The arling of West Hill is still mostly a ruin.

The landscape had been burnt during the Blight, the roads used by darkspawn forces; rumour had it the verges were crowded with corpses that spread enough plagues to kill any survivors. Arl Wulff had lost his heirs to the darkspawn and his gold to the civil war and Loghain rides through the small village that surrounds the enormous fortress, wondering what the odds are for being ambushed in the next grove. He almost misses the templars they parted ways with yesterday. They had been useful companions, but not even Elissa's most aggressive charisma had convinced them that they could have business to tend to in West Hill.

Loghain doesn't blame them.

Frankly, nobody has ever truly known what to do with West Hill. It is too close to the borders, for one thing, and the mountain passages are difficult to defend and easy for enemies to take advantage of. In any war where the enemies come by boat or from Orlais, West Hill is bound to be the first spot to be attacked and the first spot to fall.

Many years ago Loghain had heard someone joke that the arling of West Hill had been intended as a punishment rather than an honour once the corsairs left the piece of land alone. Ever since, it has just been a ghost of an altogether different time, a hapless mass of stone and wood and a bulky piece of defence fit to defending nothing at all. When he was made advisor and commander of the king's army, Loghain had wanted to restore it, return the building to the crown and turn it into a look-out point; he had suggested they'd man the towers and use the fortress itself as a military supply storage but this had never been a particular well-received proposal, least of all among the arl's family who defended their inherited spot of land with a ferocity that seemed to verge on madness even for inbred nobles.

Loghain has spent the better part of today scouting the village for anything of interest, while Elissa has been visiting the Arl himself, discussing his vast spot of land and the collection of stone he governs over. She's returning across the field now; Dog perks up at the sight, straightening his posture and starts running towards her.

Maric the mabari, Loghain thinks to himself, as he watches the dog. It continues to amuses him.

"My brother or Alistair will have to do something about this place," Elissa mutters as she pulls up her black horse next to Loghain's. "This doesn't serve anybody at the moment. Why hasn't it been rebuilt as the fortification it was meant to be? Even the battlements are bloody ruins."

Loghain can't help but smile to himself.

"Did Arl Wulff greet you with open arms?" he asks, commanding his horse silently to remain still.

"Not exactly, no. But we reached an understanding." She rakes a hand through her hair and crooks an eyebrow. "He will search through all the abandoned passages leading in and out of his fortress, looking for potential threats – I even promised him that a couple of Wardens would come and inspect the job in time."

"Promised or threatened?"

Elissa throws him a shrewd, quick glance. "It's a fine line, I would say."

"Well done, regardless." Loghain nods.

There is a brief moment when she looks surprised at his verdict, as though she had not expected a complimentary one or one at all, even.

"It's convenient to be a Cousland. Who would have thought."

"Yes," Loghain replies dryly. "It is fascinating how that works."

He, of course, had been promptly reduced to Loghain and - more informally and without a doubt - that sodding bastard the moment the chalice touched his lips. All the fear and respect he continues to instil afterwards comes down to reputation, not name and he can't say he dislikes this.

"Oh, and I told him it was a matter of discretion." Elissa makes a disbelieving little noise that sounds like a sigh. "Not that he will care much."

Loghain thinks of Gallhager Wulff as a surly idiot who believes honour and worth run in the blood and must be preserved. Who had opinions on everything and not nearly enough knowledge to support them, counting on name and manners to save him from doing things against his beliefs or will. The amount of work required to force – convince, the Maric inside his thoughts reminds him – the nobility back in line once the rebels had taken back the throne still leaves Loghain quietly fuming.

"And he agreed gracefully?"

"Well, actually he did." Elissa gives him a look teetering between amusement and something darker, less pleasant. "I was the hero of the nation not one year ago, in case you have forgotten. People owe me favours."

"That is indeed heroic," Loghain retorts, looking away since the glare of the sun behind her is rendering him blind. "Riding around collecting them."

She laughs, the darkness seemingly gone from the sound of her voice. "I never said I was a very good hero."

