"Are you feeling better?" Leliana asked.
When the nest of giant hunting spiders as big as Venger had attacked them that morning, Alistair had quickly made up his mind that he hated the foul things. Their scuttling movement and clicking mandibles creeped him out almost as much as darkspawn. Not to mention those eyes, glittering faceted pools of inky blackness that craved him for meat. Alistair shivered at the memory.
A bristled nightmare of a creature had leapt at him, its weight overwhelming him. Hard pincers snapped before his eyes. Screaming as he tried to keep the creature from ripping at his face, Alistair wrestled the monstrous arachnid with every ounce of strength his taxed muscles carried. Viscous fluid dripped from the clacking mandibles. Poison, saliva, or something worse, Alistair didn't know. For those few panicked seconds, his mind yelled, 'Maker, don't let it touch me!'
On his back and struggling, Alistair couldn't stop, couldn't even see the other spider scuttling up. Fangs plunged into his calf and poured venom into his leg. Fire raced in his blood. The poison turned his leg to a torment of mind-bending agony as if a hoard of fire ants swarmed and bit at his flesh.
His companions had killed the two spiders just as Alistair's muscles gave out. Had they been a heartbeat later, half of Alistair's face would have been chewed off.
An aura distorted Alistair's vision. He remembered Raviathan standing over him, yelling something and slapping his face, but Alistair couldn't get his muscles under control enough to do more than utter nonsensical sounds. Instead, he stared up into the worried face that left green and red trails whenever the elf moved.
The rest remained a blur in his memory. His leg felt constricted, throbbing under too tight a splint. He remembered Sten's jostling gait as the qunari ran with Alistair on his back. Every step Sten took shot more fire into his leg until Alistair prayed he would pass out. All else in his mind consisted of green smudges of forest and the shouting of his companions.
Later, once the antivenom worked its way through his system, Alistair learned of what happened on the journey. At Raviathan's orders, Morrigan had turned into a bird and scanned the area for Dalish. The two Dalish hunters, having heard tales of the Witch of the Wilds, showed a cautious respect for Morrigan, enough that their party could approach without being shot on sight.
Talking quickly, Raviathan explained about the treaty and spider bite. Though inherently distrustful, the hunters had relented and taken them to the Dalish camp. The Keeper himself had seen to Alistair's injuries. If only Alistair had been aware enough to see the Keeper's magic. His memory retained only vague impressions of hands moving over him, lines of green light, and the faint chanting of a language almost forgotten.
The antivenom the Dalish kept did most of the work, but Zathrian's power eased the swelling and sped his healing. Left on a cot near the other injured elves, Alistair had been enduring stomach cramps and pain in his extremities for most of the day. Once the cool of evening settled, the Dalish antivenom had worked most of the spider toxin out. What remained of Alistair's injuries was a mild headache, occasional tremors, and a clamminess that clung to his skin.
Stunned at the number of elves lying stricken around him, Alistair wondered at their number. Had the taint been responsible for his speedy recovery? His limbs felt stiff, almost wooden, as he paced to one of the benches near a small fire pit. That small effort left him shaking and exhausted. Though his recovery was remarkable, Alistair still felt disturbingly fragile.
Huddled under a few blankets to keep the chill away, Alistair wondered where the rest of his companions had gotten off to. The witch was probably off terrifying small animals. Good riddance.
After a moment, he spotted Sten in a quiet corner of the camp. The giant sat in contemplation, his lips moving in prayer. Alistair had seen enough prayers back in his templar days to recognize religious meditation at a glance. Watching the qunari struck Alistair anew with the man's complete foreignness.
Just what did qunari pray to? The Chantry vilified the northern heathens as violent, unthinking barbarians needing the enlightenment of the Chant if they were to be saved. How much of that was true? From what little he had gleaned, the qunari didn't worship a god. So what did they worship? Dwarves had paragons. Could it be something similar? Ancestors perhaps? The giant didn't exactly encourage small talk though.
What would Leliana think of Sten? What would she make of his religion? Alistair badly wanted to talk to someone about what was in his head. Of all his companions, he trusted her opinion the most.
"Feeling much better." Alistair managed a weak smile. Heat and cold kept rushing through him, but the trembling in his hands had at least stopped.
"Then you are to eat." Leliana sat next to Alistair and handed him a bowl of supper like her own: venison, roasted wild roots, and a thick slice of pale cheese.
