Vocabularies are crossing circles and loops.

We are defined by the lines we choose to cross or to be confined by.

A.S. Byatt

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Morrigan's journal feels like the kind of fantastic tale Nan never allowed Elissa to read as a little girl. Those tales where knights on their fiery steeds never came, or worse: died gruesomely on the road. Tales that promised nothing because nothing can be promised, especially not to little girls in Highever who sit with their chubby faces pressed up again the windows, waiting for their chance to fly far, far away.

She had always loved the cruel sense of fate in those forbidden stories, had enjoyed the tears they brought to her eyes.

As a grown woman, Elissa would have preferred a different kind of tale. One that did not need to end in a murky old keep in northern Ferelden.

Huddled up in an armchair up in her bedchamber, she reads all morning and all forenoon, reads until first the servants and later Loghain come up to check on her. When she is prodded, she eats bread and a large chunk of cheese, then continues to read as voraciously as before.

As the sun begins to set, Loghain returns for the second time.

"Dog and I have been scouting the old passages all day," he says pointedly, standing in the doorway.

Elissa looks up, noticing he looks warm and sweaty which makes her momentarily confused until she casts a glance out the window and spots the still blue sky. A whole day has passed. Perhaps it ought to be considered a good thing, after all. There are times, especially lately, when she doubts Thedas' ability to go on without her constant interference but evidently it is still possible for the world to progress while Elissa is absent from it.

Loghain's mouth twists as he takes a step inside and leans against the wall.

"Oh?" When her scattered thoughts eventually fall back into place, she thinks he must be irritated that she has spent all day here, while he has been busy; she is about to offer a remark about it when he meets her gaze and there's no trace of irritation there. "I got a bit absorbed."

She holds up the journal and he snorts, amusedly.

"You don't say."

Her neck is taut, she realises as she's stretching out a bit in her seat, looking at him. Her entire body has closed around this one task for many hours now, forming a shield to allow her undisturbed concentration. Loghain dissolves it, swiftly. She probably ought to worry about this, she reminds herself before smiles at him.

"It appears all passages from this part of the keep are caved in and unusable," he continues, sitting down in an armchair at the opposite side of the room. "But there is one that leads out from the tower."

He sounds as unsurprised announcing this as Elissa feels hearing it. She nods, watching Loghain show Dog his empty hands to illustrate the lack of food. With a displeased groan, Dog proceeds to Elissa, giving her a pleading look. If he had eyelashes, she thinks, he would have fluttered them coyly now. She shakes her head. He begged a lot less before she left for Orlais, of this she is certain.

"Avernus had visitors, according to Morrigan's journal. Wardens, it appears."

"Wardens?" Loghain frowns.

"You can read for yourself. See if you understand it differently."

She gets to her feet, crossing the floor to give him the volume. It's not until she finally goes out of her temporary hibernation in the armchair that she notices how hungry she is and that she's still wearing nothing but the short tunic she has slept in. The last observation is made by Loghain as well, judging by his disapproving glare. Self-conscious all of a sudden she fights shy of standing too close to him as she's handing over the volume – he takes it quickly from her hands – and then she returns to her own side of the room again and sits down, palms curved over her knees.

Not waiting for Loghain to actually read the journal, Elissa clears her throat.

"I'm headed for the tower."

"Yes?" He lifts his gaze from the book.

"Alone," she clarifies.

"Is that wise?"

Elissa shrugs, spotting the unmistakable frown in Loghain's face that tells her he is doubting her idea to a much greater extent than he is ever going to admit. If she flatters herself – and him - she can pretend, at times, it is because he worries about her, but more often than not she concludes it has little to do with anything but Loghain's deep-rooted belief that he always knows best.

"Avernus has nothing to gain from killing me," she says, wondering briefly when she started measuring danger in this currency. "Unless you want to continue mapping the keep I'd suggest you get a meal and a bath."

