The blood is the key. The blood is always the key.

The Architect 's notes; Dragon Age: Awakening

After all these months of managing and raising an army, living in tightly woven groups of people and having every breath measured against various scales of trust and mistrust, Loghain finds it downright enjoyable to be riding out of Denerim. They use the main roads for the first couple of days but quickly steer towards the less travelled paths in the forests and it seems that the further they get from the city, the lighter the air is.

Dog is thrilled to be out in the wilds, his paws barely skimming the ground as he launches himself in front of them, picking up trails and abandoning them just as quickly. Occasionally he looks at Elissa, as though awaiting approval for this frivolous behaviour.

They have reached beyond Hafter River and well into the northern border of the Bannorn before the darkspawn prove a forcible threat. All previous encounters have been small and brief, no worse than the occasional group of bandits or smugglers hiding out in the outskirts of the forests they ride through.

But today, after nearly a week's peace, they gallop straight into a battlefield in every sense of the word. From afar Loghain spots the unmistakable heavy plate templar armour, and feels the tug in his head, the darkspawn buzz in his blood; in front of him Elissa reins in her horse and throws a glance at Loghain over her shoulder.

He nods in response to the silent question.

The tempars – he counts four, at least that is the number of those left standing – are greatly outnumbered by a darkspawn flock made up almost entirely of hurlocks and shrieks but are doing fairly well, considering. Beneath him, Loghain feels the horse already beginning to protest against approaching the creatures and Elissa dismounts before he has time to suggest it.

"Guard the horses," she says sternly to Dog, catching him just as he is about to attract the enemies in his usual fashion by gathering them around him. The mabari inclines his head, obviously not satisfied. "Loghain, come on."

It's not a difficult battle and he holds no illusion that they are assisting the templars with anything they couldn't have accomplished themselves, in time. But he notices a fallen man in a pile of darkspawn corpses and the man wearing Knight-Commander armour seems to struggle in vain against a cluster of shrieks, relentlessly drawing back and forth in circles around him. Elissa reaches the spot first, her swords flurrying through the air as the Knight-Commander notices her.

"Stand down, girl!"

Elissa runs one of her swords through the head of a shriek and beats another over its head with the hilt of the other blade, pushing the remaining shrieks against Loghain. The fallen enemy nearly pulls the templar down with it.

"Don't waste mana-draining powers on shrieks, man," Elissa remarks, haughtily.

Stifling an amused snort, Loghain looks at the templar and is met with a gaze carrying a spark of recognition – there is scarcely anyone who doesn't know him after all, bloody legend that he is – before he turns on his heel and resumes the battle.

Afterwards, as Loghain shakes darkspawn filth out of his gauntlets and Elissa bends over, trying to brush away twigs and leaves that have been clotted together with darkspawn blood in her hair, the Knight-Commander makes his way over to them. He carries his helmet in one hand and hoists his shield with the other, an apologetic expression on his face.

"Knight-Commander Harrith?" Elissa says, in a surprisingly pleasant tone when he is within earshot. "That is correct, is it not?"

The templar nods, a touch of satisfaction at being remembered distinctly marking his voice. "Indeed. And you are the Warden-Commander."

"I am."

"I beg your pardon but we did not recognise you, Commander. Nor you, Your-"

"Loghain."

"Loghain," the Warden-Commander repeats. "Of course."

"No harm done." Elissa smiles, which makes Loghain wonder what she is playing at. "What brings you here? Chantry business?"

There's a moment of hesitation before the man nods. "In a way. Ah." He lowers his voice, looking around as though the trees would eavesdrop. "It is a matter of the Collective, so to speak."

"What kind of matter?" she asks.

Loghain is wondering about the readiness to share Chantry information and shifts a little where he stands, impatient, but Elissa makes a small gesture with her hand and he abstains from his question. Making people speak through coaxing or pleasant small talk has admittedly never been his forte. Maric, who became excellent at the gentle, inconspicuous form of manipulation over the years, would never let Loghain hear the end of it, claiming he abused his power if he so much as threatened a prisoner or a criminal into revealing the truth.