"What's this?" Alistair took a moment to smell the cheese first. His stomach gnawed at him as it always did, but a brief moment to appreciate the aroma of the soft cheese made his eyelids half close in anticipated pleasure.
"Cheese made from halla milk."
The first bite filled his mouth with cream as smooth as pure butter fat. A little moan escaped his throat as the cheese melted. Cream gave way to a nutty woodiness, like pine seeds and sweet tree sap. Aged to bring out a heavier richness added more complexity, the cheese took on flavors similar to smoked wood. If there was ever a time they could settle down, he'd buy a barrel of halla cheese every year for his own personal stash.
Alistair sniffed at a root. After that miserable trek through the wilds, he'd had enough of roots. The honey coating on these offered a nice change compared to the bitter roots of the swamp, but the weeks of starvation with the hard roots cramping his stomach made him leery of eating more.
"They're so beautiful, aren't they?"
"Hmm?" Alistair had to stop thinking of his stomach to understand the bard.
Leliana's wistful smile answered him as she watched the Dalish.
The dancing firelight gave warmth and animation to the gathered faces. A redheaded elf with tattoos running from the corners of his mouth to the corners of his eyes told a story, his voice low and dark to draw in his audience, his arms emphasizing and shaping the tale. All the elves gathered around, working at some task as they listened: mending clothes or shaping leather, weaving baskets, carving wood, or fletching arrows.
Elven eyes shown from the evening shadows, glowing points of vivid color in the darkness. Many of Fereldan's nobles claimed to be descended from Hafter, the first teyrn of Ferelden, who was supposedly the son of a werewolf. The legend explained the Fereldan people's natural tenacity and loyalty, a point of pride among the people. Looking out at the Dalish, Alistair wondered if the elves had a cat ancestor somewhere.
By the main campfire, a solemn elf with a high forehead and long nose accentuating his thin face showed Raviathan how to make something involving sharpened sticks and flexible strips of bark. The two sat close with their heads together, their fine-boned fingers working in a graceful dance to construct some item. Now that Raviathan wore Dalish leathers that suited him, Alistair wondered at the strange way the elf fit in with the Dalish and how he stood out.
Though not as dark as Duncan, Raviathan's coloration marked him as something exotic amongst pale Fereldans. The clan had only a few with the same dusky skin, all exchanges from other clans up north. The Dalish seemed to accept the new elf well enough, and fitted with Dalish armor, Raviathan should have fit in with the clan. But something in his manner set him apart, though Alistair couldn't say what that was.
The elves had an almost unconscious need to touch each other, a simple squeeze of a comrade's shoulder or caress of another's arm as they spoke. Raviathan had kept his distance from everyone in the party, all except Venger, but as Alistair watched, he realized that the affection the elf shared with Duncan and the dog mirrored the way all the elves in the clan were with each other.
Seeing the Dalish filled Alistair with a jealous longing he never expected. The affections the elves shared came naturally, a sense of belonging that Alistair had ached for as far back as he could remember.
While the clan accepted Raviathan, the rest of the party continued getting hostile glances. Bright flashes of elven eyes watched them from the shadows, their gazes a warning that while the party might be tolerated for the sake of the treaty and fellow elf, there would be nothing but enmity between them.
"It's like we're in a different world here," Leliana said with a reverent cadence. "They way the light touches their skin, it's like they're lovers."
Alistair's brow creased in puzzlement at the bard's phrasing, but as he thought about her words, it made sense.
"You know what I mean," she said at his look. "It's like the sun pulls light out of them, as if they're the first light's long lost children. They're luminescent as fine pearls, waiting for their reunion with the sun on the morrow. But firelight also brings an ethereal warmth. It seems almost magical, like fireflies drifting in a summer breeze. I feel as if we're in a world of spirits and only their eyes look out at us from another realm. Brilliant as jewels, but that's why they flash."
It was a bit too poetic for Alistair's taste, and his inclination was to scoff, but Leliana's observations had some merit. "You should make a song out of that."
"Maybe I will," she replied.
A faint smile played upon Alistair's lips as he thought of Leliana. Out of all of them, he was closest to her. They had the Chantry in common for one, though their views couldn't be more different, and some of her ideas were queer. While he couldn't help but shake his head at a few of her odd notions, like how the Maker was in every living thing, he found her devotion charming. Well, charming when she didn't come off as a nutter. Prophecies from the Maker? Did she really believe that?