Loghain lets his gaze linger on her for a second before nodding, rather curtly. "Bring Dog, at least," he says.

"No, he doesn't like the smell in th-"

"Bring Dog," Loghain repeats, all but glaring at her.

Not possessing the patience or the desire to waste more time today by having an argument, she rolls her eyes to herself and shrugs her defeat.

And Dog lets out a sound that sounds suspiciously like a sigh.

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There is a smell of incense in the tower today, tickling Elissa's nostrils, landing somewhere at the back of her throat and making her entire mouth taste of wood and clove. At her side, Dog whines loudly; Elissa pats his head, ushering him inside the chamber where Avernus sits behind his desk, barely even looking up at their arrival.

"You come alone today, Commander," he says, levelly. She watches him place a quill on the spread pages of the book he is reading before snapping it shut and putting it aside. "Just as well."

"Is that so?" Elissa sits down opposite him, with Dog at her feet. "Will you be kind and complaisant and let me return to my other duties without putting us both through the whole trite ordeal of physical threats, then?"

Avernus chuckles. "You know, I am rather fond of you. Who would have thought the cowardly Couslands could bring forth such a fiery young woman."

The stab hurts a lot less than it would have, a year ago. That insight fills her with a peculiar kind of satisfaction mingled with grief, rising up into the air in here, among the scents and the paths between living and dead. She is no longer the last of Couslands. The castle stands again, as does her brother.

And Elissa has been cut out of the fabric of noble heritage and bloodlines, the name just a scar among many, fading with the years.

"Insulting my family might not be the best way to go about this," she says calmly, subduing the urge to raise her voice. She looks at Avernus and shakes off the irritation with a reminder to herself that it's pointless, that it will only steal more time from her. "I came for information. About the Wardens who visit you, among other things."

A moment passes when everything is still around them, the time beating softly against her lingering words and the memories of life in here, the mirror of the past held up for them all to reflect in.

"You went to Orlais." Avernus notes, and she is surprised until she reminds herself that this is also a man who has been alive since King Arland's reign. Fetching information can't be an impossible task for him, all things considered.

"How did you know?" she asks anyway.

"I have my sources."

"Tell me," she demands. "Explain your part in the Order."

One of his hands rest on the desk, pale and marked by old age but defying it at the same time, like the rest of him; almost carelessly he twirls a quill between his fingers, looking at it while he seems to ponder his answer. Elissa sits back and stares, too, at the strange little dance of the immensely worn feather.

"There have been disagreements in the Order for as long as I have been a Warden," Avernus says. "Back then, of course, we fought over political influence above all. Sophia, for example, did not see the Wardens as naturally separated from the nation they resided in."

"Well, she wanted to have the throne, didn't she?" Elissa crosses her legs, trying to recall the details of the documents - among them a handful of journal pages - she had managed to steal from this very keep many months ago. While the words themselves have vanished, the emotions filtered through them linger in her mind – the betrayal and pride and fury running so hot even on yellowed parchment that Elissa had been able to feel it.

"Perhaps." Avernus nods, a little chink in his voice. "But you would do well to remember that king Arland was a tyrant. He bled his lieges dry, plundered the nobility and starved his freemen. Should Wardens accept tyranny for the sake of neutrality?"

It's a leading question, of course, and one that is not easily answered yet Elissa finds herself nearly shaking her head.

"When we became outlaws in our own country, many Wardens left for Orlais." Avernus continues. "A fine way to make a statement about neutrality, marching into the open arms of the Imperial Court. But that is what they did. Those of us who remained fought alongside the banns and the arls."

"And then they laid siege to Soldier's Peak?" Elissa rubs her chin. "Trapping you in here?"

Avernus observes her, the quill in his hand resting on the closed book now. "Indeed. But this you already know, Commander."

She does, although the details seem far away. She wonders if they are for him, too; she wonders if they have petered out like her own memories of Highever that night, or the fight at Fort Drakon, or if they in fact grow stronger with time. Elissa scrutinises the room, then the man in front of her, trying to force these surroundings into her.

