It's not that she's sentimental.
Looking up momentarily from the enormous pile of debris on display all over the floor as well as on her bed, Elissa decides that she definitely is not sentimental. But for over a year now she – and later all of her companions – have gathered weapons, gold, treasures and various inexplicable items all across Ferelden and letting go of them is, she learns, more difficult than expected. She had held on to everything after Ostagar, driving Alistair mad with the stuffed packs that did, however, land them with enough gold after a while to never have to worry about the costs for allowing the most skilled smiths in Denerim repair their armour and weapons.
Here, in her brother's estate, it feels less important.
She has already sold everything that is valuable enough, putting the money away for the Order. What is left is an assorted heap of things that carry no apparent usefulness to anyone, save perhaps a scholar of history who would like to write a book on how the Hero of Ferelden beat the Archdemon and lived. Grimacing at the mere thought, Elissa reaches for a mouldy tome – The Rose of Orlais – wondering where on earth she found that in the first place and why it's still doing in her possession. It's definitely one for the Throw Away pile in the corner.
The noise of the book landing on a pair of gauntlets in a decidedly questionable shape masks the sound of a servant arriving with a guest in tow. And then, just as Elissa uses her tunic to wipe something unrecognizeable and dried-in from the hilt of a dagger she can't remember having seen before, she turns around to meet the Queen of Ferelden.
"My lady," the servant girl curtseys.
"Warden," Anora says, holding out her hand in a greeting.
Elissa quickly gets to her feet, rubbing her palms against her trousers. She feels a bit like a child caught in the act, a child with dirty clothing and stained hands betraying any fanciful lie she might have constructed to hide her doings. It doesn't improve matters that the visitor in question is arguably the most imposing sight in Ferelden.
"Your Majesty," she clasps the outstretched hand as briefly and gently as she can without being downright impolite. There's an amused glint in Anora's eyes. "Is everything as it should be? I was not aware we were having visitors today."
"Oh, I apologise, Warden. I was invited by your brother, on rather short notice. We spoke last night at the Palace."
"Ah, I see."
"You are packing," the Queen observes, looking around. "I came to tell your brother that I will personally see to your supply of food and other necessities before departure tomorrow morning."
"Thank you, Your Majesty."
Elissa gestures towards the only chair in the room that doesn't currently suffer under the weight of her unpacked belongings, but Anora shakes her head, waving her hand dismissively.
"I will not disturb you for very long." She pauses. "I wanted to thank you, on my father's behalf. I suspect he has not done so himself?"
"No, not exactly. Though there is little reason he should."
There's a private little smile on the Queen's lips at Elissa's answer, a knowing look in her eyes. She's a daughter, Elissa realises; she is a powerful monarch and a cunning politician and beneath it all she is a daughter who wants to protect the man who is her father. She has taken the risk of angering the Orlesian Wardens over the past weeks, a risk of disrupting the non-political nature of the order, interfering on Loghain's behalf. Elissa wonders if she feels guilt for the turmoil at the Landsmeet. For all her own political mind – that her mother would both curse and praise, often at the same time - she is uncertain if she could have endangered her own parents, had they been alive. But then again, she reminds herself, she was never in a situation quite as desperate as the one mere months ago.
She observes the Queen, who returns her gaze.
"Regardless, I wish to let you know that I am very grateful that you have allowed my father a second chance to be the man I remember," she says.
Elissa puts a discarded crossbow on the Throw Away pile. "There were very few altruistic motives behind it, I'm afraid."
"Oh, of course, Warden." Anora smiles briefly. "Even so, you looked past his crimes and showed him mercy."
"I...yes." Elissa remembers the conversations they've had on the topic, remembers the last one: your mercy is to leave me in the fire. She glances at the floor, as though the mess there holds answers yet unknown to her. To them all. "He will be a strong asset in the years to come."
"It might do him good to have a cause," Anora adds. "My father is an idealist. Even if you most likely cannot believe me."