Even so, Leliana did have a way of charming everyone. So patient too. And brave. Sten did not intimidate her, and she could even put up with that horrible witch. Though she dressed simply and did not mind getting her armor dirty, her auburn hair usually left in a tousled mess, she carried an air of femininity.
In some odd ways, Leliana reminded him of Lady Isolde, at least more than she reminded him of the servants. Servants bustled about and shouted threats or made crude jokes. But Leliana wasn't like the sisters and mothers of the Chantry. Maybe it was her love of poetry or how she admired beautiful things that was more like Isolde. Not that the servants were dullards, but there was a refinement to Leliana they didn't have. It made him wonder about her. What had she been before she joined the Chantry?
He thought she might be a lady, but she was too pragmatic and skilled with a bow. In Ferelden, women often trained in combat, but Orlesians didn't have the same attitudes of ladies learning the warrior arts. Leliana hadn't been a servant or some farmer either. The daughter of a merchant who had hopes of moving up in status by educating his daughter to marry a low level noble? That didn't explain how she had learned to fight. She hadn't answered many of their questions, and Alistair considered the mystery of her more intriguing for it.
In any case, he found their conversations enjoyable even if he felt nervous and a bit affected when talking to her. She didn't seem to mind though. "You're not at all put off? We didn't exactly get the warmest reception."
"I'm surprised you remember." She laughed. "The way you babble when you're delirious!"
Alistair blushed, but he couldn't be mad. "Please tell me I didn't go on about the time I was in a fishing boat that wasn't moored and drifted out into Lake Calenhad." He ducked his head to hide his smile when she laughed. "I got the worst sunburn before anyone realized I was missing."
She covered her smile with a hand. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't laugh so."
Alistair shrugged. Laughter he could deal with.
"As for the Dalish, we are unfamiliar to them. Even Rav was having a difficult time."
Alistair's brow furrowed as he looked over at the gathered elves. "Are we talking about the same elf, because he doesn't look like they've given him a hard time."
"Not now. When we arrived, the Dalish were quite standoffish. All day he's been going around, helping with the halla, talking with the hunters and craftsmen."
"How have you been doing? With the Dalish, I mean." Leliana had such an easy way about her, Alistair was sure she could charm her way into their good graces.
Leliana's warm voice turned as sweet as cinnamon frosting on a hot roll. "There was this one boy in love. It was the most precious thing ever. Dalish courtship isn't like any that I've seen before, but after talking to them both, love wins the day. They're going to be handfasted by Zathrian in a few days."
"Love wins the day? I don't think that'll work against the darkspawn."
"Silly." Leliana cocked her head as she studied the elves. "I could be wrong, but I think they respect him more as a Grey Warden than as a fellow elf."
That couldn't be true. If so, why was he ignored, again?
The jealousy that had been gathering at the back of Alistair's mind turned to loneliness so strong it made his chest ache. He couldn't even see the elves anymore. The two of them were Grey Wardens. That was suppose to be a bond. And they were the only two left. Raviathan made such an effort for the Dalish, but all he got was anger, contempt, and distrust. Why wasn't he good enough?
Visions of the Wardens tumbled through Alistair's mind, fragments of when he had been happiest.
Waking up from the nightmare after drinking in the taint, and though horrified by the visions, he saw only respect from the Grey Wardens around him. They had no doubts about him, no looking down on him or pushing him aside. He was their brother, without question. Men twenty years his senior treated him like a comrade, a person deserving of respect.
A few days after he and Duncan returned to Denerim, Levine called Alistair over to share drinks with his fellows. During the journey to Denerim, Alistair half expected the other Wardens to be cold, at least until they got to know him, but no. They treated him as if he belonged. They enjoyed his company, were proud to call him a brother. When Levine invited him, the five Wardens had talked for hours, all telling stories. They didn't get bored of him, didn't tell him he was nattering on. They laughed with him.
Gregor's stories of the Anderfels fascinated Alistair. Levine shared adventures of his childhood in Orlais. Rodden spun a tale of finding a cave with dragon bones scattered within when he lived in Nevarra. Trying to sell them led to trouble, which is how he wound up with the Wardens. Merrin claimed to have ties to one of the royal families of the Free Marches. Though Alistair never remembered the royal houses Merrin talked about, the exploits of the royals never ceased to make him laugh.
