AN: Thanks as always to CJK for beta and to you for reading, of course.

CARTOGRAPHY

-PART TWO-

for whatever we lose (like a you or a me)

it is always ourselves that we find in the sea

maggie and milly and molly and may – e.e cummings

The sea smashes at the ship like a warning.

One loud, violent warning rocking them back and forth in its grip for as long as the wave lasts, then grants them a moment's peace. Before it starts over again.

Elissa has quickly come to hate the sea.

The corridors here smell thickly of salt and sweat and the quarters are cramped; Elissa shares one with Cauthrien, having opted for it in the choice between her and Shirei, thinking mostly of comfortable silence versus constant chatter. Not that it matters much, since they are all pressed up against each other in this moving spot, with so little space to themselves that it feels like even their thoughts are being crowded. Elissa would much rather be on the deck, cold and storm be damned, but every time she stands up she is hit by the desire to crawl back under her sheet and die.

It's a winter's storm out there tonight, a frothing, hissing monster beneath the waves that keeps tossing the ship in all directions at once. And she is not even frightened for their safety – there is no need, both Shirei and Zevran assure the Fereldan landlubbers – because she is too preoccupied curling up on her narrow straw pallet and keeping her stomach's content down.

There's very little dignity in being sick as a dog and the only comfort, twisted as it may be, is that she is not alone. By her side, stoic and pale as a ghost, Cauthrien lies, staring at the bucket on the floor as though she could order it to not be needed. Perhaps she can; she seems to be slightly better off than Elissa who is presently as strong and heroic as a washed out blotch on the damp sheet.

"The potion should have effect very soon, if you can just keep it down," Shirei enlightens them, from the small doorway where she stands with a small basket hanging from the crook of her elbow.

"How soon is soon?" Elissa asks, very carefully shifting position. It proves to be a bad idea.

"Just give it a moment."

Cauthrien mutters something inaudible from across the room.

The mage chuckles. "So neither of you have been on a ship before?"

"No. Look, you are a mage. You must know spells-"

"I'm a battlemage, Elissa." She still has the same amused tone, but a slight touch of wounded pride is creeping into it. All mages are sensitive about their specific powers, Elissa remembers, with an inward sigh. Magic seems such a fleeting, irresponsible sort of ally. But she keeps her mouth shut about that. "I know about as much healing magic as you do cooking."

"I hope you do know more about herbalism," Cauthrien sighs. She has pulled the blanket up over her shoulders, almost over her head so the words come out muffled. "No offence, Commander."

"None taken." Elissa dares placing a hand over her stomach, imagining she can feel her insides protest against the soft touch.

"It's a simple decoction of ginger and elfroot; I am certain I have managed it," Shirei says, smiling at them both. "Works for all sorts of nausea. You shall see. But now I think I've outworn my welcome."

Only politeness refrains Elissa from vocally agreeing.

"Why is she always so bloody cheerful?" Cauthrien asks once Shirei has finally granted them the luxury of being alone – and even told Zevran not to come and gloat, Elissa hears from the muffled sounds escaping from the corridor. That's truly for the best; she can't stand the idea of listening to any more of the murderous banter between him and Cauthrien.

"She's Orlesian." Elissa grimaces and loosens her grip of the bucket, hoping it will not jinx the nausea to well up again. "She doesn't know better."

A sound stuck between a snort of amusement and one of irritation fills the small space.

"Are you not supposed to have a code of loyalty and honour amongst yourselves?" Cauthrien asks then, sharply. Ever the dutiful one.

"Oh, indeed." Elissa rolls her eyes. "I barely know these people. They are strangers, darkspawn blood or not. Loyalty should be earned."

"Is that so?" Cauthrien replies but does not press the matter any further.

Checking herself before she has added and they are Orlesian, Elissa stretches out her arms in the air, shaking some life into them after they have spent the whole day curled around her mid-section, as a vastly useless shield. She has started to sound like Loghain, the threads of suspicion and paranoia slithering into her mind effortlessly by now and just like him -

Damn, she thinks, rebuking herself harshly.