"We have learned that there is an unusual activity of magic in this area," the Knight-Commander says. "And recently we had a report – second-hand information, I might add – about a crazed apostate who is said to have been fleeing towards the mountains."

"Fleeing from the Chantry?" Loghain feels a chill down his spine and notices Elissa looks stiffer in her posture, as well.

The Knight-Commander looks nervously at Loghain who wants to snap that he hardly has the power to issue any punishments for ineffective templars not doing their sworn duty, but Elissa is quicker.

"Is this apostate a member of the Collective?"

"Yes, she is," the man says, his voice a shade more reserved now, as if he has reminded himself of Loghain's presence. "We have... a few friends here."

"Well." Elissa nods. "We shall help you look for her. We are headed the same way."

"I... ah." Now the man looks downright uncomfortable; Loghain wonders if he is dense enough to believe he could merely exchange information with a Warden-Commander without somehow being bound to agree to her terms afterwards. "Very well then."

"We ride behind you, Commander Harrith," she finishes the strangely short conversation and then brushes past them both and walks towards the horses. Loghain follows suit.

"I did a lot of work for the Mage's Collective during the Blight," she explains when they are riding at a walking-pace, waiting for the templars to assemble their things tend to their wounded. She looks at Loghain. "You do know of them, I assume."

"I do." He has been informed of them many years ago but always found them too independent and with too much of an agenda to serve his own purposes.

"Harrith has a, well... a mutually beneficial agreement with these mages."

"Of course he has," Loghain responds, dryly.

"You don't oppose the decision, do you?"

Loghain thinks it's a strange order of things to make decisions first and then ask for opinions, but that is indeed often how she works. When he is honest with himself he admits that is how he operates, too. Except he usually doesn't ask for opinions. He shakes his head. "Not at the moment, no."

"Good."

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It feels strange to have company again.

The templars stay in their part of camp and the Wardens stay in theirs, but even so, there are still more people and different sounds than yesterday. Elissa thinks it will never cease to fascinate her the way she shapes and reshapes her mind around the ever-changing rhythm of life.

This is the thing she first learned on the way from Highever: you fall into routines much sooner than you would ever believe. Rituals, small gestures or habits that suddenly appear out of nowhere but seem to always have been there, like the lines in your palm or the bones in your body. Things that, if asked about them, you would have to think about for a long time since they just appear, flowing out of you like breaths.

It's the fact that she wakes up to Dog's increasingly urgent reminders of morning, morning now, that she is bottomless in her hunger the moment she opens her eyes whereas most of her companions are not; it's the way they walk in and out of camp, washing up and getting dressed; it's the routines of armour, of buckling and tightening and the way her gaze has begun to roam over every piece of metal, checking it for damage. Its how she likes to take her baths in those hours following supper, as late as possible because there is something peaceful about nature when the sun has set and the water lies calm, unstirred.

Today she breaks her own habit entirely and slips out of camp in the reddish sunlight of the early morning, and gives herself time to swim for a while – a luxury with companions by the dozen, all waiting for you to return to camp so they, too, can wash themselves. During the Blight they had not cared, Elissa would bathe with Leliana and Wynne – which never failed to spur Zevran into authoring a detailed story for the fireplace later, making Alistair blush so hard he had to excuse himself and stomp off – and the growing army meant too many strangers to count, let alone hide from. The smaller the group, the greater the intrusion, she thinks, returning to her clothes and towel on the land.

She scrubs herself dry, dresses in a long tunic and leather boots and walks up from the lake as she begins the task of drying her hair. It already feels too long, which is the reason she has never cut it short in the first place. Short hair becomes a hassle, demands attention and hair may be the most boring thing in all of Thedas to think about, let alone tend to. Considering the possibility of shaving it all off, she gets stuck in her methodical movements as the rough cloth of her towel runs over the hairline at the back of her neck. She frowns, feeling something thick and sticky under her fingers, a little reminder of the battle yesterday. Wonderful.

"You have a large clot of blood there," Loghain says levelly behind her, as though on cue. Throwing him a quick glance she notices he carries a saddlebag over his right shoulder, and a mirror and a razor in his hands; by the look of things and the rather obvious lack of shirt, he is headed for the lake.