Other times flashed through Alistair's mind. Walking down a corridor and Marcus patting him on the back after a grueling training session. Marcus worked him hard, but unlike Alistair's first days of rigorous training with the Warden, both of them were drenched in sweat from the workout instead of just him. Marcus' eyes had crinkled at the corners when he told Duncan that Alistair was coming along quickly. Duncan's pride in him made Alistair feel as if he were glowing from the inside.
Once Tamriel took him aside and showed him some of the basics with bow and crossbow use. The reserved elf rarely talked to anyone. Just the fact that Tamriel made an effort meant everything to Alistair.
From all the nations of Thedas, he had brothers who accepted him without question. Like a true family. They cared for him because he was one of them. He didn't need to be anything other than what he was. His past didn't matter, not his heritage or his upbringing.
He missed his Warden brothers, names and faces who had been his companions, who had teased him and laughed with him. And Duncan. Worst pain of all was Duncan. His kindness, his patience, his wisdom and warmth. Maker it hurt!
A cool hand covered his forehead. A cross baritone snapped, "He wasn't suppose to have any food until he was feeling better."
"He was," Leliana said, alarmed. "He said he was."
Raviathan huffed and removed his hand. Alistair didn't want that. The coolness had been a relief. "He's still hot. Alistair, you need to go to bed."
"Bed?" Right now he couldn't even contemplate walking.
"Come on, Leliana. Give me a hand with him."
Together, the two helped Alistair stumble to his tent. Leliana left while Raviathan undressed him to his small clothes and got a nightshirt on him. With much huffing, the elf pushed Alistair into his bedroll. Alistair just wanted to curl up and sleep until the world was alright again. Wanted sleep, but the room kept spinning, making him sick. The blankets felt hot even as he shivered from a chill. Wanted to sleep but couldn't stay still. The tent kept trying to tumble around him.
The cool hand was back on his forehead, and Alistair stopped any attempts at struggling. His eyes closed as his dizziness faded.
"Silly boy," Raviathan said quietly, his voice gentling to the tone he had used when talking with that child in Lothering. "If you're not better by tomorrow, we're going to have to leave you behind."
"No," Alistair said, struggling again. "I don't…"
"Shh. Calm yourself. You need to get some sleep if you're going to get better."
Alistair sighed and settled back. "That feels good," his voice croaked. The tent finally stopped spinning and settled into a less vomit-inducing sway.
"What does?"
"Your hand." Alistair wasn't sure, but he thought he felt the elf's fingers caress his forehead and temples as he fell into sleep.
~o~O~o~
"Aww! Do I have to eat this?"
Raviathan glared at the templar. "It's just cauliflower." They had been damn lucky to get the winter vegetable this late in the season. The finicky plant grew well near the hot springs of the forest, protected from the winter's frost.
Brows lowered in a scowl, Alistair stared at his plate. "But I don't want to."
"It's healthy." Stupid shem. Perfectly good food, and that spoiled, over-fed moron wanted to waste it. He knew elves who would brawl for that little scrap of food, especially in the long winter months. Raviathan munched resentfully on a floret. Shems. Never happy with what they got.
Raviathan glared at his plate. In all honesty, the fare was a bit bland. If only they had some spices. A little black pepper and salt would have helped. With an inward sigh, Raviathan thought back to his beautiful old stove. Three generations of love infused that iron hearth. Back home, he could have made a cheese sauce good enough to make people eat their fingers.
"But…" Alistair's helpless pleading only annoyed Raviathan further. Big dumb brown eyes. You've got nothing on Venger, shem. "It looks like brains."
The little poke Alistair gave his cauliflower clarified the image.
Raviathan snatched the vegetable off Alistair's bowl. "Don't complain to me when your stomach starts growling tonight." Eyes fixed on Alistair, he took a savage bite, devouring the half head of cauliflower in ravenous glory.
"Yeesh. Remind me not to get between you and your veggies."
Snorting, Raviathan stalked off to finish the rest of his food in peace. He scowled at his cauliflower. It didn't look like brains. Just… well, not like brains. Not really.
Maker damn that stupid shem.