She has deliberately not thought about anything in Ferelden for several days. As the ship passed Jader, she had briefly thought about writing to Fergus but decided to postpone it until the prospect of doing so doesn't make her homesick like a pathetic child; she she has not allowed herself to think about Loghain either because that means thinking about all the dangers in Highever and darkspawn and the recruiting and Dog and if she truly had remembered to go over everything with Loghain before she left.

Cauthrien is only here because of him, of course, so his shadow is falling over the pallets and the scantly worded truce, always between them.

Between them, still, is also the Landsmeet.

It's that short, remarkable moment when Cauthrien surrendered, and later the memory of it, turning in Elissa's head. It had seemed like an impulse, a sudden realisation that the battle was lost but Elissa understands now, much later, that it had been happening all year. In fractions and seconds for months, Cauthrien had left Loghain's side, tearing herself away.

Elissa will never forget the image of Cauthrien kneeling, lowering her weapon and kneeling, to finally plead with the ones she was set to defeat. It is almost impossible to imagine this woman begging anyone, no matter the cause. Yet there she had been, doing just that. Elissa still wonders if part of her decision to put Loghain through the Joining was because of Cauthrien's voice, the way it broke around the final betrayal, the way she had visibly fought herself. Tyrants and villains, her father would tell her - speaking of the Orlesians and how they, too, were betrayed by their own in the end - tyrants and villains may inspire fear and loyalty, but they never inspire devotion.

"The Antivan," Cauthrien says suddenly, pulling Elissa back to the present. "Is he a Warden?"

"Zevran? Oh, no."

"No?"

"He has not Joined, no." Elissa shakes her head. It has never occurred to her that Cauthrien may not be informed of these things. "I haven't... I wouldn't ask. Never. And I doubt he would want to."

The other woman is quiet for a second, coughing slightly as the ship creaks and rumbles around them and the candles on the tiny cabinet that separates them waver dangerously.

"So you have not given him the honour?" she asks eventually and it dawns on Elissa, slowly, what she might be truly asking.

"I don't... it's not so much an honour as it is a death sentence," she says carefully. A voice in her head tells her not to, speaks of secrecy and all those things that served them so badly during the Blight. But Cauthrien has been entrusted with making certain Elissa doesn't fail in her mission – or sell them out to the Orlesians or whatever it is that Loghain imagined she would do when she first told him about the plan – so this, she decides, is certainly no step over any boundaries.

"I take it the Joining is a rite of passage that sometimes goes badly?" Cauthrien asks.

"Badly." Elissa gives a humourless laugh. "Yes. One might call it that. Except it always goes badly. It's a... you could say it's a way of defeating the enemy by becoming the enemy. The reason we sense the darkspawn is because we consume their blood and become immune to their taint. Temporarily, at least. It will either kill you instantly or gradually. For most of us it is the latter. I am expected to have perhaps thirty years before my body gives in to the poison. Loghain... well, nobody knows, but it is thought he has a lot less than that."

They are silent for a long time; Elissa thinks Cauthrien has managed to fall asleep on her side of the berth, and it's not until she props herself up on one elbow to blow out the candles that she notices they are both still awake. Cauthrien looks at her.

"I asked to join," she says then, in a very final tone. "Months ago. In Denerim, just after Landsmeet."

"Oh."

She shrugs, as though the actual Joining matters little to her either way. "Thank you for telling me, Commander."

"It is important to let this remain a secret to the public," Elissa points out, rather needlessly considering this woman's mentor is a man who would keep quiet about the most banal things, hold on to them like treasures. "Nevertheless, I can't believe Loghain didn't tell you why he turned you down."

Cauthrien snorts; this time it's decidedly a sound of weary amusement. "Can't you?"

"Well. You have a point." Elissa grins into the dark.

The potion does have a quick way through her bloodstream, Elissa notices gratefully and flips over to lie on her back. She wonders, as the ship heels back and forth, how many people have been here in this very spot, carried across the water like she is now. It's an enormous thought that makes her appear small, like a tiny insignificance in the endless history of the world.

She likes that.

Glancing over to her side, she sees Cauthrien mirrors her own position and that some of the deathly expression in her face has softened into tiredness.

"Goodnight," Elissa offers.

"Goodnight, Commander," Cauthrien replies and there's a feeling in the stale air around then, a sensation of something being settled, solved.