Not knowing what to say, Elissa persists in her smiling. And her guest seems to consider the quick meeting over because she moves to the door, after pressing Elissa's hand once more.
"I do hope that it will not be a lengthened stay in Orlais," she says. "Unfortunately it does not lie with me to decide."
"I will do my best, Your Majesty."
"Oh, I have no doubt about that."
There's a note in the air after the Queen has left. A tone, a low but persuasive touch of something Elissa can't discern. Perhaps it's worry, she thinks, as she looks at her packs and once again is struck by the realisation that she will be leaving Ferelden for Orlais within weeks. That she, who has never once been outside her nation's borders will, in all things but the exact title, be serving as a diplomat in a foreign court. Her father would be proud. Her mother would have that furrowed brow she wore for most the the last year of her life, her voice calm but her words carrying a scent of masked doubt.
Sighing, Elissa decides that she sooner she will finish this, the sooner she can find some more pleasurable distraction in her brother's home.
.
~*~
.
That same evening, they say their goodbyes.
There is more to it than she expected, removing the others from her heart, releasing them from her back and her mind. Oghren who has left the city to go find the woman Elissa reluctantly had helped him track down, once. Sten who has sailed, long ago now and she expects no letters. Shale whose freedom of mind still is a big uncertainty because what does one do with a mind that is free to live when the shell is only built for death. Wynne who will stay in Denerim, made advisor to King Alistair himself. Zevran who has offered to be her personal assassin, which sounds absolutely bloody ridiculous until she thinks about Orlesians and Orlesian court and a language she only barely grasps even after hour upon hour of tutoring in Highever. You must learn the language of the oppressors, child, her tutor would say, making it sound like a threat. She is glad Zevran is coming with her.
But they will never again be travelling together, all of them, and time will quietly erase them all. It's an odd feeling. She has no room for it so it strays, jarringly, in her thoughts and around the rooms in the soon to be emptied estate.
Leliana is the last one to offer her farewells and she does so in private.
"Now we part ways, my Warden," she says, her voice quiet.
"We do," Elissa agrees, wondering when she let Leliana in like that, granting her the power to make Elissa feel transparent.
"I will miss you."
"You... could come?" she offers. It is, she realises, the first time she has even asked and Leliana knows that, of course, because she smiles wistfully.
"No, I couldn't." And she couldn't, and it is not because of the expedition Leliana will lead, not because of Andraste's holy ashes or the temple that needs to be excavated and handled properly and Elissa knows that, even if she has never known what to call this, the fluttering, shifting thing between them.
Then Leliana kisses her - properly on the mouth, her fingers buried in Elissa's hair, her tongue parting Elissa's lips; the taste of her is thick and sweet like honey and ale behind momentarily closed eyes - and it's a goodbye, in every sense of the word.
Later, when Elissa is alone again and upstairs, the room slides a bit before her, the moonlit surfaces and the unfamiliar shapes of her packs becoming slippery as glass and she doesn't know if she is sad to go or thankful to be leaving.
But home, she has learned, is not a place. Home is a reason.
.
~*~
.
Winter is definitely in the air the following morning.
The frosted grass that met them as they first came outside has melted under a bleak winter sun, but it's not warm and Elissa freezes in her winter cloak, unused to the season after a long absence from it. They need to keep to the main roads during their journey, trying to find lodgings along the way. It's going to be many weeks yet before the Waking Sea is frozen over; she tells herself this bit again and again, an echoing prayer like a ghost around her huddled shape in the courtyard.
Since dawn, they have all been up, preparing the final things: swaddling the packs with leftover clothing, loading the wagons to the point of breaking, changing weapons at the last minute. Elissa walks around inspecting what will be their little caravan, consisting of Wardens, knights and a Teyrn who has, although not in her presence, been complaining about the lack of horses and carriages.
They have two wagons, which means four horses and that, Elissa has decided, is well enough. She throws the Highever shield in with the spare armour in passing, making her way across the field to reach the others, ahead of the crowd that has gathered to say goodbye.