"Oh." Elissa turns around. For a second she feels like she has invaded his privacy – a privacy he would probably scorn her for believing you were allowed, at any rate – and as he meets her gaze there is a brief flicker of something before it closes itself again. "Could you get it out for me?

He takes the towel when she hands it to him but hesitates before taking a step closer and there is a look on his face, one she doesn't recall having seen before. She begins to regret the proposition entirely. But then she feels his hand at the back of her head, holding up her hair while he tends to the dried mess; as he pulls a few hairs along with the towel, dragging them up by the roots, she has to bite back the sound of pain.

"I have seen less filthy beasts," he mutters, his voice low. "You slept with this in your hair?"

"My apologies for engaging in the battle." Elissa folds her arms and leans forward as Loghain presses harder at the indissoluble clot. "I should have heeded my coiffure like a proper lady and let you fend off the enemies on your own - big, strong man that you are."

"Or you could have worn a helmet." Elissa doesn't have to look at him to know his lips are curled into a sarcastic smile. She knows, too, that not wearing a helmet is unusually idiotic, even for someone as stubborn as her. It's just that in the heat, and with the sporadic attacks, she tends to treasure the fresh air rather than the awful metal that limits her sight. Naturally she will not hear the end of it now. "This is impossible to scrub away."

"Shave it off then."

"I'm your general, not your barber," he replies, sounding impatient, as though she is stalling him. Which, she realises with a little stitch of guilty conscience, she probably is. He crouches down over the supplies he's left on the ground.

"I can do it myself." Elissa holds out a hand and waits for the blade but instead Loghain hangs on to it, beginning to scrape at her scalp. His left hand is draped over the back of her head once more, the calloused palm warm against her wet, lake-cold hair; with his right hand he uses the blade to yank softly at the very surface of her skin. It's a tickling, not too unpleasant sensation, and she is about to tell him when she involuntarily shifts a bit and the sharp edge scratches into her flesh for a second.

"Just be, ah-" She grimaces.

"Hold still." Loghain is close; she can feel the heat of his body against her back, his scent and shape in the air around her. If she takes one small step, they will be skin-to-skin and that image, suddenly terribly vivid in her head, makes her suck in a deep gulp of air, moving a little again so that Loghain stills his hand, and sighs. "This hardly hurts."

It's not a question; it's a rather harsh statement and Elissa squares her shoulders and clenches her jaw.

"No," she says, truthfully.

"I would not have thought you squeamish." He continues; she can feel the spot he works at transform under the blade and berates herself for letting her mind wander as she wonders how he would feel under her own hands, how the shapes and boundaries of his body would compare to her own, their lines joined and parted, struggling against each other. "There you go," he adds a moment later, moving away from her and picking up his belongings.

Elissa lifts her hand to feel the result – it's a good thing Leliana is no longer around, because she would be horrified at the thought of having a shaved spot in the midst of one's hair. How unbecoming! Elissa smiles to herself. As she returns to the lake to get the remains of dirt off, properly this time, she notices that Loghain is crouching by the edge of the water and it takes her a second to notice the shaving mirror on the ground.

"That looks uncomfortable." She stands there, hands on hips, wondering briefly when he is going to snap at her and tell her to leave him alone. "Here, let me. A favour for a favour?"

Without waiting for a response she picks the up little mirror and holds it up in front of him. Loghain looks at her for a second, half-shrugging as though he's debating with himself before making up his mind. It seems there would be little to contemplate – she's held shaving mirrors for Alistair so many times she has lost count and she's about to point it out but closes her mouth again, remembering other things she also did with Alistair when they scampered off to bathe and that is not -

It is not a good thought.

Loghain goes to fill a mug with water and returns, within seconds. There is, she notices when she stands before her and she can see him properly, a suggestion of unshaven stubble that shadows his face and makes his cheekbones stand out. Oddly enough, it removes a few years from him, defining his features. She wonders if his beard would be grizzled, just have streaks of silver like the small hairs around his temples, or if it would be mostly black as the hair on his chest. She wonders if his beard would be grey and if this is the reason he shaves. As her thoughts brush against the concept of his possible vanity she feels a jolt of something that is a shade deeper than mere affection or attraction, ghosting over the edges of something beyond it; a heavy sluggish twirl burying itself somewhere in her stomach.