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They arrive in Val Royeaux a late afternoon two days later.

There are paintings, of course, paintings and legends and myths, even history books, accounting for the beauty of Orlais' largest city, but Elissa knows the moment she sees it with her own eyes, that nothing could ever describe it. Val Royeaux is a sight, not a story. Not even the winter's grasp of the country seems to belittle it; not even the snow on the diversity of roofs and buildings, the colourful fronts and the rich architecture that is grandiose and delicate all at once; not even the frost in morning air makes standing there any less marvellous. Sleeping in the pale blue season, the place is like the sweetest dream the Fade could conjure up.

Elissa gapes. For a few moments she merely gapes.

Then she remembers her place and reasons and the company she keeps so she tightens her voice around polite words of admiration instead, as Shirei asks what she thinks and Zevran takes a deep breath, announcing he will no longer have to breathe solely through his mouth.

Shirei takes them by foot across the main roads of the city; occasionally she points to important sights or historical places, but mostly they walk in silence.

The Warden Headquarters are located in a beautiful neighbourhood, close to the Grand Cathedral, but the building itself is not particularly grand. At least not in comparison to what she has seen since stepping ashore. It has two levels and painted glass in some of the windows, but it looks squeezed in among other houses and by the look of it, some of the timber is rotting.

"Your chambers are on the second floor," Shirei informs them quickly outside the main entrance. "Take a while to yourselves, before the feast starts."

And with that she slips away, inside, and Elissa is all alone with her strange collection of companions. She looks around, trying to ignite bravado and triumph at finally having arrived at their sought destination as they being making their way to seek out the temporary quarters.

It will be fine, she tells herself.

Fine.

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.

.

Her newly washed hair smells of sandalwood and something fruity, a strange, pricking note in her nostrils as she walks down the stairs, grateful that she at least isn't expected to wear a dress.

She has dreaded this.

Dreaded it because although the handful of Wardens currently in Ferelden seem to have taken the half-hearted explanation of how the Blight ended reasonably well – at least for now, at least in front of her – Elissa holds no illusions about the rest of the order being as quick to overlook suspected encroachment of their dearly held beliefs. And here in the great, gilded halls, heavy under the weight of scented candles and fires burning, of wine and mead and long tables filled with an abundance of food, she knows she will not be able to escape.

Dreaded it too, because she is a lousy liar, too easily provoked or angered to letting the truth slip out through the cracks of her charades.

At least she seems to recall enough of her tutoring to make herself understood.

Clutching a glass of wine but not drinking it, she stands in the middle of an Orlesian crowd, allowing herself to be inspected like a pound of flesh on the market, thinking the comparison might not be so absurd after all. Even Zevran looks a bit uneasy. What Cauthrien thinks is impossible to discern from her posture; what she looks is solemn and bored where she sits, flanked by her knights.

The Orlesians are swarming around her, pacing slightly, their weapons reduced to eyes and mouths and ears, ready to pick up on anything: an elder man with a beard, a fairly young woman with a lot of pearls attached to her pointy face, a dwarf, two sour-looking young men and an elven woman, observing Elissa without any warmth whatsoever. It's the first time she is among so many Wardens at once, the muffled noise in her head rising as it tracks others, blending in the air, making them one. Her flock, she thinks grimly.

"Are you famliar with the Warden scholars?" the bearded man – if she searches her memory thoroughly from the round of introduction before, Elissa thinks he might be called Ivan – eyes her, sipping his drink.

She had not known there were Warden scholars. Or she had perhaps reached the conclusion after meeting one, in the old Keep, but she had not known in any deeper sense of the word. It seems foolish of her, now.

"Unfortunately not, no," she replies, as politely as possible. In her head, her mother appears, calm and collected and safe – ever the harbour in social gatherings, always the right words. Elissa presses her own pathetic nervousness against the memories, hard and insistently like a repeated prayer.

"You simply must read the essays on darkspawn magic then," the pointy-faced woman exclaims with a blend of enthusiasm and aggression. Her hand clasps Elissa's arm, something she normally would take as a gesture of familiarity, or overstepping of boundaries, but it seems this woman merely does it as a measured ritual. Bloody Orlesians. "They are highly influential on our mages' way of training."