"What did you find when you opened the Veil?" she asks as a flicker of recollection brushes over a memory of the ghostly Avernus, tearing open the layers separating them from the Fade. He had looked so determined, a man who knew what he was doing.

The Avernus who is here with her in this very room seems taken aback by the bluntness of the question, or possibly the abrupt turn of the conversation. She is so used to talking mostly to Loghain these days - and he is almost accustomed to her habits by now – so she allows a quiet moment for him to gather his thoughts and words.

"I found a power strong enough to be useful," he says, eventually. "A force. It is difficult to explain this, as it is difficult to explain magic to those who have never felt it in their bodies. But I found that my blood made the difference. I had used blood magic before, naturally."

"Well, naturally," she shrugs. In the old records Loghain has been digging deep into they have found Avernus' story. Sophia had spared his life and in black ink given an account of the benefits of recruiting among those waiting for the gallows. The gratitude for such unexpected mercy is always bountiful.

"It truly is the finest, most difficult form of power one can master, Commander."

"I will have to take your word for it, I suppose," Elisse replies, dryly.

"Yes," he smiles thinly. "But at any rate, I found that being a Warden - having consumed darkspawn blood - set me apart from the ways I had learned. I had become something else, and as I opened the Veil using my own blood, I allowed entrance for a force like my own."

"Are you referring to darkspawn?"

"To this day, I do not know." Avernus gives her a little shrug. "I am still trying to study it."

"It was more powerful than you expected?"

"Oh, certainly." He inclines his head. "I was a young, proud man. I had not counted on anything to overpower me."

"But it did."

Avernus nods again.

Elissa finds it fascinating to look at the man in front of her, to imagine how impossibly old he is, what sort of inhuman life he has led for hundreds of years while still, she supposes, carrying around the man he once was. She imagines old age as a state of peace: the heart trudged past care, past bitterness to be humble and honest and treasure what it has, not what it never could have. She has imagined this as a fixed mark, a granted blessing. But she learns, in this chamber, that she has been in the wrong.

You are what you possess. You are what you master, what you do, but also – and this is perhaps the most important of all the things that define you – what you lost.

"You left Sophia to die." As she speaks the words, she realises it's not a question. "That's how the demon got hold of her, no?"

Avernus sits very still, not even blinking, before he grants her a reply.

"I... I did." He has never sounded older, or more human. "She was doomed long before, of course. It was her fate to die in that rebellion; she knew that. I knew that. Even so, I stood by her side as the last of the Wardens in our ranks fell." He shakes his head, in disbelief. "The King's forces against a dozen starved Wardens. And we thought the demons would help."

"And then you retreated in here?" She presses on. "Instead of wasting your own life, too. Because you found something that was more important than Sophia?"

"Either old age is making me soft, Commander, or you are as sharp as they come." His voice is full of deeply buried amusement, Elissa notices, amazed again at the way he is existing in bits and pieces that seem to shuffle around inside him, different ones surfacing every time.

"Oh, don't worry, it's the latter," she says, humourlessly.

"I escaped, yes." He looks around the dusky room, eyes travelling along the lines of books, the jars and vials and vellums piled everywhere; he is in all things a grotesque parody of a lord standing proudly before his spot of land, taking in its grandeur. "I have studied the forces ever since."

"You have had contact with the Order for all these years? Shared this with someone?"

He nods. "Briefly. There are fractions within the Order that study what I study. The connection between the darkspawn and the Wardens, that is. The very essence of what we are."

"I've understood as much, yes." Elissa shifts position and Dog stirs, too, still sniffing demonstratively as though he wishes to let it be known exactly how much he dislikes being here. She will have to give him treats tonight, she decides, letting down a hand to rub him behind his ears.

"There are visitors here at times," Avernus confirms. "As I am certain Morrigan has told you in her journal already. Wardens who are dedicated to their promises, whatever the cost and consequence."