"Are we to be detained even longer in West Hill?" Loghain asks when they steer the horses back on the road, riding slowly through the afternoon. It's still warm and windless but behind the treetops there's thunder and rain brewing, by the look of things.

Ignoring his unconcealed sarcasm, Elissa shakes her head. "No, I think we should travel to Warden's Keep. If there is anything extraordinary happening here we should hear about it. What do you think?"

They have spent a great deal of time – far too long, in his opinion - investigating this area now, spoken to people and established their presence without revealing anything of their purpose. It had been her suggestion, to make the Wardens a part of the landscape, letting people know they weren't just legends being celebrated in Denerim but a visible, actual order of fighters made out of flesh and blood. She seems secure in the role of commander by now and knows the nobles' games as well as he does, so Loghain sees no reason not to trust her in this matter.

"I believe we have done what can be done for the time being." Loghain looks at her, noticing her face tightening a little, a shade of disappointment at their lack of success at tracking down the witch, he can tell without asking. "And I agree, we ought to make our way to this Warden base."

They pitch their camp inside an what appears to be an abandoned cave that evening, because of the increasing wind. Loghain watches Elissa get the better of her own discomfort as she throws out thick layers of dry last year's leaves and dead spiders along with their flimsy webs that get stuck in her hair, which causes the already grim expression on her face to harden into disgust.

"I don't need help," she grunts as Loghain takes a step too close, unloading the horses and carrying their bags to where she is.

"I wasn't offering any."

"Right." For a second she almost looks insulted, before pursing her lips and returning to her work.

"And I would also like to point out that I'm not afraid of these... things," Elissa adds later as the horses have been tended to and rest under a pair of trees. Loghain walks up to the cave again, where she stands, making a jerky movement with her shoulder as a large spider strolls over it, running down her arm.

"Of course not." He drops the last saddlebags on the ground.

She makes a slightly irritated grimace, but smiles at the same time so Loghain supposes it evens out.

Mere moments before the rain hits them, they eat a newly caught and quickly prepared hare with a handful of vegetables they had managed to get hold of in a village they rode past yesterday. Elissa's status and the mention of Grey Wardens usually guarantee them a hot meal or a few gifts, should they chose to make their presence known. To most people they meet using the main roads, it is merely comforting to think of two Wardens roaming their lands at night while others, Loghain assumes, would send their soldiers or warhounds after them for trespassing.

In this - in living this way, making a separate world of themselves, and especially here in these parts where all the misremembered deeds and men still walk around in the shadows of his mind – it reminds him of the last war. Certain evenings he feels like he has been travelling like this forever, others he imagines the years in Gwaren and Denerim are being washed off his hands like blood from battle and he is starting over again, without anything to his name.

Everything is different and yet somehow the same.

He'd sit like this in front of the campfires with Maric at first, then later with Rowan. Maric possessed little patience with merely sitting down and was, at least in the beginning, a bad strategist and as uninterested as he was unskilled in ways of the logistics of warfare. He would much rather spend time with the men in the army than with maps and strategy, slipping out of sight the moment Loghain would appear with his - or more often the Arl's – vellums.

When they had returned from their recruiting mission after all those months on the road, Loghain found Maric replaced by Rowan for the campfires. The two of them would sit late into the night and discuss battle or not say much at all; unlike Maric and most of the knights, Rowan had allowed him to be silent and she had also, without ever making a mention of it, understood what it was like to have to prove your own worth. Maric could afford a frivolous attitude the two of them could only dream about – or frown upon.

The fires he remembers most from that time are those he shared with her.

Loghain glances at Elissa. She is busy with their map of the Coastlands, crouched in front of the fire, in a position that seems terribly uncomfortable. But she is still young enough not to notice those things, he supposes.

If he scrambles through his memory he can find threads of words connected to her – or not to her, exactly, but to Bryce's daughter, the potential wife he never wanted. Rumour had it Bryce's youngest was plain and obstinate, but made up for it by being sensible. They said she lacked Elenor's good looks and Bryce's humility and that she was better at fighting than managing servants which had, as he recalls it, led Loghain to ask if they thought he needed a commander for his army or a teyrna for Gwaren. It had been the winning argument.