"I am not a mage," she says. The drink has warmed up in her tight grip; the faintly rose-coloured wine looks less tempting when the frosty surface of the glass has vaporised into her sweaty palms.

"Oh, few of us can make a show off that, chérie. That does not mean one must not educate oneself in the magical theory." The woman looks at Elissa like she was a looking at a slow child. "Some rumours have it magic was being used in Ferelden too, you know."

At least they are straight to the point.

"So we have heard," Elissa says, tasting the wine for the first time. It has a scent of apple and a note of flowery sweetness that is quite lovely. "What led you to that conclusion? I mean, save the rather obvious fact that I ran my sword into the Archdemon's throat and survived. Barely, I might add."

The whole crowd looks at her, quietly at first and then the dwarf takes a swig of his ale and clears his throat.

"There are ways to end Blights without the Warden sacrifice, all right," he says. A few sighs and displeased murmurs rise, and Elissa understands they are not all in agreement as to what they ought to reveal to her. "Just ask some of the people in here, they'd tell you a few things. Problem is, sister, those ways are so sodding bad-"

"She has only just arrived," Ivan cuts in, offering a tactful smile. "We can leave Warden politics for later."

"Well." Elissa swallows as the words push past her reserves. "You will have to be more specific than that, speaking of these matters with me. As you may be aware of, we have not had much time in Ferelden to brush up on our knowledge of the history of the Order."

"Ivan here, and Dvalinn as well, are referring to our political turmoil," the elf says helpfully, in a too-loud whisper. Elissa can feel her breath on her own cheeks and takes a step back, looking down at the wine she is holding on to like a lifesaver. "Within the Order, I mean."

"Ah, the never ending debates." The dwarf, Dvalinn, rolls his eyes. "I'd suggest getting rid of the chaotic elements, like you would in any assembly worth its salt, but not here, oh no."

"Chaotic elements?" Elissa asks.

"Chaotic elements," he repeats, giving a dark glance to the elf and to Ivan as well before returning his gaze to Elissa, and grinning. "but these folks here won't hear another minute of it. I know when I've outstayed my welcome. I can tell you more about chaotic elements in private, duster. If you know what I mean."

"It is only in your dreams I'd go anywhere private with you," she sneers back, on cue, but not without picking up on the thread of something genuine in the brawling idiocy. A promise to actually tell her more, she hopes.

She's right about that.

Later, as Elissa takes her second sip of the drink and after a few careful rounds in the hall, talking briefly to Wardens and keeping her eyes out for Shirei who is not to be seen, she spots the dwarf waving at her from a small table in a corner. Through the fog-like swarm of noise, smells and the consequences of her own exhaustion she notices how Zevran and Cauthrien look up, both of them ready, their eyes clear and alert. Elissa attempts a smile in their direction before making her way to Dvalinn.

"You look too sober for you own good, girl."

Deciding not to pay any unnecessary attention to being called girl, she takes a seat at the table, crossing one leg over the other and tipping back slightly so she has a good view of the room.

"Talk then," she says.

"What was your name again?"

"Oh. It's Elissa." She realises she has assumed her name in common knowledge and tries to hide the awkward outburst of vanity by taking a large gulp of wine.

"Look, Elissa." Dvalinn leans forward. "The Order is a messy place. That's for damn sure. We're too bloody many in my opinion. Bound to be fractions."

"The safety in having a large army surely outweighs any petty fuss, I'm sure."

He shrugs. "Not so certain."

"Look," she starts to feel the pot valour and her own frustration like a burning in her throat. "We just drove back a Blight with three Wardens. I would have given anything to have at least a troop of them at my disposal."

"Yeah, you would have had that if it weren't for Loghain Mac Tir," Dvalinn spits the name, his full name, which Elissa hasn't heard used in Ferelden in many years. He's teyrn or the Hero of River Dane or, unfortunately for them all, regent.

"The Wardens haven't had the best reputation in Ferelden," she retorts, feeling an odd flush of loyalty behind her words. "You cannot fault him entirely for that."

The dwarf's eyes narrow as he's watching her, with a new level of irritation now. His fingers tapping against the goblet in front of him, he falls quiet for a while.