"How charming."

"And you mean to say that you are not one of those?" He arches an eyebrow.

"Well." Her face feels flushed. Last time she was in the keep she had – with Alistair's angry protests in her ears – made herself into a test subject, if only very briefly. It had tasted of death, reminiscent of the Joining, and afterwards she could – or thought she could – sense the darkspawn from a greater distance, predict their movements in battle and hear their non-coherent string of thoughts in a different way. She has not even thought of this since.

Avernus looks satisfied but speaks no further of the topic.

There is so much she would ask him if she knew she could. Urgent thoughts, old, half-forgotten matters and barely finished scraps of imagination float in her mind, crowding her thought but she can't let more than a small fraction of them slip here, and only very carefully.

"What do your visitors want from you?"

"Knowledge," he says, quickly, as though it is a question he hardly needs to ponder.

"They used to come for the tear, before it closed. Now they come seeking to learn about the source of power I once unleashed."

Elissa tugs at her lower lip, thoughtful. "And you give them that?"

"In exchange for stories of the outside world, yes." He gives her a long glance. "Tell me, are you familiar with the many fractions of our Order?"

"I know there are fractions."

"I see," Avernus says. "Well, that is correct, of course. Within the Order there are Wardens who believe that the darkspawn ought to be defeated without a second thought, and then there are Wardens who believe that darkspawn can be... liberated from their nature. There are also those who seek autonomy for the Wardens, in all sorts of ways. Others, like me, want to research the bond we share, our changing nature. I do not necessarily take a stand in the conflicts, at least any longer."

"Have you encountered Wardens working for the darkspawn?" Elissa feels the question hesitate in her throat, a shivering doubt following it.

Avernus tilts his head, looking into her eyes. "Working for them? That indicates darkspawn who are capable of intelligence."

She nods, waiting to see his reaction. He makes a gesture with his hand, telling her to go on.

"We have found traces of old Tevinter magic in darkspawn caves. There is nothing we can say for certain but it appears... well, there are some indications that suggests that might be the case."

"Tevinter magic," he repeats, as though talking to himself. "Most curious."

"So you are not familiar with that?"

"I know there are Wardens who strive to domesticate the old powers beckoning the darkspawn," he says. "They wish to control the beasts by turning their own powers against them. I was not aware they had resorted to attempting to actually seek out the Old Gods. There are enough things beyond the Veil at our disposal, I see no point in endangering Thedas for the sake of old legends. But I am not surprised there have been Wardens working for a darkspawn, cause, no."

"Liberators of some kind?"

"Or Wardens who desire the power it could bring forth, uniting with a force like that. Something is changing in the Order," Avernus says, rising to his feet with some difficulty. "Even here, I can sense it. You have set a new course, Commander. You survived the fight with the Archdemon. That caused a stir."

"Is the ritual known?"

"Not widely, at any rate. But there are several Warden scholars who have mapped the various possibilities, or should I say speculations. Without proof there is little that can be established, however."

"And now I'm proof." A chill runs down her spine.

"Yes." Avernus stands with his back against her, looking at something in his bookshelf. After a while he turns around, nodding. "You are proof. Well, you and that taciturn general of yours."

"Should I be scared?"

"I would take heed when it comes to your fellow Wardens, Commander." Avernus folds his arms across his chest. "It did something to you, sharing the Archdemon's death. I can feel it. Chances are others can too. There are many who wish to profit from that, I imagine. Your blood alone would-" his voice trails off.

Echoes of someone else's voice seem to flood the room – You are different! You died! Elissa winces, trying not to let it show when she rises from her seat and walks up to him.

"There's more to it, isn't there?" she says, instead, sharpening her voice to cut out the rest of the stream of impressions and fears. "I don't think it's just about the Archdemon."