Elissa, the one he has become friends with over the past year, has a habit of flicking her fingers when she is immersed in something. Initially Loghain had found it profoundly irritating to hear that soft, rhythmical sound in his ears whenever they would sit down and plan a route or a battle, now he has come to expect it, thinks it part of the ritual itself. Thinks it a small detail to add to the rest of the things that constitutes their world.

And he wonders - but doesn't allow himself to dwell upon - when he begun to think of it as their world.

Tonight the flicking noise comes irregularly, as though her concentration is waning.

"I can feel you staring at me," Elissa mumbles, supporting her chin in her hand and not looking up. "Do I have darkspawn entrails in my hair again?"

Loghain reaches for his saddle that he has left outside the entrance, moving it inside. One of the seams has come undone and he has nothing better to do so he might as well fix it tonight.

"Not that I can see," he replies, as the rich, sun-warm scent of leather fills the their cave.

It stills again, the air between them and the air outside that seems to be creeping downwards in a slow, stifling motion. The rain has stopped, leaving a dampness prickled with chilly stings as the night spreads into it. It's the stillness of night that makes it feel so long – during the rebellion, the slow periods of mostly waiting and planning, the knights would make unspoken and unofficial schedules to ensure they shared night watch with someone who could make it a little less dull. Unsurprisingly, Loghain was nobody's first choice.

"Do you play chess?" Elissa asks suddenly.

Loghain raises an eyebrow. "On occasion. Why?

"When we get to Gwaren we will buy a chess board," she announces, glancing at him over her shoulder. He is struggling with the task of slowly but surely forcing a slightly too thin needle through the thick leather and only nods, concentrating too hard to give anything but a hum in response. "I miss chess."

The tone of her voice is so bored, he has to snort. Loghain lets his fingers run over the leather as he sews, checking for loose ends or further damage at the same time. Now Elissa is the one who is watching him, and he can sense she wants to discuss something.

"Will it be strange to return to Gwaren, you think?"

"Yes," Loghain admits, without further ado. He has not set foot there since he left for Ostagar. Now, looking back, he thinks it had felt like a final departure, but decides that is merely a rationalization of a memory he otherwise cannot explain. Many of his departures from Gwaren had felt like that. He was always fleeing it. "I expect it to be."

They had tried to burn his former estate during the civil war and the rebellions that erupted because of it. Back in Denerim, Anora had informed him of the destruction – letting him know, specifically, that Celia's famous rose garden had been drowned in fire and ash - her voice tight and wounded and her faith in him forever exhausted. What did you expect, father?

"Do you still know people there?" Elissa plays with a strand of hair with one hand, scratching Dog's belly with the other.

"What makes you think I ever knew people there?" He sneers. "Do I strike you as a social butterfly?"

Elissa chuckles, a low and private little sound that he is not yet entirely accustomed to. He does, however, take pleasure in bringing it out of her – perhaps more than he would care to admit even to himself.

"No, but you were the teyrn. You were expected to entertain the nobility frequently."

"And you know perfectly well that those gatherings hardly form any friendships," Loghain retorts, frowning as the needle worms its way through the leather and lands on his calloused fingertip. "Besides, my wife was much better at it."

"When I was old enough to be expected to attend," Elissa says, obviously amused at the memory. "I would drink my mother's friends under the table. Or I would pick the most conceited man in the room and try to outsmart him in his own field of expertise."

"I can well imagine." Loghain gives a brief smile.

Elissa falls silent again as Loghain finishes mending the seam and proceeds to oil the leather. It quickly soaks up the liquid and is soon slipping soft and supple under his hands.

"I have never been to West Hill before," she says eventually, leaning back on her hands; as Loghain turns slightly to look at her, he can see that Dog is resting his head in her lap and snoring peacefully.

"Now you know that there is hardly anything here worth seeing."

