A/N:The extra detailed description for Kallian's armor is due to some artwork that the loverly Tahara on the SiB (and many other DA comms) LJ had done for me a while back. To see it, go to my profile page. I've also added other links there to pics that have been an inspiration for my writing.

A/N: (5/13/2010) Grammar and punctuation corrections made.

A/N: (6/18/2010) More minor grammar corrections.

Part 10: Finding the Falcon

"Pardon me, good lady, but could I have a moment of your time?"

The mage Aedan addressed looked up from the container of vials she was going through. Silver-grey hair topped her head, which was tied back in a short pony tail. Guessing her to be about his mother's age, he was going to give someone both older then he - and likely more powerful - full respect. He just hoped she was the kindly sort and could help him find the man that was suddenly becoming elusive.

"As long as it is a short moment, young man," she smiled as she said it. "There is much to do today. How can I help you?"

"I will certainly be brief," Aedan smiled in return. "I'm looking for a Grey Warden who goes by the name of Alistair. I've searched most of the area for him with no luck. This mages camp was the last place I could think to check. Have you seen him or know where he might happen to be?"

"You just missed him, as a matter of fact," the mage replied. "Alistair came through here just a few minutes ago looking for Enchanter Deron. Something about having a message for him. They both should currently be in the structures passed the quartermaster."

She motioned with a hand in that direction and Aedan looked that way for a moment before smiling back at her.

"Thank you greatly, and thank you for your time, ser mage," he bowed his head to her.

"It was no trouble, young man. Good luck to you in the coming battles," she inclined her head in kind.

"You as well," he responded, then took his leave.

The woman wasn't the first mage Aedan had ever met, but she certainly was the most polite. He'd met three other mages in his lifetime. One was not talkative and the Templar with him spoke most of his words for him. Another was arrogant and said non-mages were not worth her time to speak to. The third happened to be part of a roaming band of outlaws that he and his brother had to deal with. That particular conversation ended with Fergus' sword going through the apostate's belly. Having a civilized talk with one was a nice surprise and he hoped any other mages he met from here on out were somewhat similar.

This hope began to slip as he heard snippets of a conversation while heading up into the structure.

"Tell her I will not be harassed in this manner!"

"Yes, I was harassing you by delivering a message."

"Your glibness does you no credit."

"Here I thought we were getting along so well. I was even going to name one of my children after you . . . the grumpy one."

Aedan approached slowly as he saw the two men speaking. It was easy enough to tell who was who - the one in the mage robes had to be Enchanter Deron - but he had to pause at the sight of the one who was "Alistair". The man was younger than he expected. Much younger. He supposed a preconceived notion he had that Grey Wardens were all seasoned veterans had planted itself into his head somehow. Anyone "minding the recruits" had to be at least be nearing their thirtieth winter, yet Alistair didn't look like he'd even seen his twentieth.

He did wear a suit of splint armor and had a sword and shield strapped to his back, so he was a fighter of some sort, at least. How good a fighter he couldn't guess. Being a Grey Warden, he assumed he had to be skilled. Aedan also had to remind himself that age never indicated how good a warrior a person could actually be. Pulling back on his original thoughts, he decided he was just going to have to wait and see things for himself.

"Enough! I will speak with the Revered Mother if I must!" Enchanter Deron snarled and quickly turned on his heel. He almost ran into Aedan and snapped at him, "Out of my way, fool!"

Sidestepping out of the mage's way, Deron passed Aedan, looking red in the face. Quirking his eyebrow high, Aedan then looked at Alistair.

He came forward with something of a sigh, "You know, one good thing about the Blight is how it brings people together."

Aedan snorted once at that, thinking of the situation back in Highever, and said flatly, "I know exactly what you mean."

"It's like a party," he clasped his hands in front of him. "We can all stand in a circle and hold hands. That will give the darkspawn something to think about."

He had to chuckle at the mental imagery of it, "Too bad it isn't anywhere near Summerday. We can add in a Summer Pole dance and maybe distract the darkspawn to death. Kill them with colored ribbons."

"Knowing the way it goes with some around here, we'd likely end up arguing on what color the ribbons should be," Alistair shook his head slightly. "One would think that just going with the King's colors would be enough."

"One would think," Aedan agreed. They grinned a bit at one another. He certainly couldn't fault the man for his sense of humor.