Apart from lines and those dark circles under his eyes that appears when he sleeps too little or eats less than he ought to, he hasn't got a particularly old face. There's a taut quality to it, as though he isn't letting it age without his consent. Smiling faintly, she realises she can imagine it exactly like that.

"Yes?" he raises an eyebrow as he rubs the sliver of soap between his wet fingers, applying its foam over his neck and jaw, over his cheek. The foam seems to almost melt in the heat, rays of sunlight welling up behind the trees, glittering in the tiny bubbles in Loghain's face. She has seen his face nearly every day for a year now, yet suddenly it looks different, its map subtly redrawn.

"What?" Elissa says, distracted.

Loghain tilts his head to the side, leaving the side of his neck completely exposed, the tense muscles and softly pulsating veins left bare. His fingers curl around the shaft of the razor, one slow stroke with the blade and then another, quicker one as he moves it up over his jaw; as he rinses, he shoots her a glance. "Did you want something?"

"No."

Elissa sighs; she has opened herself to this possibility and now she stands here, pulling at the threads of her composure while Loghain shaves, oblivious as ever. He is focused but appear relaxed; his hand is slow, the movements delicate and expert. Sword-hands, she thinks to herself, that's what he has. A second skin in his palms – hardened and capable - shaped to hold the hilt of a sword in an exact, perfectly measured way; the surfaces full of old scars and new, like a secret code-language. Elissa's hands are smaller and softer but she can already feel them thicken, the flesh knotting itself into a hard shield.

Loghain's fingertips seem to momentarily disappear into the foam under his chin and return glistening wet as his blade crosses the surface of his cheek. There's a rivulet of soap-water running over the back of his hand, dripping down on his chest as his hand moves. She watches it slowly vanish in the curls there, forcing her gaze upwards again.

"I think it's going to rain later today." Elissa clears her throat, nodding towards a mountain of clouds building up across the lake.

"Yes." Loghain responds, barely moving his lips to speak which makes the word sound muffled. If he had not been preoccupied, his answer would be accompanied by a sarcastic remark about her remarkably pointless choice of topic, she knows.

"Yes." Elissa echoes, but feels more like groaning at herself.

Desire – the kind of banal desire directed towards people and even places, foods, fantasies – is simple. Like hunger or thirst she knows how to approach it; she is far from inhibited, and greedy enough to indulge, allow herself. But this, she thinks as Loghain rinses the knife in the mug of water and wipes it dry with a corner of the towel around his shoulders, this is not like that. There is nothing simple about this feeling as is crashes into her, nothing containable at all.

She doesn't know what to make of it and she doesn't like it.

"Done." His voice is right beside her all of a sudden, his hands reaching for the mug and the mirror and Elissa lets her grip of both loosen quickly and steps away.

She feels weary, heavy, like her body is dragging her down and the soles of her feet are made of stone. And then she is suddenly angry. Angry with herself for being so silly, for not having more sense, for being a pathetic little girl infatuated with the childhood hero and angry with him, because he won't know and somehow that idea is the most infuriating of all the ones flooding her head: that he has done this to her – somehow he must have, as she is no simpering maiden and she does not lose her head - and will never know about it.

He is her general. He is Loghain Mac Tir and she is not a complete fool.

And she is perfectly capable of self-restraint.

"I'll check on the horses," she snaps, turning on her heel, deciding it best to forget about this as soon as possible. By the time they ride off she will have forgotten it completely. "Hurry up."

"Very well," Loghain gives her a glance that seems confused or possibly annoyed, but Elissa doesn't stay long enough to find out.

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Although a good two days' journey is still ahead of them before they will reach West Hill, it is possible to draw the conclusion that the area has not, in any sense, recovered from the Blight. While there are houses and signs of human life, the land lies bare, burnt, as though it has exhausted itself to the point of completely shattering; it resembles Denerim those first days after she was allowed to walk out of the bedchamber.