"Well." She shrugs. "It's famous all the same. Or... infamous, I should say."

He sneers, a bitter taste at the back of his tongue. "Indeed it is."

"Can I ask you something?"

Loghain glances at her. "Yes?"

"How were you betrayed at West Hill?" Elissa declines her head a little, as though apologetic for her efficient bluntness even if he knows she isn't. There is no reason she should be. It serves her well. "I mean, I know the stories. But it was often implied and never actually confirmed how it happened."

"It was an Orlesian bard," Loghain says, simply. He has begun to find it increasingly difficult to respond to her frank questions in other ways that this: driving back parts of the truth but allowing the rest to slip out. Perhaps, he thinks, he even finds it liberating.

"Oh." She is quiet for a while, seemingly pondering how to continue.

"A rebel army is bound to be targeted by such foes, of course," he say, to simplify matters for her. "As we grew as a threat we began to expect infiltrators. But not enough, evidently."

She nods. "It took skill, I imagine, getting through the defences of an entire army."

Skill, or a prince who was still too unspoiled by the ways of war to distrust those who put on a good enough show, Loghain thinks darkly.

"We had no reason to believe she was a bard at first." Loghain finds the explanation so thin, so convoluted and naive when he offers it now. But it's the truth. In many ways they were all very young, still learning from their own mistakes. "It was very conveniently arranged for her. She gave us useful information, which inadvertently helped us take Gwaren."

"So she was disguised, I take it?"

"Yes. She – Katriel - played the part of a messenger send to inform us of the teyrn of Gwaren's demise."

"I see."

"Eventually she became... part of the group." Loghain looks at Elissa who nods again, her expression open and perceptive, listening. "You may find it was foolish to accept strangers so readily. But that was the way the rebels lived. You had to trust a person's word or the direction of her sword - or your own ability to outmanoeuvre the traitors. There were no guarantees for anything."

"There are no guarantees now either," she points out. "Or if there are, someone forgot to inform me."

"Fair enough." Loghain nods, remembering that Elissa has lived like that too, from day to day, entrusting strangers with both her own life and the fate of Ferelden.

She crosses her legs and gently puts Dog's sleeping head down on the ground beside her. "Did this bard lead you to believe there would be success at West Hill?"

Loghain still grimaces at the memory. He had been made commander by then, head of the entire rebel army and second only to Arl Rendon on the battlefield. As such, he shouldn't have let his own pride colour his judgement, wash over it so thoroughly. They were too conceited after their earlier advances, he thinks, too flushed with their own foolish ideals and hopes.

As it happened, he had left his own ideals at West Hill. When he met Rowan's eyes – all of her bone-hard desperation visible in that gaze, making no secret of the fact that she was counting on him – he had abandoned all thoughts of the price of victory. From that moment forth, nothing had seemed too expensive, and all that remained was Maric. For better and for worse.

"She was leading us to our deaths, yes," he says, keeping his voice even. "The Orlesians knew about the attack. They knew where Maric was fighting too, aimed an ambush at him. If we had not left the army, they would have succeeded."

"That must have been..." her voice trails off. She brushes hair out of her face and gazes into the fire. "Did she die in the battle?"

"No. Katriel returned to us."

"Oh?" Elissa looks understandably surprised for a second. "Why? Because Maric lived?"

Loghain is quiet for a while, grateful to have work to occupy himself with while he thinks. These things, the events of the rebellion, have been pushed so far back in his history - altered at times and sometimes downright distorted to be able to contain themselves - that he has to make an effort remembering. The aftermath is there, in his mouth and chest, but the actual scenes all blur.

"I believe she had second thoughts." His thumb presses down hard on the curves of the saddle; the oil darkens the leather visibly even in this faint light. "About her mission, that is. I didn't think so then, however."

"When did you learn the truth?"

Again, Loghain has to force the memory out of a deep crack in his past, has to summon it before he can speak the words.

"Back in Gwaren," he says. "We had a couple of scouts tracking her as she left camp."

"We?"

