AN: This chapter contains a torture scene – while it happens as a backdrop and is far from graphic, it may still be a sensitive topic.
On a much more light-hearted note: I dedicate the archery portion of this chapter to my fabulous beta CJK and the impatient people in the IRC channel – you know who you are.
On the first day after the attack, they rest.
In the bitter cold and still distant whisper of winter drawing nearer, they rest even though there is very little in their behaviour that resemble it. To keep warm and to manage their thoughts and worries and guilt, they prepare for departure and oncoming storms alike; their supplies tended to and their weapons in perfect shape as the hours slowly bleed into each other.
The Wardens scout for darkspawn, the knights and soldiers search for human intruders and Elissa, tucking the role as Commander around her like an extra shield, spits orders and swallows her own insults. When in the growing twilight she can barely remember her own boundaries, stumbling between fury and manners and almost shouts at an undeserving Hawise, Loghain pulls her aside.
That night, as the stars appear all around them and their breaths become visible in the air, Loghain – stern-faced and taciturn almost as if he senses she wants it no other way - practises archery with Elissa until her fingers feel calloused and raw but her throat less tight, her lungs willing to breathe in and out.
They work hard.
She aims for the branches right underneath the heavy crown of the tree, here in the outskirts of the forest where the voices coming from the others are thin as shadows and mist. She aims for the branches and fires at the stones, far into the copse at their left.
"Sod this." Tossing the bow to the ground she goes to pick up the arrows. "My mother would be so disappointed her only daughter shoots like an Orlesian wallflower."
In truth, Elissa is somewhat ashamed she never allowed herself the brief moment of obedience it would have required to agree to the tutoring her mother had wished. It had been one of those things Elissa refused out of sheer ill will, suggested during a period of time when her mother would find a hundred ways of improving her daughter, moulding her into a Future Wife, and Elissa had carried those in her body like pathetic insults, as though her mother did not mean well. She feels a fool for it, now. And even so, she has always preferred swords, never had the mind or the careful temperament suited for hunting and no king or rebel that she knew of as a girl had used a bow. Banishing the thoughts of Highever altogether, she squats down to wedge the head of her second arrow out of the roots of a large oak.
When she returns, Dog in tow, carrying the arrows like trophies, Loghain has picked up the discarded weapon.
"You hold it like it's a sword," he comments evenly; she has never seen patience in him before, and likely this isn't as much patience as it is a desire to not have his commander go berserk in camp that guides his actions, but he is calm, nonetheless.
"No, I hold it like it's a bow." She observes as he takes hold of it, making it seem to fit perfectly into his grip, motions fluid and the bow a body part rather than an enemy. Searching her mind for images of him – or of The Hero of River Dane – without that longsword and his shield, Elissa frowns.
"Like this," he walks up to her and places the bow in her hand waiting for her to get it into the correct position. Elissa sighs. "No, higher up. Yes. There. And you have to stretch it farther than that."
She does as she is told, her bow arm reaching out as much as she can force it to, without straining her shoulder; Loghain steps behind her, she can feel his breath against the bare skin on her neck, the puffs of his exhaling being the warmest thing in the entire forest. Shivering slightly, she looks straight ahead, into the still visible branches lit up by the moon and stars. She will place this sodding arrow exactly where she can see the thick wood diverge into smaller fractions, resembling human hands in the dusk.
"Point the bow to the ground," Loghain says, putting more pressure to her bow arm until she has followed the instruction. "And then load it."
Elissa reaches for an arrow, the cold making her fingers tremble slightly around its shaft. As she is placing it against the string, he puts one hand over hers and adjusts her fingers somewhat. A flick of his thumb over the joins of her fingers and the shaft falls into place.
"Hold the string and the arrow between – no, you must have a lighter hand around the shaft."
And she can't help but smile at that, biting her lower lip not to chuckle. The weight of the world on her shoulders and so much she doesn't allow herself to even think about but for some reason this trite innuendo tickles at her defences.