"So it wasn't that bastard who did something then?" he asks eventually. "To end the Blight, I mean. He'd have the means, no doubt. You could tell us, here. We'd be of help if you wanted."

"Help?" Elissa hears her own question echo strangely in her head.

"You know, to get rid of him. Nobody would blame you for it."

"Loghain will be pleased to learn he is still so feared in Orlais, even ten years after the peace treaty," she says, not without a drawling edge to her voice, she knows. "So feared, in fact, that you offer me an entire Order to eliminate him."

"Bah, I'm no bleeding Orlesian," the dwarf returns, scowling. "It doesn't take an Orlesian to want to snap that man's neck. I'm a Warden. That works too. You see, if there is any value I believe in, it's loyalty."

"Loghain is a Warden." She feels the curve of the wine glass tight against her fingers, as she tilts her head to study it.

"You think so, do you?" Dvalinn's voice is thick with contempt and, quite likely, too much ale. "Or do you just hope?"

"I know he is." Elissa meets his gaze, keeping her own steely. "And to answer your previous question: the only thing he did was Join and help me fight back the darkspawn," she says slowly and steadily. "I don't even know what these other options would be; it wasn't something either Duncan or Riordan told us about."

"I bet." Dvalinn scoffs, but finally seems to believe her lies. "Okay, okay. You didn't do anything. Fine."

"Now it's your turn," Elissa reminds him as she notices he is making motions as if to leave the table. "You were to tell me something, were you not?"

"You should get that mage you came with to tell you a little about Warden politics. Tell her good old Dvalinn says so."

With that, he scrambles to his feet and leaves. Elissa remains for a long time, more confounded than before the conversation and decidedly less inclined to sleep at all tonight. She has stepped off the ship and straight into something with a long, twisted history; when she rises from her chair she can almost see the imagined ropes pulling her – and all of them – in various directions. And this is when she knows that she will, regardless of how much or little time she spends here, never be able to escape it for as long as this shared bloodstream keeps her alive.

"What did the dwarf want?" Cauthrien asks, as the wretched evening is finally over and she is undoing the buckles of her breastplate in their shared room upstairs. It's a fairly spacious room, several feet between the beds and with plenty of chairs, tables and cabinets to hold their extensive luggage. This is where they will stay for the duration, Elissa has gathered. Best think of it as pleasant.

"A bit of this and that." Elissa slumps down heavily on her bed. Her boots are warm and it feels like a relief to kick them off.

"Warden business?" her companion offers curtly.

Elissa forces her body out of the tight-fitting dragon scale armour and the leather pieces underneath, giving up a loud groan of freedom as the soft air of their well-heated room hits her skin. Noticing that Cauthrien struggles with the rest of the armour, she gets to her feet and assists. The other woman accepts, mutely.

Warden business, indeed.

She wants to talk about tonight. Despite the fact that she is so tired it feels like too much of a task to speak, she wants this. She wants to release the burden of knowing this alone and to hear it said with someone else's words, coming from someone else's mind. But her reality is shifted, forever tilted in way that makes it nearly impossible to let someone else inside it, should anyone ever want to take apart the Hero of Ferelden and Warden-Commander; it is already different from the way it was before the war ended. She stands alone, on one side of the world, trapped in her own secrets.

For a second, caught unaware by the surge of her own emotions, she misses. She misses Alistair. She misses before; she misses being able to talk and she misses being understood; she misses camp with its scared night-conversations and endless watches; she misses Leliana and Wynne and warm summer nights under the stars; she misses Fergus and her dog and - of all bloody people and with an unexpected urgency – she misses Loghain.

All this longing hits her between the ribs, like a blow, spreading up to her heart and she has to look away from Cauthrien's glance.

"You know how it is," she says, a light-hearted tone for a topic that drags her down with its grey weight. "They're putting on a show, parading their strength. I got the impression they're testing me."

"Of course they are." Cauthrien pulls her arm out of the elbow-high gauntlet, first one then the other; she sits down on her own bed, with a facial expression that would merit a sigh, or a grimace, if she had been someone who displays her emotions in that way. "You think you passed the test then?"

"I... don't know," Elissa admits. This, at least, they can talk about.

"Clearly they consider you important enough to position themselves." She bends down to organise the discarded armour on the floor, laying it out carefully on the soft carpet. "They don't think little of you."