"Rowan and I."

"Ah." Elissa looks down at the map, one finger absent-mindedly tracing the frayed edges of the scroll, up and down and around the coast of Amaranthine. Then, meeting his eyes once more she adds: "What became of the bard? Did Maric have her killed?"

"Yes" Loghain nods. "He did."

There is more to it, of course. Elissa of all people is clever enough to understand that; her eyes on him are tracing the surface of his truths, slipping deeper for a second but then she averts her gaze and he feels like he has been granted a respite.

"You should sleep," he says. "I will wake you in a couple of hours."

Later, as the fire has nearly died down, Loghain looks towards her bedroll where she is snoring quietly, encompassed by the Fade that is making every feature of her face heavy and slow. But even at the mercy of sleep, she still looks resolute and decidedly present in her body, a very old young woman. Then she sighs and shifts position, flipping onto her back and within seconds the determined commander is smoothed out by the gentle blur of rest - properly this time; the taut curve of her mouth softens, her breathing grows deeper and the flicker under her skin seems to come to a halt. There is a defenceless intimacy to it, Loghain think, unable to avert his gaze and equally unable to pretend he doesn't feel it push against his own limits.

It has been too long. He is too bloody old for this. Whatever lies past those limits is only a twisted sort of emotion, deformed after its long hibernation and unable to offer anyone anything – as though it ever could.

There is simply no path leading there any more and it's just as well, he thinks, as he gets to his feet to gather more wood. Dog appears torn for a moment, caught between the ever-exciting prospect of the forest and the less exciting but fundamental task of guarding his master.

"Stay," Loghain orders, making the decision for him.

Dog agrees, quietly for once, and returns to the bedroll where he is promptly trying to squeeze himself into Elissa's embrace but ends up resting his head on her stomach.

Outside the air is thinner and crisper, but not yet easier to breathe.

.

.

.

.

Once they begin to make their way to Warden's Keep, it appears the weather is determined to be their main adversary. If it doesn't rain, the wind keeps them company and if they manage to travel almost a full day without any interruptions of early summer storms, they can almost count on finding themselves in the midst of something before nightfall. Today, they get caught in an approaching thunderstorm. Loghain is still leading them through these parts, seemingly familiar with all the small paths and crooks, which is good, but it will help very little considering they are wearing the wrong sort of armour for lightening and there's just so much open field. Holding back a little surge of panic, Elissa presses on.

"Looks like a cave over there!" she shouts through the whipping wind, bowing her head.

"I know," Loghain returns, steering them in that direction just as the sky opens above them and the thunder cracks through the clouds. And there is something resembling a cave not too far away, but between them and this spot lies a a muddy bit of field that mostly resembles a marsh.

To make it even worse, a noise rises from the thickets around the path

Because they are being startled by the ambush and the horses are only passably broken in when it comes to darkspawn battles, Elissa's gelding bucks, throwing her out of the saddle and down on the ground before it gallops to safety. Loghain manages to calm his own horse but has trouble keeping it still enough to be able to fight particularly well. After she has slid and slipped and finally risen to her feet, Elissa receives a slash of a dagger across her cheek, and lets out an irritated moan. Dog picks up on the prospect of danger and throws himself headlong across the field, leaping to her rescue just as Loghain is forced to dismount and give up his bow for his sword.

For a long while they fight back-to-back, giving each other necessary support on the unstable ground, with Dog lashing out in attacks to finish what they cannot reach. Eventually Loghain buries his sword in the last hurlock, taking it with him as he falls down, slipping backwards.

He swears as he rises again, ineffectually scraping mud off his armour and looking over his shoulder for the horses.

"Let's get to the cave." Elissa struggles to her feet, catching hold of Dog in the slippery puddles. And then Loghain is right behind them, having gathered the horses and doing his best to sooth them while simultaneously forcing them to follow.

It takes a few minutes, but then they have all made it to the other side of the field, panting and cursing. Shaking off the worst outside the shelter, they still carry half the landscape with them inside, dropping leaves and mud everywhere and Elissa hisses a few crude words to herself as she empties her gauntlets of badly smelling slush.