"Are you not a bit too old to be that juvenile?" Loghain asks, dryly, in a tone shaped by thirty years in the company of young soldiers, no doubt.
"Of course I am." She flashes another half-smile his way. "Is this better, then?"
He inspects her hand again and nods. As she begins to draw, he is there once more, pushing her hand up further.
"You should take aim from here," he says, placing the side of her thumb against the corner of her mouth. "Do you see your target well?"
"Yes," she says, careful not to move her head in the least. "Did I relax the drawing arm too much last time?"
She feels Loghain nod; he stands so near that he aims with her and as she gets ready to release, his hand on the back of her cloak urges her to straighten up.
"When you release, you must not let the drawing arm slack." He pauses, waiting for her to prepare for the shot. "Fire; then let your back bear the brunt of it."
Leaning back a little into the palm of his hand that suggests the stance for her, Elissa fires.
The arrow flies gracefully up into the sky and brushes against the crown of the tree before falling into the unknown dark shrubbery behind it. Her second goes into the tree, a bit further to the right than she had expected, but still into the bark of the tree rather than somewhere else. The third arrow misses its mark; the fourth wedges itself in right in the middle of the diverging branches, which she counts as a success.
"Better," Loghain agrees.
They both wait as Dog sets off, eager to collect the spoils of their practice session. Elissa suspects he will do it with more drool and less finesse than one could wish for, but she has no particular desire to walk around the forest aimlessly looking for arrows, so any help is appreciated.
"Did you learn archery as a boy?" She glances sideways at Loghain who inspects the bow, tightening the string that she adjusted previously.
"I did."
"Did you help you father hunt?" Elissa puts the back of her hands in front of her mouth and lets the hot breath cover them, momentarily, with a moist warmth. "At the farm?"
"No," Loghain answers, handing her the bow.
He isn't going to say anything else, she knows, shaking her head a little.
It would be tempting to say he is merely a man who doesn't communicate, but that is not the truth. At times he is almost eager to talk, or at least willing to offer explanations or elaborate on his thoughts; over the past few months they have spoken at length, more than once. Yet there are clearly defined lines around him, around his words and what he shares, a wall separating one thing from another. It seems, at times, as though his body is only half-inhabited. She hears a dissonance in him, like the clash of two weapons and perhaps it is the silences he keeps – she has always been too curious for her own good - but they linger in her, all those pieces that do not obediently fall into place.
The feel of the bow is beginning to resemble a muscle memory now, Elissa notices as she holds it again. She knows where it goes, where it fits.
"Okay," she looks over her shoulder at Loghain, assuming the stance he showed her. "This is correct, is it not?"
"Yes," he confirms. "That looks good."
They practice until Elissa can barely see anything and her hands are so stiff she has to warm them up against her stomach underneath the shirt and cloak; she aims and fails and occasionally she hits the right spot, which sends a flush of deep-rooted pleasure inside her. It is not met with much praise, because it is still not very good and Loghain isn't a man who lies unless he has a good reason, which means that save a few muttered curses and a handful of exasperated remarks, they speak very little.
And if he sometimes notices how her composure melts around the edges and she has to take a few steps away from him, concentrating hard on breathing without falling apart, he gracefully lets it pass.
"I must say that I prefer swords," she concludes when they make their way back to the others.
"Of course you do," Loghain responds and she can see the suggestion of a stiff smile hidden somewhere in the controlled expression on his face. "You know how to use those already."
"Thank you for the lesson, all the same." Tucking her hands into her sleeves, she stifles a yawn. Sedative potions do little for her when Fergus lies a few feet away, balancing on that edge between – no. Elissa bites down, hard, as if trying to pause the rest of that thought. "Perhaps we can continue it another day?"
The question – or statement, truly, since she is the commander after all – receives no answer but falls swiftly to the ground among their steps, the soft thuds of boots and paws. Then Loghain looks at her, almost reluctantly.