The king and queen are both there, as are Eamon and Teagan and - for reasons unknown to Elissa – Ser Cauthrien, wearing a grim expression. Her arms are folded and she stands like Loghain beside her, a striking image of controlled anger directed at a seemingly invisible foe.
"Ah, there you are," Anora says when Elissa is close enough.
"Your Majesties," Elissa greets, carefully smiling at them both, but especially at Alistair who looks at her, his face having softened a bit since last they spoke. It ripples through her for a bit, the hints of that person she used to know, before he was pushed into his throne and started resenting her.
"Commander," he says, nodding. She's half-way into a remark about how nobody has appointed her anything yet, but that's when Cauthrien steps forward.
"At your service, Warden," Cauthrien says, in a tone that suggests, if only ever so subtly, that she isn't feeling entirely servile. She turns to Fergus and bows. "Your Grace."
"Ser Cauthrien has been assigned the mission of accompany you, Warden," the Queen explains gracefully, her gaze fastened on Elissa. "She is, by my orders, temporarily liberated of all other duties and yours to employ as you see fit."
"Oh." Elissa can't hide her surprise.
"A wise choice, Your Majesty," Loghain comments dryly from behind Cauthrien who all but sneers at those words.
"Indeed. I have no reason to be anything than grateful," Fergus cuts in, since Elissa hasn't spoken yet. "Ser Cauthrien, we are honoured to have you."
There's a faintest trace of a smile on Cauthrien's face, Elissa notices, but it vanishes just as quickly as it appeared, and then she slips back to stand among the knights again.
"Fare well," the Queen offers finally, standing beside her King who still is unable to look Elissa in the eyes and smile. She wonders if he even wishes her well.
.
~*~
.
After less than two days on the road, they fall back into routines that are so natural by now that Elissa can't help but feel that it's the last month that has been an anomaly in her life, despite having spent well over twenty years living indoors with proper meals and soft pillows. As soon as they leave most larger settlements behind, she recovers the sense for it, the unspoken language of travelling and, even more urgently, for battle.
When they've approached Dragon's Peak, at the foot of the mountain pass where they will continue walking in the morning, they are slipping back into other habits as well, being attacked by a loud horde of darkspawn. It's a simple enough battle for a group as well accustomed to this particular enemy as they are by now, and they manage without any severe injuries. Elissa still suggests to Fergus that this will be their camp for the night and her brother nods, accepting it without further ado.
"Find leeward spots for the tents and keep the fires burning!" Fergus shouts to his men who are still occupied with tending to their shallow wounds and battered armour. "We rest later!"
Elissa gestures to the knights to assist and soon the burned-down ground around the mountain has transformed into a camp that resembles all other camps she has seen. She unfasten the buckles of her armour as she disarms and then she sits down, for the first time in what feels like forever, beside her brother.
"You look the part," she says, leaning her head in her hands and gazing out over the field of soldiers and tents.
Fergus makes a sound that is stuck half-way between a chuckle and a scoff and very much an exasperated big-brother thing, carrying a scent of childhood.
"I always thought the roles would be reversed," he says eventually, taking off his gauntlets and stretching his fingers in front of him. Elissa remembers how their father, even in his younger years, would complain about pain in his joints sometimes, saying it was a nuisance during the long, cold winters. The thought hits her with a sudden jolt of affection for Fergus.
"Oh, you mean you thought you would slay an Archdemon?" she smiles at him. "Have I showed you the scar today?"
Fergus' own smile is genuine, but tired. He looks like he hasn't slept enough and worried too much and Elissa wants to reach out and stroke him over the messy hair, soothingly, because Fergus is good and kind and she may be several years younger but she has always wanted to protect him against all evil. They are silent together for a while, scrubbing their armour and weapons.
"Father would have made you his heir if mother had allowed it," Fergus says as he puts down his sword on the ground; it's shimmering in the dusk of the early evening that surrounds them now. "And she would have, eventually."
"Perhaps." Elissa feels a throbbing ache in her temples, spreading to her forehead as she squints her eyes to see better. It's getting cold where they are, she looks longingly at the fireplaces ahead of them. "Although that hardly matters now."