As the thunder definitely breaks out, lightening flashing through the dark clouds and shaking the mountains, Elissa feels her own heartbeats calming inside her chest.

"Are you hurt?" she asks Loghain, using her hands to wring out her hair.

"No," he says, looking at her through the veil of earth-coloured hair that seems to have caught a few lumps of mud while he was killing the last darkspawn. His braids are soggy and plastered against his cheeks and even his eyebrows carry droplets of slough. It almost makes her laugh.

Loghain is so proud, so naturally dignified – even as he is forced by a united Landsmeet to surrender in front of a cocky Warden who is half his age, he does it with grace, Elissa knows, feeling a surge of those things she doesn't think about – and here he is with mud in his hair and rain dripping off his nose and Elissa has to swallow a loud, defiant sound of amusement. But despite her very best intentions, she feels the corners of her mouth twitch, involuntarily moving upwards and just as she's about to mask it with a cough, she notices that he's half-smiling dryly back at her. In an unguarded moment before she gets hold of her thoughts, she thinks Maker, I like that smile, thinks that it feels like a reward every time, thinks that she is being a fool again and almost rolls her eyes at the idiocy. Shaking her head at her own thoughts, she accidentally manages to squirt some mud at Loghain who wipes if off with the back of his hand, frowning.

And then they break into laughter. Because everything is so awful and because she has blood trickling down her cheek into her mouth and Loghain looks ridiculous and the more Elissa thinks about how little reason they have for laughing, the more she finds the laughter overwhelming her entirely. It's a force of its own, travelling from the pit of her belly up through her lungs and heart and arms that she has to hold against her sides as it begins to hurt, laughing like this.

They laugh for what seems to be an impossibly long time, and so hard that Dog stands stiff and concerned, watching them as though he expects them to be in mortal peril. And the sadness in that – in her own mabari being so unused to hearing her laugh that he thinks of it as danger – also seem hysterically funny now that she's started.

"Andraste's arse," she manages, still giggling as she picks up a somewhat dry tunic from her bag, using it to clean her face and hands before handing it over to Loghain. "I have never felt more heroic in my life. I think I swallowed a bloody frog."

"I thought you looked very imposing crawling around in the mud," Loghain replies, his tone dry but jesting.

"Yes," Elissa leans back against the wall of the cave for a bit. "Now that I think about it, I want that pose for my statue."

Loghain snorts. He is leaning forward, still trying to rub off the worst with her tunic and Elissa wonders if he is as soaked as she is, feeling the gritty mud against her bare skin under the armour. At least the air is still warm.

It unsettles the walls she has carefully built up between them, sitting here unarmed like this. Elissa braces herself again. Loghain glances at her, something warmly amused still lingering in his gaze. It disappears gradually, as his usual reserve snaps back into place, Elissa notices, while they wait together for the lightening to stop flooding the landscape with light and the thunder to peter out. When it finally does, it actually feels like a relief to see the first hints of rain.

"I'm going to check on the horses," Loghain says, turning around to get to his feet.

Elissa straightens up, too.

"Hold on, you've got-"

"Yes?" He looks at her again, an impatient wrinkle forming on his forehead, as though he can't wait to get out. It makes her feel like that pathetic little girl with the crush again.

"-mud. Let me," she continues anyway, since she can't break off mid-sentence. And then, before she has time to reconsider the idea, she buries her hands in Loghain's thick, wet hair and spreads her fingers around the clot. It's slippery, of course, and when she's dragging it out of the tendrils of hair, her palm brushes over the nape of his neck, only briefly, but enough to nearly startle her, making her pull her hand back. Loghain looks at her, straight into her eyes, which is rendering her transparent and useless for a second because she can't seem to look away. Then he does.

She holds out her hand, stupidly, showing him what she found.

"There you go," she says in that awfully forced voice she has developed over these past two years. It's a voice to hide in and escape to. She drags herself into it now, closes it tightly around the words and her own smile.