"My father taught me to use a bow," he says, after a moment's hesitation. "He served in the rebel army before I was born. Before he married my mother."
Then he quickens his pace, obviously considering his duty done and expressing it in such a way that it leaves Elissa with a strange impulse to thank him for it, but since that would be utterly foolish, she, too, begins to walk faster.
.
~*~
.
On the second day after the attack, Zevran pulls himself out of the Fade and back into the world of the living and Elissa feels lighter as she visits him that afternoon, exchanges a few unimportant phrases just to make certain that he is, in fact, not dead. He is still very tired, Shirei explains, almost dragging Elissa away.
But he lives.
The following day she is allowed to speak to him again, without a nagging chaperone this time.
"Ah, my deadly mistress," he greets her in one of the many irritating ways he has of putting a spin on anything that may or may not have passed between them in the past. Bargaining with truth and flat-out lying, he had told her once, are fine Antivan pastimes. She doesn't know why it springs to mind now.
"Zevran," Elissa says simply.
In the paling light of late autumn and surrounded by flickers and shades of the fires they burn day and night, he looks too ghostly for smiles, so Elissa sits down beside him, cross-legged and serious.
"You saved my life." She lays her hands on the blanket that covers him, looking at him and frowning at the uneasy expression in his eyes. He shifts underneath her, as much as he can, struggling to find his usual ground, it seems. "I thought you were..."
She had thought he was dead.
She had watched him in the corner of her eye, leaping into her vision as a poisoned dagger flew towards her across the battle-filled skies and the next time she saw him he was barely breathing, venom flushing his face and emptying his eyes and Elissa had knelt beside him, mourning the loss of a friend.
It feels too cheap saying she is grateful for his survival, the word is too small for the depths of it. Especially now when the people she can count as friends are scattered all over Thedas.
Elissa removes her hands and looks away, granting him the scraps of dignity still left. She has fought with Zevran for over a year now and only rarely has he required bed-rest or much healing at all; in the beginning she read his unscathed appearance after battle as a sign that he did not dedicate himself very hard, later she understood his mastery of the fine art of evading damage – and made him teach her, of course.
"I said I was your man without reservations, no? I honour my promises. Well, usually."
"Still, what you did...I had not expected or demanded that, Zevran," she says, feeling the weight of this embarrass them both. It is nothing remarkable, after all. They are soldiers. Warriors. They have done this a thousand times over and the only thing that is different now is Elissa. Elissa who is tired of being saved. Elissa who is weary and heart-broken and sick to death of demanding the impossible, of forging wills and collecting weapons in the shape of living bodies.
Zevran looks more at ease sitting up, even if the bandages covering his chest appear strained and possibly painful in this position. She's struck by a wave of guilt for this, for him and for everything else and Zevran apparently reads it in her face because he attempts a coy smile.
"Ah, but surely there is no need for this maudlin gratefulness, my dear Warden." His hand finds her arm, briefly. "It does not become you."
"No," she agrees, sucking in a deep breath as the reminders of the past few days return to her, clawing at the surface of her mind. Sometimes, for short moments when she is occupied with commanding or practice or when Loghain forces her to sit down in front of a map, she can forget. Then it – all of it, the stings and burns of seeing it all over again, of sitting by Fergus' side without hearing him breathe even though Shirei reassures her he does, still – overwhelms her. "No, it doesn't."
"What is it?" Zevran asks, searching for her gaze.
"My brother." Elissa bites off the words, closing herself around the pain like a fist. "He... he still hasn't woken up since... It has been three days. We managed to capture prisoners, but they... ah, they will not talk."
Anything beyond that explanation is redundant. They both know this: the longer one sleeps after injuries, the worse it gets. Sometimes, Elissa knows, you don't wake up at all but wander the Fade for all eternity while trapped in your wounded body. That is how ghosts are born, lass. Her aunt Wilfrida would lower her voice sometimes, speak of it like a secret between her and Elissa and tell her that when people died in this fashion, body and soul apart from each other, it made such a rift in time that ghosts rose from the earth; it was a secret tasting of Highever summers and a lump in her throat made of thrill and fear as she climbed out of the castle to watch the fog sweep in from the lake. And the disappointment when, hours later, Nan wrapped her in blankets in front of the fireplace, her sighs even heavier than usual. Searching for ghosts in this weather!