"It's just... they shouldn't. We shouldn't. It's the same order."

Cauthrien shakes her head. "It doesn't work that way."

"It seemed to me it was a whole mishmash of different loyalties and the importance of those," Elissa says as she's dabbing her face with water from the small basin by her bed. It smells of oils. She's cross-legged on her bed now, itching to pull out the ink and paper from her pack and start writing all those things she can't speak of but determined on letting Cauthrien fall asleep first. "The Wardens are not political, nor bound to land or regents."

"Sounds impossible," Cauthrien grunts, stripped down to her smallclothes in front of her own basin and mirroring what Elissa just did. "There is hardly such thing as neutrality."

"No," Elissa agrees. "I know."

They both sit on their beds now, looking at each other. Elissa pulls back her hair, grimacing at the heavy scent it still carries and rubs her neck, habitually checking for muscle knots that will cause her pain unless tended to.

"One minute I thought they were going to sell me out to the First Warden," she says, still pondering the impressions from the feast. "Then they offered me help to get rid of Loghain."

Cauthrien snorts. "How very kind."

"Yes, very. I was touched."

They share a smile. It feels, Elissa thinks, like everything that happened before the Blight ended is so far away, wrapped in a different sort of world, its events bearing no significance to this new one. They do, of course, and nobody has forgotten anything, but the stars and the moon seem to move too quickly for everything to follow at the same pace.

"But jokes aside, Commander?" Cauthrien suddenly sits up a little straighter; her voice is hard and the question is demanding, direct. "Where do your loyalties lie?"

They both know that while it may be Cauthrien's right to ask this, it is also Elissa's right to shrug it away as a concern from a lesser.

"Loghain is the only Warden who has my loyalty," she answers, all the same, because they both knew that she would.

There is no reply to this; Cauthrien simply nods.

Huddled up beneath the blanket on her bed, the idea of beginning that letter fleeting farther away for every moment that passes, Elissa stretches out; her body misses battle, the constant pull of it running through her. After many days on the ship, listless and forced to tranquillity, she would give anything for a good day's physical exhaustion. Tomorrow, she tells herself, she must find a way and somewhere to train.

"You don't still want to Join, do you?" she asks, as Cauthrien's dark hair half-disappears under two layers of blankets.

"Hardly," she says, the blunt brutality in that word is scantily mitigated by being wrapped in soft bedclothes. It lingers in the room, as Elissa closes her eyes and dreams violently all night, of shipwrecks and trials and darkspawn, talking to her.

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"Do you have even more letters?" the Teyrn of Highever groans from behind his desk as Loghain steps into his office. "And here I was hoping for a visit without letters. That is not going to be today, is it?"

"No," Loghain replies, nodding towards the little pile he places on a spot where the oak surface is visible. This is in itself a troublesome task given the piles of vellums and papers, books, inkpots and quills that swallows most of the large table.

It has become the order of things over the past few weeks – Loghain receives letters addressed to the Wardens, reads them and concludes that there is little an order of warriors can do for most of the people - all of them freemen - asking for help. What they need is money to buy food to make up for lost crops, restore their homes and resupply their storages. He has about as much gold now as he had when he lived as an outlaw. So Loghain readdresses the notes and letters to Fergus Cousland, who is buried under work of his own and looks more worn out for every day, disappearing behind the clutter on his desk.

"I do hope the need for notifying me of the smallest of bickering will cease now," the man says with a small sigh. He refers to the recently designated sheriff of his teyrnir, thought to help the banns keep justice and order.

"Just make certain the sheriff is loyal to the teyrn rather then the gold." Loghain has yet to meet a sheriff who wasn't easily corrupted, but the man appointed seems sensible enough to not have his head turned at the prospect of cheap bribes. If only for the time being.

"Oh, of course." The teyrn straightens up in his chair, an oddly respectful grimace playing on his lips. "I will give him the benefit of a doubt until he has had his first case, however."

Over the past month, Loghain has become the unlikely and unofficial advisor here in Highever. And what is yet more unlikely is that he doesn't mind it. It is, in fact, quite liberating.

Northern Ferelden suffered the most under his short regency.