Knight-Commander Harrith and his templars lead them to a farmstead that looks abandoned but as soon as they enter it, Elissa realises it can't be. The air inside is so thick with magic even she can feel it, almost expects it to drip off her hands as she unsheathes her swords in preparation for whatever awaits them. She imagines she can even feel the sharp irony smell of blood hanging over them.

"I hate mages," she mutters under her breath, directed towards nobody in particular. "They ought to be outlawed."

"You might want to associate with other templars if that is the case," Loghain retorts, a step behind as they walk, still led by said templars which at least feels somewhat reassuring.

But the house itself is empty, they conclude after a search; they search room after room for hidden passages or secret doors and find one, just as Elissa is about to call the whole mission a bluff and question Harrith's orders, she is the one who finds it behind a bookshelf.

As she presses her shoulder against it - never having been one for picking locks - the wood gives in with a surprising leniency that causes her to stumble down a narrow flight of stairs.

The spell – a jolt of energy - hits her before she has time to crawl to her feet, but it's an unfocused spell, sloppy, cast without aim as a measure of desperation rather than attack and Elissa stands despite the burning pain in her shoulder, looking around, her gaze grasping at the surroundings.

She stands in a cellar and in the corner of the next room – a small, cramped storage where only layer upon layer of spider's web and a few sacks of potatoes seem to be stored nowadays – Elissa spots the mage. It's a scrawny woman with a hollow face and hair that looks like tufts of grass, randomly torn off her head. When Elissa straightens up and the sensation of falling and being hurt subsides, she feels her blood respond to something in the cellar, call out in a swirl that is hot and thick and searching.

It's looking for the mage.

She is about to walk up to her as she hear the sounds of the others run down the stairs and before she has gathered herself after the slight injury, Loghain has brushed past her.

"Loghain, wait-"

He is already in the small chamber, his sword drawn but lowered immediately as he, too, must feel the same thing as Elissa feels. Behind them the templars are approaching, a clatter of metal against stone and the surge of voices – at the noise, the mage screams something inaudible and lashes out a surge of magic in the air; Elissa nearly gives in to the insane impulse to duck, but the spell isn't malevolent. It seem to snap itself in place among the other spells in the house, a shivering magical prison as protection against something.

"She's casting protection spells," Harrith confirms, just as she's about to point it out. "Blood magic."

"Is she using her own blood?" Elissa asks, kneeling beside the woman who – as their eyes meet – seem to wake up, as though she has been trapped in a torpor, something wrapped around her mind; her eyes clear up and her hand reaches for Elissa's. It looks scaly and animal-like, the skin is thick and scarred and the scent rising from it is familiar. Glancing at Loghain, Elissa knows he notices, too. Despite his disapproving expression, she takes the mage's hand. It seems to calm her.

"She must be," another templar interjects.

"Blood," the mage repeats. There is hardly anything human left in the voice, it slithers into the air, slices it open. "The blood... is the key."

"Are you a Warden?" Loghain asks, his voice steely.

"Wardens... no. They came for me."

"The Wardens came for you? Are you hiding from Wardens?"

"No... The others. And he is their master." The woman's eyes widen in terror. "I ran here. I did. But they came back from the underground. The ones who speak. They come for you."

Loghain and Elissa exchange a long glance, a silent conversation.

"She has consumed darkspawn blood," Elissa says eventually, still holding the woman's hand. It's rough in her grasp, but warm and the connection seems to offer a strange comfort, the roaring noise between them muffled by the touch. She can't say why, but she is oddly moved by the broken mage, familiarity and fearful prospects for the future tied together in a wish to protect her. "One way or the other. Can we take her with us?"

It's a question directed at everyone in the room and it's Harrith who gives his consent.

Taking turns, they manage to carry the mage out of the house and out to where the horses are waiting. At the sight of them the woman flinches, shaking her head. Elissa, still holding her like a child, is about to console her when Loghain steps forward and reaches for the woman.

"She rides with me," Loghain says in a voice that is closed to disagreement.

"I am fully capable of taking her on my horse, Loghain."