They both know this, too: she is a commander and he, regardless of how much he might wish otherwise, is an assassin skilled at inflicting pain, with little regard for souls. She tells herself she has never promised a release from that.
And Zevran nods, asking nothing else.
.
~*~
.
The fourth day after the attack, the Grey Wardens - forming a short, taut line of silent observers - watch Zevran's first encounter with the prisoner. Elissa's order to have him tortured has met a few objections, but she buries the thoughts of what this implies under the steadily growing dread at watching Fergus' unnaturally quiet sleep, thinking she can worry about this later, if at all.
Huddled together, shivering with cold and anxiety, they stand there, watching the initially silent scene forming around the tents and fires. Zevran – all silky drawls and throaty laughs and deadly blades – towering over the dark-haired man who has closed his eyes to the torment. They both perform, tossed into the game from opposite sides and playing this game until death frees them.
Elissa stands between Loghain and Shirei, her head strangely empty of thoughts. The mage beside her seems more restless, fretting about and allowing her gaze to wander rapidly from one face to the next, eager to ask questions but catching hold of her curiosity in time. Half-way into a frustrated comment, Elissa notices that the man being subjected to Zevran's interrogation has started to talk, if only in grunts and pants.
She walks up to them.
"Did he say something?" she asks Zevran who nods, still smiling his forcedly sweet smile to the prisoner. With a pang of something even stronger than guilt, Elissa observes the clots of blood in the man's hair, the infected wounds along his cheeks and the way he holds his arm, suggesting a fracture in its bones. None of these injuries are made by Zevran's hands – in fact, she can imagine he would regard them as brutal and crude – but by herself and the soldiers, days ago.
"He pleaded for mercy."
Elissa squats down in front of the man. He lifts his head enough to meet her eyes; there is a stench of death, she has learned this year, a stench of decay and corruption sliding into the body even before death has claimed it and this man carries it like a triumph as he looks into her eyes. He will die. He possesses all the power. What can she offer a man who is already marked?
The disappointment overwhelms her – the answers not yet offered already escaping her clenched fists, the blunt nails she drives into her own palms and when the man notices, he smiles a little. Something clicks in her mind at that, a tear at something delicate or the rests of it, reminding her of someone she used to be. Furious, she rips the shreds of memory apart entirely.
"Do whatever you have to do, Zevran," she says, getting to her feet again. "Wear him down."
"Yes, Commander," Zevran says, without hesitation but with a glint of emptiness in his eyes that doesn't leave her alone as she crosses the field and returns to her fellow Wardens.
And then they watch.
Elissa cannot tell how long they stand there, walk around to keep from freezing, speak in low voices about other matters while always keeping one eye on the macabre play. Eventually Zevran calls for her again, with a wave of his hand.
The man, at the moment propped up on his hands on all fours on the ground, has given up. Everything about him: his shape, the damp tufts of hair, the stains of tears in his face, the broken body and the cracked voice that comes out with great effort, tell her that much. When she bends down, she notices both Loghain and Jenner have followed her. Loghain stands with his legs apart and his arms folded over his chest, glaring down like he is waiting for a pupil to recite his homework; the other Warden has a way of looking at everyone like they are insects, and this is no exception to that rule.
"So," she says to the prisoner, bracing her own voice. "Talk."
"There's a... bounty on the teyrn's head," he says, his breaths raspy and shallow. She wonders briefly what Zevran has done to him but knows that she will never ask.
"On Fergus' head?"
"I rather think he means my head," Loghain says from behind her.
"Yes...the b-banns..." he pauses and coughs for a long time, spitting blood on the ground beneath her when he is done. "...he's worth a lot of gold."
