"I will string up Arl Rendon Howe by his entrails," Silfee was saying. The fading daylight cut strange shadows across her face. "Decorate a modest sitting room with his insides. Or perhaps the entry hall to our castle. That way every visitor who arrives will see and know. I will make him pay with every last breath for what he's done to my family."
She had a face like a doll and a voice like honey. There was a long pause from everyone around the campfire save for Edgar's drunken and hiccuped weeping. Their lamb stew had started to grow cold and dusk glistened on the lapping waves of Lake Calenhad. Chester rolled on the shoreline and then relieved himself on one of the boats.
"You speak with such passion," Leliana murmured. Her bowl of stew was to her side and long forgotten to everyone but Chester. "A venom that I have never heard in your voice up until now."
"I just wished we could have saved Mother." Edgar sniffed and rubbed at his face. "Or Oren. I was supposed to teach him how to fight dragons. With our swords of truthiness."
Their newest companion claimed to have been a bard before a Chantry girl. So in an attempt to learn more of her fellow travelers, Leliana would regale them with songs and stories both old and new. She only now asked the same of her friends once they arrived at the docks too late in the day to make the ferry across the lake to the Tower. Hesitant initially, everyone slowly began to open up first with tales of being raised by magical dogs and eventually, with the truth.
"It would seem that everyone has faced insurmountable hardships," Leliana said. Her gaze fell to Nema. "How about you?"
The mage's nose twitched and she stared off at the lake, as if she could see the Tower through all the dark and all the distance. "I was hand-picked by the First Enchanter to be recruited for the Grey Wardens."
The bard leaned forward, to absorb it all, but nothing else followed. Leliana tilted her head to one side. "And?"
"That's all," Nema said.
They stared at each other a moment. Then, without missing a beat, Leliana broke into a smile. "So simple. So straightforward. Much like you."
"I think I'd like to rescind my origins," Alistair declared. He slung his arm over his knee and took a long pull from his mug. "Crime lords and proving grounds, political intrigue and betrayal... it makes being raised by dogs just too mundane."
Chester barked.
"Come now, I never meant that," Alistair snorted. "Anyway, it's true."
The dog cocked his head at the ex-Templar before he curled up at his master's feet.
"Rastaban," Leliana said. "How is it that you came to leave your people?"
The Dalish elf looked away from the others and towards the cold ground. His hands worked mechanically on the blade he was sharpening. "There was a mirror," he said. "And a fool who was told not to touch it. He touched it."
Silfee smirked. "So you touched a mirror, then? Did you break it?"
His light green eyes shot up. "I never said I touched it."
"Well, did you break it?" Silfee pressed.
"Duncan did." His smooth voice was betrayed by the hard set of his jaw. "After I was tainted by the object."
"Tainted?" Her lower lip jutted out as she thought. "Like a disease? Lady Clarabelle was diseased once. Or at least, rumored to be so. All the eligible men treated her ghastly after I told them and refused to court her, which was a shame, because she was quite comely."
It was hard to tell by the harsh glow of the campfire if his face darkened. His voice kept perfectly smooth. "One day your hair will go gray and your skin will sag and yet your outward appearance will still pale in comparison to how hideous your soul is."
Silfee laughed.
"I think I'm beginning to like this one," Alistair muttered at Frannie. The dwarf just sighed and shook her head.
"Okay, well, this wasn't the path I had anticipated the evening would take..." Leliana scanned the group surrounding the fire. "Faeron! You've been awfully quiet tonight. Will you tell us how you arrived at Ostagar with Duncan?"
Faeron stirred from the mug of ale he was contemplating. He pressed his beard down with one hand and looked over at Frannie. Shadows danced in the deep furrows of his brow as she shrugged back at his silent plea.
"There's nothing to tell," he said finally.
"We're among friends, yes..?" Leliana began.
"I grew up in the Alienage in Denerim," Adele said suddenly. The words came out in an airy gasp and she looked nearly as shocked as everyone else that she said anything at all. "And I know it's bad there and I know everyone acts like they've rescued me from it, but it was my home. I'm... I mean... it was home."