"It would have been the better choice," he shrugs, trying to seem careless.
"Now, where did this lack of confidence come from all of a sudden?" Elissa gently bumps her shoulder against his, a gesture mimicking the games he used to entertain her with to make her behave during long hours in the great hall, being well-raised noble children. They would sit side by side, straight-backed and smiling while trying to fell each other from the chairs. She always lost, giggling too hard under her breath to maintain her balance. "You are a Cousland."
"Yeah." Fergus exhales loudly. "I am, I know."
And Elissa nods, for a moment she is too, even if it's only to her brother and only in parts, her name a fractured shadow that will fade bleakly into the family portraits and tapestries full of proud names derived from generations of northern Fereldans. Hers will be a broken line, a gash in time. Something inside her, something unacknowledged and brittle, makes a noise at that.
"Isn't it odd?" he asks, a while later.
"What is?"
"To have him under your command?" he nods towards Loghain who is glowering at the large pots over the fire, stirring in silence while being watched by a handful of bemused soldiers. He is probably convinced they will be poisoned by Orlesians if anyone less cunning than himself gets close to the food, Elissa thinks, feeling a jolt of odd and twisted affection for him, too.
"It's... yes," she admits because this is her brother after all. "But I'm getting used to it. I think. He's... a good man to have on your side."
"I can imagine." Fergus flicks a great deal of dry earth and grass from his breastplate that glitters in the tufts of pale, dying grass in front of them. They have burned this area entirely; whether it's because of darkspawn ruining the land or people ruining the darkspawn is impossible to tell. And the damage is constant regardless of source. "It must be almost like having King Maric fighting at your back."
"Father always spoke highly of Loghain's skills as a general."
"He did," Fergus agrees. "He would also say that the Teyrn of Gwaren was the most frustratingly stubborn, arrogant man he had ever met."
She smiles. "He was correct on both accounts, I think."
"You should get along just fine then," Fergus flashes a toothy grin her way. "Birds of a feather."
"Very funny."
Elissa looks at her general, hunched in front of the fire with the faintly glowing blade by his side. He had been visibly unsettled by the conversation with the Orlesians, far more so than Elissa has ever seen him, and by the time they were gone his temper had grown even hotter, cracked wide open. It was an odd thing, seeing him like that and even odder to find that she worries slightly about it. She worries about her companions, naturally, but there is something else there, reserved for him. It's because he seems to care so little himself, perhaps. Because she fools herself into thinking she can care instead of him, for him.
After the meal – a stew of boar and onions that tastes much better than she expected – they clean up and retreat to their own areas, as far as practicable. Elissa selfishly claims a tent near a fire as her own; Shirei and Hawise put down their packs next to it as well and then the issue of sharing is solved, at least for tonight.
Trying to rub sleep from her dry eyes, Elissa half-runs to catch up with Loghain who is on his way back from the woods, out of his armour and unarmed; he always walks infernally fast, she is by no means ill used to walking, but she struggles to keep neck and neck with him. He turns his head as she calls out his name.
"You will take the first watch with me," she announces. "Ser Damien and Hawise will relieve us."
Loghain nods, and momentarily he looks like he almost fits into the familiar pattern of days and nights exactly like this one. As though nothing has happened in the time between. Everything has, she knows with perfect clarity, everything has changed and not only because they share a secret as dark as the nigh sky.
Elissa hesitates, though not for long, then she lets the tone of her voice shift and become that of a friend. "Am I out of my mind to actually have missed this?"
He looks up, straight at her, and shrugs. "It's a simple enough life."
"It is." They reach the camp again; Loghain stows his pack into the tent he shares with Cauthrien. Elissa sinks down on the logs of wood surrounding the warm, soothing flames and closes her eyes, tilting her head back. Above their heads the stars are out, glowing and breathing their star-breaths, very far away. "I know how to do this."
She can hear the soft thuds of boots and scent the faint trace of darkspawn blood in him that beats in her own body, like a shared pulse, as he sits down opposite her.