Avernus seems to consider her statement. He stands right next to her and for a fraction of a second Elissa is afraid he will attack her, or stun her or whatever a half-crazed mage is capable of doing, because his eyes are wide open and the intensity in them is terrifying. Dog growls, baring his teeth. Then a shadow passes over Avernus' features, and he steps back.

"You are correct," he says, looking away. "There are rumours stating that the divide in the ranks have reached as far as Weisshaupt, even. If there is truth in that, we stand before a time of great difficulties. The First Warden would not hesitate to wage a war in his own Order to ensure obedience."

"All the more important where we place our loyalties, then." Elissa feels cold, like her body has frozen in here and she longs for sunlight and warmth. To live an eternity like this - trapped in stone like a bloody dwarf. She shudders.

"Indeed." Avernus smiles, somewhat sarcastic.

Elissa takes a step towards him, which makes him retreat against the bookshelf, his smaller frame trapped by her own. She keeps one hand on the hilt of her sword, while her other hand grabs his wiry upper arm roughly. Avernus observes her, an expression torn between surprise and something else. It's not fear, she isn't ignorant enough to believe he would ever fear her, but it's some form of understanding.

"You live at my mercy," Elissa says, her face so close to his own that she can feel his sour breath on her skin. "And should you forget that, I will find out."

She doesn't say how – Maker knows she doesn't know how, it's a just a tired cliché she thought fitting – and he doesn't ask, but he nods and she releases her hold of him.

"Commander?" he calls, as she is at the door.

"Yes?"

"Be careful out there."

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After four days in the surprisingly endurable company of the Drydens, Elissa deems their stay over. The keep has been explored and their supplies replenished several times over – they are even offered new bridles for the horses – as they slowly make their way out of the grounds.

Loghain half-expects the horses to break under the strain of the brimful saddlebags and they do refrain from riding fast for the first day but that is more due to the scorching sun than anything else. Dog is panting before they have even reached the main road and Loghain feels his shirt like a second skin, soaked against his back as they pitch camp for the night. It's a quiet sort of day, they are too tired for anything but water, food and sleep.

The second day they lose the benefits of travelling through forests and are subjected to the unrelenting heat and hardships of breaching the small passages that are leading through the mountains surrounding Dragon's Peak. It has been long since Loghain led an expedition here, but the roads are indeed as passable as he had hoped for.

They make their camp by Drakon River – or what little taste of Drakon River that runs through this inhospitable landscape.

"We cannot hope for a better spot," he concludes, dismounting in a deep, wide ravine.

"This is fine," Elissa shrugs, reminding him again that she is one of the least difficult people he has ever travelled with. If he should suggest camping in a lair of ogres she would likely nod and make a fire. It might be one of her most likeable traits, he thinks to himself, watching her tend to the horses.

Even though they eat abundantly that night – and they do, Loghain can't quite remember ever having eaten this much by a campfire – the food supplies from the Drydens still look almost untouched.

After the meal they begin to make the camp ready for the night, habitually by now, moving around each other like shadows, as though they have always done just that. This is how it is; Loghain knows it well. You find yourself wound tightly together with the ones you travel with, whether you enjoy their company or not. And if you do, the bond grows even tighter. By the end of the rebellion, Maric, Rowan and himself had been almost symbiotic, sharing mind and body, hurting themselves as they hurt each other.

This particular routine is growing into him as well; he can feel it everywhere. If he goes to hunt, she has fed and watered the horses when he returns. If she chops wood for the fire, he knows he is cooking. And he has learned her, as a companion and – although it feels odd to use the word even now – as a friend. He knows that her food tastes like bile. That she has only recently learned how to fish and still doesn't enjoy gutting them. She likes sweet flavours and fruit, she is an early riser and can easily go a day without food as long as she has a meal in the morning. She has begun to prefer open air to tents as of late. And on evenings like this one, as Elissa reaches for her saddlebag, Loghain begins to prepare the horses for the night, stepping out of her way; when she returns, her hair wet and her skin still damp, Loghain looks away, taking a second to compose himself around his own weaknesses.