Morrigan's low chuckle greeted his ears. "One would think after all his complaints about hunger, he would not be so picky when presented with a delicacy."
Letting his tension out in a soft breath, Raviathan slight smile coaxed one in return from his fellow apostate. "You never went hungry in your time in the Wilds, did you?"
"Unless I was being punished, no. The food we had was not always appetizing, but Mother taught me quickly not to complain."
Sounded like elven families. Even the fortunate children who had enough to eat had only to look at the many beggars with protruding bones to know fate could be fickle. The children too thick to learn from observation had parents who would teach that lesson in practice. Granted, a single cauliflower alone would not stave off hunger, but elves appreciated every scrap they got.
"You have never used a staff?"
Surreptitiously checking that no one was in earshot, Raviathan shook his head. "Too obvious. My aunt missed using one though."
"I could not imagine being without one, not for the type of magic that is needed on this journey."
"I wouldn't know the difference."
Firelight glowed off her hair as she shook her head. "'Tis strange to me, alien even, but the same could be said from your side as well."
"Indeed."
"Yet, I wonder. We will be leaving this forest at some point, going into the cities of men. Should I learn to hide? Would that even be possible?"
Studying her, Raviathan nibbled his lower lip. "You'll always be an outsider. Armor or commoner clothing would disguise you from a distance, but your eyes mark you."
She watched him, her odd eyes measuring. Jewel tones and flashing eyes differentiated elves from a distance, even more so at night. The color of her eyes fit in well with his kin, but her eyes lacked the flash and liquid depths that characterized his race as much as their ears and grace. Among humans, the color marked her as something other. Among elves, the flatness made her too human. She fit in nowhere.
"You do not ask, but you want to know."
Raviathan nodded.
"A normal question. You need not be so hesitant."
That wasn't true. Did Morrigan not realize how prickly she could be on certain topics? He could only guess at what would bother her or not. The stress of dealing with so many strangers added to her reticence, but a number of subjects bothered her on their own.
"In truth, I do not know if my eyes were always such or not. No mirrors existed in our little hut."
"Then how do you know about the color of your eyes? From Flemeth?"
Instead of answering, she nibbled at her food. So she was touchy about the subject after all.
While eating without looking too closely at his remaining cauliflower—damn that templar idiot—he wondered if her eyes resulted from her shapeshifting ability. If so, what effect would that have on him? He loved the heritage passed down from his mother's line. Mermaids and savage freedom, a legacy of mysticism and strength of will was a heady thing despite the uglier truth behind the stories his mother had told.
More though, his eyes had as much a part in how he saw himself as his magic. Could he give that up? Yellow eyes on an elf wouldn't attract added attention, but Raviathan had to admit to some vanity. His looks garnered envy among humans as well as a strange respect all beings carried for the exotic and beautiful.
The abilities Morrigan possessed flew from the pages of children's fantasy tales. Fantastic stories Raviathan had shoved aside belief in long ago, yet here she sat next to him, an offer of power even his aunt couldn't have conceived of. He couldn't deny that potential just for the sake of his eyes. Such a dismissal would be selfish and stupid.
His chest tightened at his final choice. Maker, he hoped his eyes didn't change.
"I had a mirror, once." Morrigan's voice whispered as quiet as the night breeze.
Raviathan had to bring himself back to remember what they had been discussing. He didn't speak though, just let her talk as she would.
"T'was gold. It glittered prettily in the sun. Facets catching the light as I turned it to and fro. I'd not seen its like before." A sad smile touched her lips. "For the first time, I saw how I looked. Before then I had only glimpses in the still pond water. Muddy shadows of what I was. This though. This was a perfect reflection of the world, yet it seemed a pathway to another place. Imagine, to see yourself for the first time. I was in shock, and then I was mesmerized."
Taking his time to consider and choose his words, Raviathan finally said, "We know magic. We know its laws and feel the energies in ourselves. Our understanding takes away the mysticism even though there are and will always be mysteries and unanswered questions. Sometimes though, I understand when others talk of magic as something mystical, something of infinite possibilities that can't be explained. To see who you are for the first time, no illusions to cloud your vision. To see yourself clearly and all your own possibilities, it is a kind of magic."
The gleam that entered her eyes as he spoke told him he said exactly what was in her heart. "You speak so eloquently."