If he had not already been urgently aware of this, the recent events in Highever certainly would have enlightened him. The banns have been returning; their numbers are decreased and their soldiers forming small, scattered units barely fit to hunt boars, let alone be useful as protection against the darkspawn who, according to sightings and rumours, are ever present. With the roads still unsafe and the trade petering out, this area of Ferelden is scarcely more than a no-man's land between Denerim and the Frostback Mountains.

It's a sordid record of his own wrongdoings.

Fergus is eager to do a good job, willing to learn and humble enough to listen – there's much more of Bryce than Eleanor in him – and while he doesn't at all times succeed he is always ready to shoulder the responsibilities. In all things, the teyrn is a honourable, decent man and Maker knows he has not worked with those for a long time. Loghain may only be trusted by association, and only temporary at that, but he still intends to use what little influence he has with the teyrn of Highever.

"How goes the recruiting?" Fergus seals a letter while reaching for another sheet of paper.

"Slowly," Loghain admits. Which is a grand understatement.

"I heard you sent both Brann and his sister to Denerim."

As if the lack of capable fighters wasn't enough of a pressing issue up here, there is also the matter of dividing the precious few between Highever and the Wardens. So far, Loghain has not found more than a handful potential Wardens and at least half of those are his own age and thus less likely to pass the Joining. But he can't bring himself to deport all good and half-decent soldiers somewhere else; all voices of reasons in his head screams at the mere idea of that. The darkspawn menace is a threat that cannot be solved by weakening the outskirts of the nation, of this he is certain enough now to act on his own, regardless of what the Orlesians think.

"They did insist quite fervently," he says.

"Oh, I believe you," the other man nods. "Brann would make a fine Warden. His sister I am not to sure about, though. She has a reputation as something of a backstabbing snake."

Loghain raises an eyebrow, wondering if his commander has failed to inform her brother of the usual standards for recruiting. "If she can use a blade well enough I will still find a use for her, I'm certain."

Nodding again, the teyrn looks down at what he is writing.

"Oh, that's right. I have a letter in return for you, this time," Fergus says then, somewhat unexpectedly, and puts away his quill. "Forgive me for not mentioning it before. Your commander is well; she seems to have authored a whole treatise, judging by the size of this."

He rises a little from his chair to reach across the desk and hand over what seems like a small package. It is a package, Loghain confirms as it lands in his hand, sealed with both ribbons and sealing wax and he feels a sense of relief at seeing the hand-writing. The weather since her departure has been anything but ideal – once the storms ceased the snow has been coming down heavily, almost every day for a fortnight – and Fergus has seemed anxious each time a messenger arrives.

She has been gone for a month. It feels much longer here than it does over there, he assumes, here where they are trapped in snow and dire routines and left to their own conceptions of what goes on overseas.

"Thank you." Loghain looks up, nodding curtly.

He expects Fergus to go back to his work as Loghain himself is already half-way home in his mind – home being the only open inn within walking distance where the Wardens have set up camp. But as Loghain is about to call Dog to his side and leave, the other man stirs, indicating he is about to say something.

Loghain sits back, definitely lacking the patience for it tonight, but waiting all the same.

"At least she has safely arrived now," Fergus says eventually, his words dragging as he's looking out over the room rather than directly at his visitor.

"Yes," Loghain agrees.

"Will she be gone all winter, you think?" There is a trace of hesitant worry in the teyrn's question.

"It seems likely," Loghain replies. That is how he has thought of it, at least, when he has considered the duties left to him; between Firstfall and Drakonis only few ships sail, if any.

"Do you think... she's content doing this?" Fergus looks embarrassed; whether that is because he is having this conversation at all or with Loghain in particular, Loghain cannot say. Clearing his throat, he gives a little smile as if to excuse himself. "I know she has little choice in the matter but I mean, do you think this is making her miserable?"

"I am hardly fit to answer that," Loghain says, after a pause.

"No? She has spent more time with you than with anyone else during these past few months. And you know what it's like, doing what she does."

Loghain feels Dog push against his shins, which is a sign he wants either attention or food – usually at the same time and in large amounts – as he tries to search through his mind for an appropriate answer to this.