The intimacy of travelling together has begun to wear him down in places.

Inside him, there are two separate tracks, two threads unfolding and spinning around his thoughts. One for what is reasonable and productive; one for his wants and desires. Normally – with only a few notable exceptions over the years – Loghain has had these perfectly under his command, allowing each to exist, if only slightly and on his own terms.

He is a sensible, sober man.

It is only recently that he has felt things slip out of his hands.

It is only recently that he has watched it all spin too quickly, too erratically, both paths inside him running amok and twisting themselves around the fixed image of her, beyond his control and outside of his defences.

Of course, even this foolishness has a mirror-memory in him, somewhere. A memory of campfires and travel-rhythms and clumsy affections followed by years of that held-back conviction that he could do right by her, if only given a chance – because he thought, deep down, that he would never truly have it and it's so easy to be the better man when nobody is watching.

But he had been young then, more persevering and less selfish, more passionate about his own ideals. Or had he? They blur, the layers of time. And he finds that with the seasons tugging at his sleeve, his reserve dissolves with them, slowly and steadily.

The point of self-restraint seems to fade the older he gets, which, all things considered, is bitterly ironic. Nobody wants to watch an old man's lecherous advances; Loghain can think of few things that are as deeply undignified as that.

Yet here he is, scrambling at the sodding threads of sense and reason.

Elissa bends over her bedroll to adjust it on the ground, and as she's glancing up at him, he is rendered speechless for a moment by the observation that her chest is bare underneath the tunic and that he can discern the soft swelling of breasts where she's usually bound and battle-ready. Or the curve of her hips as she's rising to her feet again. Her neck, left bare by the shorter hair she returned home with. Her loud, unabashed laughter. Small, insignificant things, reminding him of nothing he did not already know.

Somehow it still stirs something, sets it into motion, unsettles a slow-moving feeling that is sinking low, lurching at the very bottom of him. She is oblivious to it, of course. As she should be, he reminds himself, almost seething.

Loghain pokes the fire needlessly to keep his hands occupied.

Oh, Loghain, Maric teases in his head. Bryce's youngest? I never would have thought you the type.

I am full of surprises, Loghain snaps back, thinking a sure sign of impending insanity must be to engage the inner voices in a conversation. And I hardly intend to act upon it.

And doesn't that just make you feel even better?

It does, actually.

Not that Maric of all people would have understood.

Not that there is anything to understand, Loghain corrects himself, biting back the irritated groan.

Nothing.

There are, especially lately, moments when they slip in and out of their given roles, moments when the borders and boundaries on their map of companionship appear stretched out or even disappearing. And it happens that Loghain thinks to himself that those are the moments he would seek - if he had been a different man and his commander had been a different woman. And each time the thought forms itself in his mind, he immediately cuts it off, gives in to the other forces at work.

Vanity and pride, he thinks, all but sneering at himself. It should be impossible of course, to still nurse either of those things for a man who nearly drove his nation to ruin and who then was forced to admit his mistakes, while said nation watched, with contempt and badly suppressed satisfaction.

But he is nothing if not stubborn and he has so very few things left to protect these days.

Loghain is grateful that the next step in their unspoken routine for the evening grants him the solitude down by the stream. The water is cold and the air is still warm, and the quiet repose is unbroken and welcome. He sits there alone for a while, closes his eyes and waits for the sounds of the evening to drown the noise of his own thoughts.

Elissa has settled by the fire as he returns. She lies spread out on her bedroll, leaning back on her arms and watching the crackling dance of the flames in front of her with a surprisingly calm expression on her face. It's good, Loghain thinks to himself. Even if it is a fleeting moment of peace, she has certainly earned it.

Loghain picks up a chunk of cheese for Dog, before he joins her.

"You look glum." She gives him a sidelong glance. "Well, more so than usual."

"It is not intentional," he says, honestly.