Alistair's face crinkled lightly as he peered closer at him, "Wait, we haven't met have we? Shouldn't I know you from somewhere?"

"No, we haven't met," Aedan answered and held out a hand to him. "You must be Alistair."

"And that makes you one of the two new recruits Duncan mentioned. Aedan, I suppose? Glad to meet you," he clasped Aedan's forearm with a firm, solid grip, then glanced around. "The other recruit isn't with you?"

"No, we . . . split up," he released his forearm. "She'll hopefully show up soon. Likely at our camp."

"Fair enough," the young Warden motioned with a hand. "For now, let's head there as I imagine Duncan would be eager to get things started."

Aedan gave a short nod and they both started on their way.

Alistair spoke as they walked, "As junior member of the order, I'll be accompanying you and the other recruits when you prepare for the Joining."

"Junior member?" he repeated. "Do they typically let junior members train the recruits?"

"Well, I wouldn't exactly call it training. Not at the moment," he paused, likely looking for the right words. "It's a little more like babysitting. I try to answer any questions they have, make sure they have their meals, give them daily duties to tend to." He winced out a smile, "Like I said, babysitting. Besides, we really couldn't do any genuine training until Duncan returned."

"Why is that?"

"Duncan told us not to do the Joining ritual until he returned," he explained. "Even if our senior member found the situation warranted we proceed, we'd be missing a key component that only Duncan currently has."

"I'm not certain I follow," Aedan said in confusion. "What does going through the ritual have to do with training recruits how to fight the darkspawn?"

Alistair opened his mouth to speak, but no sound came out. He clamped his mouth shut before speaking hesitantly, "Ah . . . well . . . I can't . . . quite explain it without telling you about the Joining ritual."

Aedan sighed some, "Then what can you tell me?"

"Honestly, nothing," Alistair looked away briefly, almost nervously, then added quickly. "Try not to worry about it. It will . . . just distract you."

The secrecy of the situation was beginning to irk him. Granted, many orders had simular rituals, but the more the subject was avoided the more Aedan suspected that this Joining ritual was more than just a ceremonial passage. Giving a guess, he figured that none of them were going to fully know what it entailed until the moment of the ritual itself.

"Fine, I see how it goes now," he muttered, then decided to change the subject. "So, that argument I saw . . . what was it about?"

"With the mage?" Alistair blew out a sigh. "As you can see, the Circle is here at the King's request and the Chantry doesn't like it one bit. They just love letting mages know how unwelcome they are. Which puts me in a bit of an awkward position. I was once a templar."

Aedan winced in sympathy and muttered, "That would be awkward." He paused in thought. "Wait. I thought templars weren't allowed to leave the order once they joined."

"That's true," he replied slowly. "But, you see, Duncan recruited me before I took my vows."

"Ah," he nodded his head in understanding.

"But the mages at the Circle still remember me being there when I was training. They still associate me as being a templar despite now being a Grey Warden. I'm sure the Revered Mother knew that. She meant it as an insult when she sent me as her messenger, and the mage picked right up on that." He sighed again, shaking his head. "I never would have agreed to deliver it, but Duncan says we're all to cooperate and get along." Giving a mirthless smile, he spoke sarcastically, "Apparently, they didn't get the same speech."

Crossing his arms, Aedan gave a grunt, "Brings people together, indeed."

At that moment they passed the mage that Aedan had spoken to earlier. Looking up from her work she spied them both, smiled, nodded, then got right back to what she was doing. Aedan inclined his head in return and noted Alistair also raised a hand briefly in greeting.

"Do you know her?" Aedan asked. "She's the one that directed me to you."

"That's Wynne, one of the more powerful Senior Enchanters at the Circle. One of the most active as well, despite her age," he glanced back at her once before continuing. "I'm not surprised she was one to answer the King's calling. I've heard her described as being nice in a stern motherly sort of way. I always managed to get her to darn my socks for me."

"One of the more powerful Senior Enchanters of the Circle, and you get her to darn your socks?" Aedan eyed him as if he were crazy.

"What can I say?" he grinned. "She has a soft spot for hopeless causes. All I had to do was look pitiful, tell her I didn't know how to fix the holes, and say I was too embarrassed to ask my superiors for another pair. Worked every time."

Aedan shook his head slowly, "You are a strange man."

"You're not the first to tell me that."