"Ah, that might be something to consider then." Jenner's drawl is icy. "Should we run out of resources."
Elissa turns her head to give him a glare, but instead her gaze falls on Loghain, still standing firmly in the same position but avoiding her eyes, which resounds dully in her. She turns back to the prisoner. He has placed his head on the ground now, hissing noises slipping out of him instead of words. She allows him a short rest.
"Who, specifically, sent you?" she asks eventually. "And the bandits, did you meet them along the way?"
"Yes." The man attempts a nod. "They... were bought men. I... was hired by Bann... Telmen."
She knows very little of Telmen beyond the encounter she had with his men, many months ago. Loghain's troops were sent to seize his land as a move in the civil war, which hardly seems like enough motivation for risking a public scandal involving assassins.
"Telmen?" Loghain asks, forestalling her. "Either that is a bold lie or Telmen is in collusion with someone else."
"Someone with even more reason to decorate their estate with your head, you mean?" Jenner comments, hands on hips. "Andraste's arse, remind me again why this man is travelling with us, Commander?"
"This is certainly not your concern, Jenner," Elissa snaps. "Why don't you go help with the supper instead?"
The Orlesian rolls his eyes at her but obeys with a curt nod.
"Which is it?" Loghain squats beside them, picking up his thread from before. "Are you lying or are did your orders come from Talmen himself?"
"Do you have proof of either?" Elissa already guesses the answer to that, but asks anyway.
"I have this." The man stretches out a shaking hand towards her, its dirty palm containing a large medallion that appears to be made out of bronze or gold, covered in so much grit and blood it is impossible to tell what the figures and letters underneath are meant to depict.
"And this is?"
"I... stole it... f-from Telmen."
Elissa takes the item between two fingers, holding it up in a feeble attempt at interpreting it better that way. Then she hands it over to Loghain and turns her attention back to the prisoner. Behind them she can see the rigid contours of Zevran's back as he leaves them.
"Is there anything else you can tell me?"
"N-nothing."
"Nothing," she repeats; this time it is barely a question.
He is quiet for some time, appearing to struggle to force air into his lungs. And his face, when he turns to Elissa once more, is not a man's but a ghost's.
"Show... mercy," he says. "Please."
Loghain looks at her, his gaze searching, and Elissa nods, not at him but at the prisoner.
And draws her sword.
Her blade sinks into the flesh with ease, a muscle memory she has certainly never asked for, and she even hits the right spot immediately; she can tell by the way his body convulses under her hands, how he shudders against the steel as his heart is severed and his life force cut off.
Mercy.
.
~*~
.
That night is remarkably quiet.
All the sounds of camp - and campsites have them, in abundance - are muffled, on hold.
Walking with Dog around the outskirts of the forest for as long as she can, Elissa slowly makes her way back to the centre of camp where her brother still sleeps. He is so still, already mirroring the final arrangement of his body in a way that makes her run out of breath. She leans over him to place a kiss on his forehead.
For the first three nights she had been by his side, unperturbed by her own needs. But tonight she finds herself unable to stay, a stirring worry in her own body dragging her away, or him away from her. It feels a bit lonely; Fergus has offered a company of sorts.
Zevran is nowhere to be found, she realises, walking in circles among these people who are sworn to her but look at her with doubt tonight. And part of her is quite grateful for being given the respite; she will have to talk to Zevran soon, but not now.
She finds Loghain, however. Or rather – Dog finds him in the northern corner of their camp area where he and Cauthrien stay. He had withdrawn after supper, like he usually does, except tonight he has kept out of sight entirely, probably foraying the edges of the forest for wood or merely stayed invisible, she is uncertain of which.
He seems as tired as she is, slumped on one of the logs around the fire.
"Here," Elissa says, holding a goblet of piping hot cider in her right hand. "The soldiers on kitchen duty decided we need something warm; it is said to get even colder tonight."