"Good." She smiles, sitting up again and reaching for her swords that are glittering in the light from the fire. "I feared I would have to come up with various ways to cheer you up. And Maker knows that would be a monumental task."

Loghain snorts. "I would say you do quite well."

He breaks off a piece of cheese and holds it out for Dog who accepts with a happy bark. Straightening up, Loghain realises that Elissa is looking at him, almost in disbelief, her face softening in a way that he can't recall having seen before. She seems to be about to say something, but remains quiet, picking up a cloth and one of her swords instead.

For a long time, they sit quiet together, as their habit has it. Loghain polishes his shield in a half-hearted manner, mostly to have something to do until it's late enough for sleep. Dog snores and flounders occasionally in his sleep, waking up for food at times, and Elissa is intently wrapped up in the cleaning of her greatsword that, Loghain notices from this angle, has a chip running from the hilt up towards the middle.

"When did you do that?"

"When did I do what?"

"When did your sword get chipped?" He nods towards it, as though she would be in need of clarification which sword he means.

Elissa puts it down, scratching the back of her neck in a gesture that indicates some sort of embarrassment. "Long ago," she admits. "I don't remember."

Loghain leans over it, slanting it slightly to get a better look, despite Elissa's sighs of protest. "Maker's breath, why haven't you replaced it?"

"I like this sword. It... it's personal." She lets a hand rest across the blade on the ground, protectively.

"Using a chipped sword for its emotional value runs counter to all sensibility."

"So I have a sentimental streak. News of the hour!" She sounds a little rebuked; he understands he might have found something that runs much deeper than she wants to acknowledge. "I carried the Highever shield with me all across Ferelden for a year, despite not using shields in battle."

"I hardly see how that is the same thing. Highever was your home. This is merely a sword." He shakes his head.

"I defeated the Archdemon with that sword," Elissa protests. "Tell me, how long did you walk around in your Orlesian armour?"

He is taken aback for a few seconds, which is enough for her to regain her ground. As she looks at him, triumphantly, Loghain has to admit she has a point - not that the Orlesian armour wasn't very good, because it was. Superior to most of its kind, definitely. Although he can't deny it served as a rather iconic and decidedly not pragmatic symbol as well.

"I replaced it, eventually," he says.

"It fell apart," she corrects, but the tone is warm and he finds that he really doesn't have much defence left against that, so he shrugs and looks into the fire again. "But you're right. I will replace the sword when I find a better one. Is that acceptable to you, oh mighty general?"

"It is," he says curtly, suddenly irritated with her for bringing out his pompousness. And with himself for being such a tiring bloody fool.

But Elissa smiles, before Dog demands her attention, wanting to be patted and spoken to. She opens her arms for the mabari who nuzzles his head against her belly; Loghain dedicates himself to putting more wood on the fire, throwing glances their way.

They make a fine pair, the steely, good-hearted commander and Maric the mabari, who lacks dignity but makes up for it in loyalty. He barks something that rewards him with another hug, before Elissa lets him run off to check on the horses.

Elissa's hair has dried after the bath, a thick black helmet of it dancing in strange formations around her head, defying all attempts at being domesticated. There is something utterly disarming and strongly appealing about it, about her: the sense of disinterest to her appearance, the distinct lack of coquettish manners and vain concerns, the strength required to shrug it off and trust in other things. It is, he thinks, remembering the verdicts back when she was a potential bride, the very opposite of plain. He's suddenly very tired. Very old and very tired and so aware of everything, while she seems infuriatingly calm.

She tucks a strand of hair behind her ear as she looks at him again. "I'll take the second watch," she says in that light tone she uses when she is not entirely satisfied with something he says or does but doesn't feel like arguing about it.

Loghain nods, holding her gaze a little longer than he can defend to himself.

A/N: As always, thanks to CJK for being a fabulous, endlessly patient beta and sounding board. And thanks to all of you who read and comment and stay with me for the ride. You make my day.