He does know what it's like. It's a life he is reluctant to wish upon anybody, especially not someone who was thrown into it with little choice in the matter. Fate is cruel and inconsiderate. That seems like a rather harsh truth for a worried brother, however, so he swallows it along with the slight discomfort at discussing Elissa.

"I think," he says carefully, "that she is well suited to this. She is strong. And very capable. Best warrior I have ever fought with."

Something softens in the teyrn's posture at those words. "Oh, I was never doubting that."

"You should not."

"She trusts you." It's a matter-of-factly statement and its simplicity resounds in the room.

Loghain hesitates, although not for long. "I have no intention of proving her wrong."

"Good." And finally the teyrn deems it enough, his attention returning to the work at hand and Loghain can get to his feet undisturbed at his second attempt.

It's snowing again as he leaves the castle.

Dog runs in circles ahead of him, picking up the trail of something, no doubt. The falling snow is as wet as the snow already on the ground, making his boots soaked. Still, he prefers to walk rather than using the horses or the carriage the teyrn has offered on more than one occasion.

They have ran into darkspawn on this road occasionally, but between Dog and himself and the Orlesians sometimes, when they have had business in the castle, there have never been any dangerous encounters. There's still a lingering sense of being on the verge of something every time they encounter them. A sense of not having seen the real threat yet, of being led somewhere without the option to choose not to follow.

Tonight, however, Loghain would prefer getting back more quickly.

As they reach the old, worn building where they currently reside, Loghain hears the sound of chatter – Orlesian, blended with Ferelden drunkards, a mix that almost takes him back more than thirty years. He used to hear the noise from taverns and whorehouses when they came too close to the villages and he had lingered sometimes, equal amounts curious and disgusted. As he and Rowan travelled together to raise support for Maric, he had received more than enough of what he sometimes secretly asked for as a very young man and found that it wasn't much to wish for, in the end.

His room is cold when he returns to it so he strips off his armour and the wet clothes and lights the fireplace before sitting down, the letter in his hands.

Loghain,

I hope all is well and that the restoration and recruiting go as planned...

She writes about the journey, the ship and the storms endured. In many words, and with a truly atrocious hand-writing that meanders up and down – occasionally she has forgotten something and adds that as vertical notes along the sides – she accounts for what has happened since she left Highever.

Elissa writes much like she speaks, he learns about four pages into her massive letter. She is well educated in the arts of rhetoric and literature, but the words that meet him on the pages are exactly like he remembers her, struggling out of all confinements – her letter is unabashed, intelligent, slightly crude and sharpened by an edge of dark humour, even as she writes about things he knows she must find awful. She is a good storyteller and a clever observer and Loghain is vaguely amused, reading her caricatures and portraits of everyone she has met.

He reads the part about Warden politics several times, lighting a new candle as the old one burns down; it isn't unexpected, an order like theirs, said to hold neutrality highest among their bloody virtues, must inexorably fail, break under the strain of country borders and leaders with other purposes, other reasons.

He wonders what dangers that puts her in. So does she, he suspects, even if she would never admit it.

Oh, and I might have been somewhat indiscreet as I informed Ser Cauthrien of certain Joining secrets, which I thought you had already seen to, to be honest. You should have! The woman told me she asked to Join! If there was a particular and intricately cruel reason for you to keep her in the dark, then that is no longer a possibility. I thought you would want to know. At least now you will have a back story as to why she might send you cursed letters full of chicken pox.

I do miss Ferelden terribly. Take care of it for me.

Elissa.

P.S Don't spoil my dog. If he begs at the table when I get back home, I will hold you solely responsible for it.

Loghain almost smiles at the final part of the letter.

He finds, now that it is no longer here and only its absence reminds him what used to fill its place, that he has come to appreciate her company. It has been many years and many lives since he valued someone as a friend, thought of them not as what else they were to him and others but as friends, first and foremost – not since Rowan and Maric, not since he was still young and had not yet made a ruin of everything that could be grounds for friendship.

Whatever this ground is made of – blood, chaos and civil war, shattered beneath strands of acceptance and familiarity and her own strange flavour of mercy; and of lines on a map being forcefully redrawn – it is different.

Very different, he thinks, folding up the pages and looking at the slowly dancing coals flare up and go down, a circle-dance coming to an end.