He looks at her in silence for a moment before accepting the offering. Squinting a bit at the sudden reflection of flames in the bright surface of the goblet, Elissa observes him. It's odd. Of all the things she has come to accept as unmoveable pillars of fate and grim reality since she left Highever, and of all the things she has seen and done, it goes against common sense to fault him for this. It's as useless as blaming the weather or sodding Andraste because it serves no purpose, holds no other meaning than this desperate, confused pain.
And she blames him still. It's meaningless and pathetic and he ought to snarl at her and tell her she is making a mockery of herself, but he doesn't.
"It seems the amulet was indeed stolen from Telmen," he says. "It was signed with his family crest."
"You had a chance to examine it?" She picks up her own cider from the ground, cradling it in her hands to snatch some warmth. "So at least we know Telmen was involved."
"Yes, or that the assassin happened to rob the poor bastard anywhere else in Ferelden." Loghain raises his goblet to drink. "It proves very little."
Elissa looks down into the cup in her own hands, nodding. "It does."
"They have a point." He says it without altering his voice at all, the words falling out of his mouth like they indicate nothing. "The Orlesians. Travelling with me is hardly strategically sound."
"Of course they have a point." She shrugs. "What of it?"
Over the course of the day, the slight wind from this morning has increased, whipping up a storm resembling the sting of a thousand needles on any exposed skin. Elissa sinks into her cloak even further, her fingers tingling with the faint warmth from the goblet.
"It's not like the Landsmeet has been a secret until now," she elaborates, thinking her tone sounds strangely harsh. "This is not unexpected. It could just as well have been a political coup that did us in; someone aiming for my... for the teyrnir."
Loghain's quiet but unmistakably cold sound of scepticism makes her stomach churn a bit. "Don't be a fool."
"Don't be an arse."
"Have you considered continuing the journey?" he asks, stubbornly proceeding with the strategy. It almost makes her laugh that she has expected something else than this tonight, when he has never given it before. And why would he? Elissa grits her teeth. "We are expecting snow in a few days."
"My brother is dying for all we know-"
"Winter is coming," he cuts her off. "Would you rather have us all freeze to death before we can reach an inn?"
"We are Fereldans," she retorts, angrier now. "If we wait a few more days there might be snow, yes. But we won't be unable to reach Highver for a little snow on the ground."
Loghain sighs dramatically, the way he does when he thinks she is being idiotic or unreasonable. "At any rate I have already seen to the possibility of using the wagon. While I would strongly advise against it, given your brother's condition-"
"So, if you think we ought to move but strongly advise against travelling with a man as ill as my brother," Elissa interrupts him, not because she can't imagine the rest of the reasoning, but because she can't stand the thought of him saying it. "What do you propose then? Leave him to the wolves?"
"I was not suggesting that," he says, quietly.
"He's my brother, Loghain." Her voice has started to betray her, she notices, it shudders around the words. "Don't act like he's just another casualty, or like you expect me to see him that way! I'm not... I can't."
"Regardless of your feelings-"
"No," she interrupts and this time it is a command, driven deep into the ground between them. "Not tonight."
Neither of them speak for several minutes, perhaps longer than that. As Elissa picks up their empty cups from the ground, Loghain catches her gaze, very briefly.
"So what will your orders be, Commander?"
"Make sure we have a sound plan for moving across Dragon's Peak," she says. "If you think walking around it is safer or more convenient, we will. But I decide when we travel."
He nods. She gets to her feet, calling for her dog but pausing in the middle of the act since the mabari is snoring, wrapped over Loghain's feet like a blanket. Then she snaps her fingers and adds a soft whistle to stir the animal who looks up at her, dazed but hurrying to her side.
"Elissa?" Loghain calls out as she is leaving.
Her name still feels unfamiliar to her when spoken in his voice, enough for her to freeze in her step, and she comes to a halt, glancing back at him. There is a slight pause while he appears to be about to say something, looking as though words are already forming at the back of his tongue but he is still silent when she turns around again to walk away.