"Yes." He nods. "But she is riding with me."

Irritated but not inclined to argue in front of everyone, Elissa turns to the mage. "Go with him," she says, thinking that she's speaking to her as though she is Oren, stubborn and scared of ghouls in the bedchamber. "He is not dangerous. Do you understand? He wants to help you, too. He is like me."

Well, only slightly more disagreeable and a bit of an arse, she adds to herself.

"Come on," Loghain says, one hand already grabbing the reins.

"Hold her hand, at least." Elissa leads the mage towards his horse and steels her own voice as well; if he is going to be condescending, she can damned well trump him. "That's an order."

That evening they make camp as soon as they have found a glade that looks suitable enough.

Having received Harrith's word that the mage's fate falls under the Wardens' duty given the special circumstances, Elissa returns to the ember-lit spot where Loghain is heating a potion for the mage. The templars are having supper by the larger fireplace in the middle of their camp, while Elissa and Loghain have set up their own, fit to temporarily nurse the woman they have brought with them without scaring her with too much noise and Chantry men.

Out in the open, she looks even worse.

Most of her skin is destroyed, resembling a darkspawn's and in the light of the fire and the moon that is reflecting down like bursts of rain through the thin clouds, it is plain to see the taint – it must be the taint – has began to creep up over the throat, reaching for her face.

"What is your name?" Elissa asks, slumping down beside the bedroll and deciding they have to start somewhere. "My name is Elissa."

There is a brief silence, as though the mage has to ponder the question.

"Eira," she says after a while. "Eira."

"Did the Wardens come for you, Eira? Did they bring you underground?"

"Y-yes." She nods. "I did not... they... they made me drink it. And he... he was so kind. Their master. He said I was brave."

"Who is the master?" Loghain takes the mug of healing potion and hands it to the mage. Elissa props her up from behind as she swallows small sip, followed by a more greedy one.

"The one who took my blood," she replies eventually, the frantic tone of her voice has a sharper edge now, a more urgent heat. "Then he raised him. He did, like a dragon! It wasn't... it wasn't meant to be like that. And he took everything. Everyone. All the people who waited. I waited... in the dark, but he never came for me."

The mage shakes her head, gives a low cry and buries her face in her hands, rocking back and forth. Over the hunched shape between them, Elissa meets Loghain's gaze.

"It was so dark. So very dark." The wail is low, like a dull hammer blow in the air. She repeats it over and over until suddenly cutting herself off.

"You were a prisoner, weren't you?" Elissa makes her own voice as soft as possible as she prods, gently, at the mage's incoherent ramblings. "They kept you underground. With the darkspawn. And you escaped."

Suddenly the mage turns slightly, holding on to Elissa's arm with a strength that seems unnatural even for someone who has been fed darkspawn blood. Her broken, dirty nails breaks the skin on Elissa's forearm, leaving bloody half-moons.

"You are different!" she cries. "You died."

Grimacing, Elissa reaches for something to clean her arm with. "I didn't die."

"No... no..." the mage shakes her head again. "Not like the ones who waited. They opened the stone for them."

"The passages to the Deep Roads?" Loghain looks at Elissa who nods. It does appear to be the logical explanation.

"Who killed those people? The ones who waited?" It truly is like speaking to a terrified Oren, Elissa thinks, reminding herself once more to soften the contours of her own sounds, make them soft and light and not dangerous as the nameless, faceless monsters. "Was it the one they raised?"

"They raised it. He did it. Up it went... up, like a dragon." The mage lifts her hands again, scrambling in the dark air. "From the bottom of the earth, from the edges of the sea-"

"The Archdemon?" Elissa interrupts, thinking they'd better stay away from chanting bloodmages tonight. "Did the Archdemon kill those people?"

"Yes... yes... he was meant to be different... but he was not."

"And you were there?" Loghain's voice is incredulous.

"How did you survive after you escaped?" Elissa asks.

"I ran... and there was sun again. And they waited for me, in the house."

"They? Other mages? Your friends?"