"I hear city elves behave like cattle," Silfee mused.
"I hear Dalish elves poop in the woods," Edgar replied.
Adele wrung her hands and continued. "It was just me and my father, Cyrion and--"
"Your mother left you both?" Silfee asked.
Adele gaped. "Excuse me?"
Silfee waved a hand. "It was just you and your father. You didn't just spawn from a cabbage patch, you must have had a mother, sometime. Did she abandon you both?"
"That was really rude," Frannie cut in over Adele's stammering.
"I just wanted more information," Silfee said. "We are trying to learn about each other, after all."
"Will you just let her tell her story?" Frannie snapped.
Silfee rolled her eyes and started to play with her hair.
"Dead," Adele said. Her cheeks had flushed a deep scarlet as she stared at her fidgeting fingers. "Mother was always very outspoken. I suppose she just... spoke a little too much for the city guards' liking one day. That was years ago."
"I've always heard the Alienage was a rough place," Alistair said. "No child deserves to grow up there."
Adele shrugged. "I did."
"Like Dust Town?" Frannie asked.
"I suppose," Alistair replied.
Silfee yawned and patted down Chester's side. He gave a soft whine as she pushed him onto his side and snuggled into his belly like a makeshift pillow.
"My cousin, Soris, and I were supposed to get married." Adele paused and then her eyes shot open wide and the tips of her ears turned red. "Not to each other, I mean! Just that, well, the weddings were supposed to happen side by side on the same day."
Alistair chuckled. "Oh? I didn't know you were spoken for."
"I am." Her hand jerked up stiffly and she waggled her ring finger. The crude little band barely glinted before her hand shot back down to her side. "Well, sort of. Before we could exchange vows the men came and then... I..." With all eyes on her, Adele's shoulders slumped. "Duncan conscripted me to save me from execution," she finished quietly.
"I don't understand," Leliana said.
"Right," Alistair drawled. "Now, I've been told that marriage will make you want to kill yourself, but I never heard that the wedding itself was grounds for execution."
"Well, I..." Adele became fascinated with her knees. "It was a mistake to bring it up, is all. I'm sorry."
"Oh, what? Is it because we're not interested enough?" Silfee closed her eyes and idly stroked a hand against Chester's flank. "I've shown you mine; now you show me yours, that's the way it goes, isn't it? Just get on with it."
"I just..." Adele pressed her lips into a thin line and forced herself to look up. "I did a bad thing to help good people, I guess. I didn't want to, but Vaughan, he... I just, well... I don't think there was any other way."
"I knew a Bann Vaughan," Silfee said, stifling another yawn with the back of her hand. "He came onto me and I would have none of it."
"Oh, he did not," Edgar slurred as he slumped over into the dirt next to Chester.
"He did so," Silfee insisted. "The Arl of Denerim's son, Vaughan. It was five years back during the king's coronation, so that made us what? Fourteen? Fifteen? Anyway, he was telling me how beautiful I was and how he'd like to get to know me privately. I slid up close to him, gripped his codpiece as hard as I could with one hand and suggested that he drop some coin on a whore because no sensible woman would ever bother with his company."
Edgar laughed and raised a finger at nothing in particular. "And then you slept with his cousin, Arl of--"
"Hush, Edgar."
Adele had returned to her original quiet. Frannie pushed herself up off the ground and went to the elf. "Come on," she said. "Let's get you to your tent."
Adele nodded and allowed the other woman to help her to her feet. As they walked past the their friends on the way to the tent, Faeron caught Frannie by her wrist. Being little more than brown eyes obscured by hair and beard in the darkness it was hard to tell his exact thoughts as he regarded her.
"Thank you," Faeron said. "For staying silent. You didn't have to."
"It was your story to tell," Frannie replied. "Your Majesty."
His grip on her wrist tightened. "Please. Don't call me that anymore."
Frannie nodded. "It's time for bed." She gently tugged her arm away from him and placed her hands on Adele's shoulders. Adele let Frannie guide her to her tent and both women settled down on their bedrolls and bid each other goodnight.