He added a chuckle to his head shake, which died down as they approached the Grey Warden camp. There were two figures at the ruins nearby the tent. What he saw made him mentally pause.

One of them was Kallian. She'd obviously traded in the poor fitting leather armor she had for something that was made to fit the contours of a woman better. The set wasn't the standard one he'd been seeing on other female soldiers around. It lacked any shoulder pads, likely to give her arms more range of movement, and she went with light leather covering on her arms and fingerless gloves. There was no protective kilt connected to it, instead there were hip guards and leather breeches. Her thigh-high boots were the same ones she had shown up at Castle Cousland with. They had ivy vine patterns engraved into it and they moved soundlessly. The quirk to the ensemble were the pair of belts. She wore them much like Duncan; over a sash and crisscrossed, her daggers now holstered from each belt for an easier draw.

The other was a man he didn't know, but there was an immediate twinge of annoyance when he saw him. He was average looking with black hair, stubble upon his chin, and wore standard leather armor. It wasn't his looks. It was how he was standing in front of Kallian. She was leaning back upon one of the pillars with her arms crossed, looking up at him and wearing a light grin as they spoke. He had a hand planted above her head, bracing himself on it, looming a little close over her. Too close. There was a lascivious little grin on his face that Aedan wanted to wipe off.

He had to quickly pull himself up short, not knowing why that initial feeling hit him. It wasn't as if he had any claims on Kallian. Not at all. What probably bothered him was that the man's stance was one he'd used before on other women in the past. Aedan knew what it did. The man was given a position of dominance while still allowing the lady to escape to the left or right if she chose. If the woman was obviously playing hard to get, all a man had to do was lower an arm to prevent a escape or capture her lips to silence her words. It could lead one to rather provocative situations, or a quick slap to the face, if a man was too forward.

Before the assortment of thoughts and emotions could work themselves out in his mind, Alistair spoke up.

"Ah, good. Daveth, you're here."

Both Kallian and this Daveth person looked in their direction. Kallian uttered something very softly to Daveth, who in turn nodded his head with a grin and stood up straight to face he and Alistair.

"Wondering when you were going to come about," Daveth said with an accent so similar to Kallian's that for a second he thought the man was teasing her by speaking that way. After a while Aedan realized it was genuinely the way he spoke. "Seems we got the new recruits here. Me and Kallian here were just getting to . . . eh . . . know one another better."

She raised her hand and waved at them by wiggling her fingers, "Lo there. I be the new girl."

Alistair raised his own hand and hesitantly wiggled his own fingers, as if suddenly unsure. Aedan saw him glance at his own hand and immediately lower it. "Yes. Kallian, correct?"

"One in the same, deary," she practically purred her words out.

"Uhm," Alistair sounded nervous. "Heh. Right. Well, I'm Alistair. I was told you came here with Aedan."

Kallian nodded to confirm it. Alistair then motioned to Daveth, "Aedan, this is Daveth, a . . . fellow from Denerim. Daveth, this Aedan Co- . . . Aedan . . . from Highever."

Aedan glanced at Alistair who in turn gave a very short and apologetic looking wince of a smile. Duncan had likely told Alistair of who he was, so he made note to talk to him later on how much Duncan had informed him. He stepped forward and held a hand out to Daveth, who clasped forearms with him after a bit of hesitation.

"Pleased to meet you, Aedan," Daveth's smile became less and less genuine after a few seconds. It was somewhat subconscious, but perhaps Aedan had gripped Daveth's forearm a little bit harder than necessary. "That . . . is quite a grip you have."

"Warrior's life. What can I say," he responded after releasing him again. Inwardly he was telling himself to stop with the posturing and that there was absolutely no need for it. For some reason his male ego was being stubborn.

"Have you seen Ser Jory?" Alistair asked after glancing around.

"Duncan said he was going to look for him," Kallian said, her arms were crossed and she glanced at Aedan oddly before looking at Alistair. "Said that you'd be back soon enough so we can get started."

"Alright," he paused in thought. "In the meantime, then, you three get yourselves ready to head out. We likely won't be going out too far so no need for heavy supplies. Arms, armor, light gear. That's all you'll need."

"Things are really getting interesting today," Daveth said as he passed Kallian, waggling his eyebrows.

"Too right," she responded with another grin at him.

Aedan silently went about storing his extra packs in the tent, trying to get a grip on himself.