"Friends," the mage repeats, as though the word is foreign to her. "Perhaps... We lived there. But then they came. From the underground. They came again. The stone has been opened... they were seen. So I hid. I hid in the cellar."

"Are you talking about darkspawn?" Loghain stirs the fire, glancing at Elissa. "The darkspawn came for you again?"

"Yes, yes. You..." The woman dives for Elissa again, and grabs her wrist so harshly it causes a twisted pain in her entire arm. "You. You reek of it. Can't you hear it sing? It's... the song... it's in you, too. The blood. It's different now."

"Stop that," Loghain shoves the mage's other hand away before it has reached Elissa's shoulder and there's a brief pause as he lets go of her and she looks at him for a long time, under her thick eyelashes.

"They will come... They are so many. And they talk. He made them like that."

"The one who took your blood?" Loghain asks. "He made them talk?"

"Yes."

Loghain sits back and the mage is looking at Elissa again.

"I was like you... " Now her eyes are clearer than before, the veil is gone and Elissa looks into them, meeting unfathomable sadness. It's the gaze of someone who grieves what she has seen, who has been driven to insanity with no hope of anything else. "But I was alone. I was... they came for me, and nobody... Poor girl..." she grabs her hand, and this time it's not to hurt or scare, this time it's intended as consolation, Elissa realises, and it leaves a lump in her throat. "So alone... you are all alone, like me."

"I will be fine." Elissa squeezes the mage's hand. "You don't have to worry about me."

"It's the blood." The other woman sounds regretful, as though she's apologising. A chill jolts through Elissa, landing in her chest where it settles, spreads, will grow into a persistent worry over the coming days, she knows. "It's always the blood."

Drooping her head and relaxing her grip of Elissa, the mage looks asleep for a moment. Elissa glances at Loghain, who is observing the tainted skin on the mage's arms.

"She is evidently dying of the darkspawn blood," he says.

"I think she is, yes." Elissa agrees. "Or she has been driven insane by something else. But there's nothing... it seems to be little we can do."

"Someone might have experimented on her," Loghain suggests, in a neutral tone. "Used her for research?"

"I... yes."

What better candidate for being dragged off underground than a apostate; someone without family and ties, someone who will not be missed? But who would make such a deliberate selection? Even if the talking darkspawn seem capable of somewhat advanced strategy and possibly have the independence to give and follow orders, Elissa wonders if they can truly reason.

"Make it stop," the mage whispers, suddenly. "Please. The noise. It... I can't shut it out. I don't want to be... not like that. The mages... they're gone. I ran to them. I wanted to tell, people must know. The stone can open and the monsters well out of it-"

"Hush," Elissa says. "We know. You can rest now, Eira."

"Rest... yes. Draw... draw your last breath-" the mage opens her eyes again, searching for Elissa's gaze as she seems to search within herself for the words. And then there seems to be merely a vast nothing left: nothing to add, nothing they can do for her, nothing more than death.

"Draw your last breath, my friends," Elissa fills in. "Cross the Veil and the Fade and all the stars in the sky. Rest at the Maker's right hand, and be forgiven."

With a soft sigh, the mage sinks back on the bedroll, closing her eyes and holding on to Elissa's hand.

"Loghain." Elissa lets her free hand rest over the other woman's forehead.

Loghain nods and unsheathes the dagger he keeps in his right boot, before he swiftly – and with chilling precision – buries it in the mage's chest.

They sit in silence for a long time after she has passed away, letting the night sink down over them.

Tomorrow they can talk.

The words and the thoughts and the implications all gather in Elissa's head, crowding everything else so she feels uncomfortably unaware of anything beyond this. It's cold, despite the heat from the fire and she folds her arms, hugging herself, as to keep the warmth inside her own body at least.

Then Loghain quietly places a hand on her shoulder and Elissa looks up, meets his gaze, and leans back into the touch, immensely grateful that he's there.

A/N: As always, thanks to CJK and to all of you for reading and commenting. It is very much appreciated!

Also, I do realise the story arch(s) is massive – and far from finished - but let me assure you that there is a Plan for both darkspawn and romance. Both Cartography and its sequel is planned and plotted. I hope you will enjoy the ride.