"You will learn the rest, too," he says.
"You think so, do you?" Elissa opens her eyes, to see Dog put his head in Loghain's lap, wagging his short tail so fervently he rocks back and forth.
"I know it for a fact."
He does, she supposes.
Shifting her shoulders back and forth, trying to roll the ache away from them after what seems like a permanent state of carrying heavy things, Elissa struggles to find a position that allows her any comfort. She has longed for the road but her body hasn't, apparently. It must be all the idle time spent in proper beds, she thinks, vaguely concerned. Loghain observes her, his gaze flickering between the fire and her face, while scratching Dog behind his ears.
"So, what do you think?" She straightens her back, wishing for something to eat. It usually keeps her spirit up and her desire to sleep under control.
"About what?"
"The Wardens." She stifles a yawn, burying the heels of her boots in the ground and pulling up the cloak of her hood. It shouldn't be possible to feel so tired in this cold.
"Ah." Loghain sighs, as though she's asking him if he likes to have his limbs torn off for pleasure. "They are very Orlesian."
Despite the serious expression in his face, she smiles at that. "My guess is that they think we are very Fereldan."
"Yes, we speak to commoners and women aren't painted as bloody dolls," he retorts, sharply.
Elissa looks into the fire without speaking. She has been raised to hate the Orlesian occupation and, of course, to take pride in its abrupt destruction but that is not the same as having lived through it. It was clear in her parents' eyes sometimes, and it's clear in the way the memory of it burns in Loghain, colours his voice and fills the empty spaces in his language, those cracks between what he says and what he will never admit.
"You have seen how the casteless dwarfs live, I assume," he asks rhetorically when she has been silent for a long time. She nods, still remembering the overwhelming stench of filth and death down there, deep under the surface. "That is how the Orlesians treated Fereldan commoners. Like cattle."
Not for the first time since she was forced out of it, her secluded upbringing in the castle of Highever feels like a disadvantage. She wants to say something, but doesn't know what.
"You said that Orlesian Wardens almost got Maric killed?" she asks eventually, when Loghain's face is calmer and his hands rest against the log, fingers drumming soundlessly against it.
"They did." He sneers.
"How? I don't think I have heard that story." She would have remembered it; even if history tutoring was far from her favourite occupation she drank all the stories of kings and rebel like sweet nectar, tucked it in at the back of her mind, to always keep it at hand, always running her fingers over the narrow paths of truth and make-believe.
And Loghain tells her. In words that would never have been allowed in the castle of Highever and with a voice that shivers softly between bitterness and darkness, he tells her the story of King Maric and Orlais, and the Circle and the few bits she has heard before join the ones he offers until she thinks she understands.
Through the light and the grey smoke from the flames she observes him.
"Thank you," she says, meaning it.
"Yes, that was my cautionary tale of the evening."
Elissa smiles quickly and hesitantly. One never knows with his sarcasm; at times it darts inwardly, pushing deep into what could be self-contempt, at times it lashes out, sparing no one.
"I promise I will not have myself assassinated or Ferelden invaded," she says, only half-joking. "Not if I can help it."
Dog whines loudly at her words and Loghain looks away, a deep wrinkle visible on his forehead, before he fasten his gaze on her again. For a long time they just look at each other, not speaking. There is, however, nothing awkward about the silence. They merely allow time to pass.
Relaxing as it is, sitting there with him and Dog, it does nothing for her exhaustion. Thoughts are running through her brain, wrapping themselves around her and she searches for something to talk about.
"My father once told me of Bann Dunn's youngest," she says eventually, not able to hide her yawn this time. Her cheeks almost creak with the weight of it. "He was headed for the Antivan coast to meet with a merchant, or so he said anyway. But the trade ship he had boarded came with so much Antivan wine that he passed out for several days. When he woke they had already left the harbour and he had to take another ship home from bloody Seheron."
Loghain snorts, his expression softening. "He likely had a few Antivan herbs, too."