One corner of his mouth tugged up into a half smile. "At times. Not nearly as often as I'd like."
Her light chuckle warmed her face. "A word smith in the making, perhaps."
"That, I make no claims to," Raviathan said with a laugh. He considered her. "I haven't seen the mirror. You don't travel with it?"
Her face lost it's humor. "Mother found it. When she discovered how I had acquired it, she was furious. Smashed it on the ground. Called me a foolish child."
"That was mean."
"Well, I was!" Morrigan's voice took on a sharpness he hadn't heard before. "I risked my life stealing the mirror, and for what? Some stupid trinket that put me in harm's way of the templars and city dwellers? The lesson may have been harsh but it was necessary."
"Necessary? You were a child."
"A foolish child." She glared at him then, but he knew he was not the focus of her anger. "You have no illusions of the innocence of childhood. Not as an apostate living among templars in a city."
Raviathan bit his lips. When he spoke, his voice was softened with regret. "True. It's a lesson I learned early as well."
They shared a look of understanding.
Contemplative, Morrigan turned back to her food, picking at the small flakes of fish left. "Do… do you still wish to learn how to shapeshift?"
Little trace of her earlier conspiratorial eagerness remained. Strange. What changed to make her reluctant to teach him? "Very much so."
Taking a breath as if steeling herself, Morrigan started the lesson. "The key is to understand the animal you wish to become. You need to understand the animal at it's very essence, the soul of the animal."
Raviathan nibbled his lip as he thought. "The soul of the animal. What does that mean? From what I've seen of dogs and cats, no two have been alike."
"I do not speak of personality. I speak of the essence. Even if they looked alike, you would never mistake a cat for a dog, would you?"
"No," Raviathan had to concede, but the prospect of an essential nature escaped him. A cat's slinky hunt remained distinct from Venger's aggressive charge. If he thought about their differences, he could name many more, but the contrast of essence eluded him. "Could I learn to be a qunari then?"
Morrigan chuckled, relaxing at the question. "No. Not human or dwarf, either. You have noticed that when I shift, I still retain my yellow eyes? Tis most unusual for a raven, is it not?"
"Yes, I have. So this can't be used to make cosmetic changes?"
"What I become is still who I am, what I am. What we are in this form we carry with us, always. If one is slender or muscled, it will be the same for their animal self. If you were to turn into a raccoon, for instance, you would be a bit smaller, more slender, and have darker fur. If Leliana could learn this magic, her raccoon self would have reddish fur."
"Huh. But I can't use that same ability to turn into a qunari?"
"What is this fixation you have on qunari?" She laughed. "No matter, but no. What is the soul of a qunari? How is that different from an elf? Personality is distinct from biology. Would an elf raised among qunari be any different than his qunari brethren?"
Troubled, Raviathan continued to nibble at the inside of his lip. Sten is so much stronger than I am. Even to himself, Raviathan hated admitting that. Humans thought little of elves, laughed or sneered at them. His kin could never be something as simple as a guard, let alone a soldier. Raviathan felt dirty, smaller on the inside, for wanting to be something else after spending a life rebelling at the limitations humans placed on him.
Casting a hidden glance at Sten, he couldn't help but admire the qunari's muscles, his easy intimidation. No one takes elves seriously. Even in a cage, Sten demanded respect. "So, what you're saying is that we're the same at a soul level?"
"A question for philosophers, I'm sure." Her laugh held an intimacy that warmed her, made her more approachable. "In truth, once you have learned a form, finer distinguishing becomes nigh impossible. Swamp and kit foxes are so alike, the choice of one is what you will be. Once a raven, I cannot be a crow."
"So, if you could become one of the tree leopards here, you couldn't become one of the mountain leopards from the Frostbacks or one of the smaller swamp cats?"
"Timber wolf, snow wolf, or cloud wolf, they are brothers. With cats, they have to be distinctly different, enough that offspring would not be viable."
Well, considering humans and elves could have healthy children together… No! Humans are nothing like my kin. "What could I turn into?"
Morrigan shrugged. "Whatever your heart fancies, provided you have learned to understand the animal you seek to become."
Raviathan grinned. "A giant bird?"
"Like mother? Tis a challenge, to be sure. Creatures that have magic in their blood require greater skill."
"So, no dragons just yet?"
She gave him a sly glance. "Perhaps. One day."