Loghain merely nods, before he climbs out of the shelter and into the increasingly heavy beat of rain.

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Riding up the steep road that leads to Warden's Keep, Elissa is grateful she has made friends with Levi and been allowed to come and go as she wishes. Think of it as a place where you will always be welcome, he had said. Granted, that was long ago now and he probably didn't mean to say that she was always invited at any time of the day or for any particular reason. Since Levi is an ordinary man with ordinary habits, he had most likely assumed her visits would involve ale and a generous serving of food, not two smelly, dogged Wardens darting into his grounds, wanting to see the half-crazed, two-hundred-and-fifty-year old bloodmage.

She has a feeling they will need to remain here for a few days, paying the price for this visit in social interaction. Looking at Loghain beside her, she is glad she conveniently forgot to include that bit in her proposal to him.

But tonight they arrive under the cover of darkness and she steers them towards the tower, after having told the guards to please let Levi know that they are here and will tend to some Warden business immediately. It will buy them some time, she gathers. Enough time to find Avernus.

If he is still even alive.

"So your mage friend lives here?" Loghain asks as they have dismounted and are walking on the bridge between the keep and its tower.

"I think friend is the wrong word," Elissa says, remembering the army of ghosts that they had to fight here, the memories of Wardens that came before her, that fought and suffered and made sacrifices long before she was born. It had been easy to pass judgement last time she was here, standing by Alistair's side in the chaos, listening to Wynne's lecture on veils and demons. "He is – or was – potentially useful, however."

It is still easy to pass judgement. Any fool can do that. It is less simple to make decisions, the scale of them never constant.

"Dangerous?" Loghain steps over a skeletal shape on the stones beneath their feet. They seem to have left this entire area untouched, for fear of the man living in the tower, most likely. Levi and his family are no warriors.

"Of course. I said he was useful, did I not?"

They exchange a wry smile before Elissa reaches the door and pushes it open, not wasting any time on pointless ceremony or hesitation.

Inside, it is much like she remembers it. The smells of dust and damp stone, the old furniture and paintings, entire rooms still wearing the colours of ages past, of different people and different times that seem to collide with visitors, as though it unsettles the whole building.

"Ah, if it isn't the Commander," Avernus greets her from the landing leading up to his quarters. He looks exactly the same, perhaps a bit more hollowed out. She wonders with a reluctant little wince what he uses to keep himself alive these days.

"Indeed." She nods, curtly.

"How very long it has been. I expected you to return a little sooner. You expressed such avid interest in my research when we last met."

"I was delayed." Elissa looks around, almost surprised not to be greeted by demons and ghouls. "Darkspawn and politics. You know how it is, I suppose."

The old mage chuckles. "Yes, quite so."

"Can we come in?" she asks, but doesn't wait until he has stepped aside to proceed up the small flight of stairs. Avernus eyes her curiously with those slightly chilling eyes, digging into her very skull by the feel of it.

"You have changed your company," he says, as his gaze travels to Loghain.

"I have, yes."

"Yes. I heard the self-righteous lad who followed you around like a lovestruck maid has come up in the world. Unfortunate."

Deciding against a debate on the subject of regents, Elissa gestures towards Loghain. "This is Loghain, my general."

If Loghain is surprised to be in need of an introduction, he lets it pass unnoticed. His face is distant and neutral as he nods at Avernus who gives them both a long look.

"Morrigan did mention you," he says then, to Loghain, and his lips curl in a smile that Elissa can't interpret but that leaves her breathless for a moment.

"She's here?" Loghain's voice is steel.

Avernus gives a little shrug. "In a sense, yes. Indeed."

Then he turns on his heel, gesturing for Elissa and Loghain to follow suit as he walks deeper into the heart of the tower.

A/N: Thanks to CJK for beta and to Ambigram for talking some sense into my Loghain muse when it was on strike. And thank you ever so much for all your comments and feedback.

And a fair warning in advance: next chapter will contain fairly disturbing themes and the rating will go up to M.