that time, Morrigan started calling us saying that you were awake, so we went back. And you were fine, and the smile on Daen's face? It should have lit up the entire Deep Roads."

"A pity you did not bring your lap harp with you. It would have made good accompaniment."

"Well, lap harps do not like much moisture, and as I came out here to bathe..." she trailed off and smiled. "I wish you could have seen how relieved he was."

"I did." Zevran looked into the distance—Leliana thought perhaps at one tent in particular. "He was the first thing I saw. It felt like seeing a demon in the Fade—too real, too bright. Exactly what I wanted to see."

He shrugged, rotating his shoulders briefly like a cat preparing itself to strike. "I think it is time for me to return to the others. Perhaps the antidote has finished its work."

"Zevran," she said, stopping him again. "You call Daen so many interesting names—ayana, gatto...what am I missing? Mm...amora, no?"

"They are mere words. They do not mean much."

But those words, at least, were the wrong ones to say to a professional minstrel. "Words mean everything!" she said, brows quivering. "They embody what you feel about him, but are avoiding saying outright. Why speak of these things in a language he cannot understand?" Leliana smiled. "Say these things to him in Fereldan, Zevran. So that he understands it. Forget the Deep Roads, when he hears you he will set the whole world on fire, you shall see."

"Charming." Zevran stood there, shifting his weight back and forth a few times. "I will think on what you have said." He turned again, but did not move.

"Leliana," he said over his shoulder, "this thing you speak of—it will not keep my daggers sharp or my mind keen, or my stomach full and poison out of my drink."

"Do not think of it as something that is either necessary or not, then. You need to eat, and plain bread will do. But you, you are insisting on eating the same plain bread, saying that that is all that you need, when there is butter sitting right next to you." She quirked her eyebrow at him. "Or all over you, rather."

He looked back at that same point in the distance. "I do not know if a Crow can change enough to learn that."

Leliana smiled. "Oh, Zevran. Everyone changes—when they have a reason."

Orlesian:
Er, not much to say here. It doesn't deviate much from real French or what Leliana explains on her own.

Antivan:
Caro di feca putta... = If Zevran had finished, he would have just called Alistair a "shit-faced son of a bitch." Rude.

I would have posted this earlier if I hadn't been so utterly dissatisfied with it on every re-read. The last few moments in Beak influence why the relationship is the way it is in Clouds, though, so I did want to get it out before the relationship in Clouds progresses any further.

Anyway, now I am only mildly dissatisfied with this chapter and I figure that is the best I will feel.

There will likely not be a chapter in either Clouds or Beak next Sunday. I don't want to post the next Beak chapter until Clouds goes further, and Clouds is giving me...issues. I can't decide whether to just go ahead and post what I have or re-write it completely. And then there is work. Man. This should teach me a lesson about publishing companion fics simultaneously.

Thanks to the new followers and favoriters, in the mean time!

Until next time.

-K