"Oh, no doubt." Elissa grins.
"He must be your age?"
"Two years younger." Reclining, she crosses her legs on the uncomfortable log, glancing at her dog who sleeps at Loghain's feet. "Were you at the Landsmeet where he and his mother helped themselves to the Palace's wine cellar and knocked over the statue of Andraste during Arl Eamon's petition for the protection of the fishermen of Redcliffe or some such?"
At this Loghain laughs. It's a brief, low chuckle more than a guffaw but Elissa has never heard him sound amused before, has almost started to consider it an impossibility but he nearly-laughs and she feels like she has solved an ancient mystery or cracked a piece of harshly protected runes; and most of all the sound of it trickles down her spine like a soft, warm rain. And the commonality in a simple conversation like this; those small signs of being familiar with the same world, sharing words and meanings, seemingly insignificant details making her blood sing a tune of quiet satisfaction. She has been unaware of how much she has missed that.
"Of course. It was one of the few Landsmeets worth remembering," Loghain says, "Eamon was sourly upset."
"Well. While I'm making promises, I hereby solemnly promise not to wake up in Seheron." Elissa says, thinking she might be able to keep herself awake until released from duty, after all.
.
~*~
.
Cauthrien is the first thing she sees when she rises the following morning.
Freezing and with bones hollowed by rest and hunger, still trying to shock the sleep out of her body by walking outside in the morning chill, Elissa is met by a largely empty camp where only the second watch and Cauthrien have awoken.
"Morning, Warden."
"Good morning, Ser."
Cauthrien gestures half-heartedly at the assorted food put up on a trunk temporarily serving as a table. There is a stern quality in her that Elissa finds herself drawn to, like she is drawn to the dark, wry humour in Zevran and the uncompromising intelligence in Loghain. Cauthrien fights fiercely, of that Elissa is certain. And she is proud. Whatever took place between the two of them right before Landsmeet upset some sort of scale; she isn't sure if Cauthrien is thankful Elissa listened to her plea or embarrassed that she was forced to plead in the first place. Likely a bit of both.
"The night watch was uneventful?"
Elissa nods. "Very."
"You spent the night tucked in between two Orlesians and lived to tell the tale," Cauthrien says, sounding so much like Loghain it is slightly eerie. "But perhaps that does not count as an event for a Warden."
"So, you will accompany Loghain when he recruits?" Elissa ask to have something mildly polite to say. She fills her plate with more salted meat and grabs a handful of cheese and another two slices of bread to add to the ones she's already helped herself to. Cauthrien looks vaguely disgusted.
"There are others who want to eat," she comments, icily. "And what are you talking about?"
"Recruiting," Elissa repeats. "You will be going with Loghain, no?"
"Hardly," Cauthrien says, shaking her head as well, as if she thinks Elissa is slow to grasp the obvious. "My orders are nothing of the sort."
"But-"
"I am to be your very own nursemaid in Orlais," she clarifies and her voice drops to a point that is below cold, that almost becomes fire.
"The Queen would not... oh, Andraste's flaming sword."
And something clicks darkly in Elissa's head at that. An understanding, framed by the knowledge of how this understanding was reached. She chews furiously at her bread, thinking. The irritation in Cauthrien seems to disappear as she watches the reaction to her revelation; when their eyes meet again it's an almost sympathetic woman who looks at Elissa.
"I am fairly certain the Queen did not think of this plan herself, no," Cauthrien says, downing her goblet of water.
"Oh. Oh. He is the most infuriating-"
Elissa is abruptly interrupted when there is a noise rising from the still-quiet row of tents and carriages ahead of them – a noise of shouted orders and confusion; she can discern Fergus voice among those who screams the loudest and a chill runs along her spine.
"Maker's breath," Cauthrien hisses, throwing her plate on the ground and launching after her sword.
"We're being attacked!" someone barks at them. "The teyrn is badly wounded!"
A/N: As always, many thanks to CJK for beta, handholding and for listening to my babble. All remaining mistakes and plotholes are my own.