AN: Interesting bird fact: Egyptian vultures use stones to drop on to ostrich eggs to try and crack open its thick shell to get to the yolk inside.

Part 14: Vultures Picking Up Stones

"How long do you think she's going to keep glowering like that for?" Daveth asked under his breath.

"Who knows," Aedan grunted quietly as he picked up a large stone. "Probably until we get on our knees, begging for forgiveness."

"I take it something happened last night?" Alistair asked just as quietly. He took the stone from Aedan and tossed it on the pile they were making.

Daveth chanced a glance up to where Kallian stood guard, "Something happened, but frankly I think she's making a mountain out of a molehill."

"She might be blowing things out of proportion, Daveth," Aedan added. "But I was still the one to make that molehill."

"Well our hill isn't going to get any smaller with you all talking away," Jory interjected as he yanked back on the pick. The act made more stone wall and dirt to tumble downward. "I really don't want to be stuck out here after nightfall, especially this far from camp."

"That I can agree with," Alistair said, "but I do need to know if this is going to be problematic for us. Will it get into the way of her working with us?"

Aedan sighed and looked over at Kallian. She stood there, her arms crossed, eyes trained on the surrounding area. Delicate lips were still curled downward making her look more severe than usual. Apparently she sensed his eyes on her and she turned her head in his direction. Their eyes met and the glare he received felt all too familiar. It was as if any progress he'd made with her was gone and it was the first day he met her all over again. She looked away and walked further from them to watch things from beyond a ruined wall.

She had worn that frown since that morning. Kallian was the last to wake and Daveth had the unfortunate circumstance of being the one to rouse her. Her aggravation was great enough that she took a swipe at Daveth when he pressed the issue. Aedan tried to feel some sympathy or conjure up some empathy, but there was time for neither. They needed to get on the move before the sun rose too high in the sky, so fewer words and more action were needed. They set out into the cold, fog-dampened wilds with a permanent scowl etched on Kallian's face.

It only worsened as they traveled on. Daveth apparently felt so put off by her general air that he spent most of the time avoiding her. He talked to Aedan instead, sharing with him his thoughts on the Joining ritual and his annoyance with Jory's constant mentioning of "his Helena". Every so often they would glance back at Kallian and see that the frown remained. They could only sigh, shake their heads at one another, and carry on.

A few times, Kallian drifted back farther than necessary, sometimes out of sight. It made him wonder if she wouldn't just drift off all together and go her own way. The thought worried him enough that he started to suggest to Daveth that he speak to her. Nothing came of it, unfortunately, as just when Daveth was about to agree, the darkspawn appeared. Somehow Alistair had spotted them long before the rest and set everyone quickly into motion.

There were more this time around. They were better armored and all were of the hurlock variety. With no time to make a strategy, they had to simply fight them as they came. Luckily, the land was laid out where they could only came at them from one direction. A part of him had worried about Kallian's ability to keep up in a blade to blade fight, but he was quickly shown his worry was moot.

Out of the corner of his eye he witnessed her tearing into whatever darkspawn she was facing like a Mabari tearing into a rabbit. The skill he'd seen before when she had sparred with Duncan was only a quarter of what she was exhibiting now. There was a viciousness to her cuts and a ruthlessness in her methods. Just as she felled one enemy, she turned and made short work of the one Jory was facing. It made one thing dreadfully clear to Aedan. Kallian was a better short blade fighter than she was an archer. He ended up storing away the underestimation for later as he had to pay attention to his own fight.

The battle was quickly over, but they didn't come off unscathed. Jory received a decent bruise on his arm, Daveth had the wind knocked out of him and scraped up an elbow, and Aedan had an arrow nick the back of his thigh through the cloth where the armor didn't cover. Had Kallian not been in the hurlock's face when it had fired, the arrow probably would have hit its mark. Aedan was grateful, but at the same time it bothered him that she had charged to blindly forward. When he tried to bring the issue up with her all he got was a single surly reply.

"It got the fight done, didn't it?"

Then she proceeded to scour the darkspawn corpses for anything of use. Aedan couldn't argue the point. Least not while she wasn't in a receptive mood. He went about helping Daveth back on his feet and used some of the salve to staunch the bleeding from the cut on his leg, leaving Kallian to plunder what spoils she could find.

They made it to the outpost by mid-morning. From initial impressions it didn't look like much of anything was there. Aedan was beginning to doubt they'd find much of anything when Alistair pointed out a collapsed section of the ruins. It looked like there was a blocked off stone archway and potentially a set of stairs that went downward. With nothing else looking even remotely promising there wasn't much else to do but to break out the picks and shovels and get to work.

That was where they found themselves now.

Aedan rolled Alistair's question around in his mind. Despite her current attitude she did get the fight done. It was in a more reckless manner then he cared for, but he liked to think the prowess she showed was a form of affirmation that she was there to eradicate the darkspawn. Least he hoped that's what it was.

"No," Aedan muttered, then shook his head lightly and spoke clearer. "No, it won't get in the way of things. She might not be fond of us, but she will help with fighting the darkspawn. We'll just have to deal with her being prickly as a porcupine for now."

"If you did apologize for your," Alistair motioned a hand at Aedan, "molehill . . . do you think that would help? More honey, less vinegar?"

"That's the problem," Daveth replied, leaning on the shovel he used, "hard to tell if apologizing is going to work or if it's just going to upset her all the more."

Alistair looked confused, "Why would apologizing make her more upset?"

"You don't know a thing about women getting mad, do you?" Daveth shook his head at Alistair.

"I got my Helena mad once," Jory interjected.

Daveth looked at Aedan and gave an eye roll that said, Here we go again.

Aedan gave him a mildly scolding look while Jory continued, "Even after I apologized, she was still upset at me for a whole two days. And she's a far gentler creature than Kallian is, that's for certain."

"A bear is a gentler creature than she is," Daveth took his shovel up to move more dirt out of the way. "Did you see the way she cut that hurlock down?"

"Which one?" Aedan got his hands busy again with moving rock. "There were several."

"That's what I'm saying," Daveth replied. "She does all that with just two blades and a bad attitude. Imagine what she'd do if she was actually mad at us."

"Wait," Alistair raised a hand, "first she's mad and now she isn't?"

"Well, not really mad," he dumped more soil away. "She's I'm-not-talking-to-you-and-gonna-glare-all-day mad. Not kill-you-and-dump-you-in-the-Drakon-River mad. Big difference, that."

"Long story short," Jory said with a hint of agitation. "It is going to take a while for her to not be angry and it will be up to her when she decides she isn't. So for now," he pulled hard on a particularly stubborn rock, "we ... do... nothing ... but ... dig!"

The rock gave way and a good deal of stone and soil fell. So much tumbled down that both Aedan and Alistair had to move out of the way. When it finally settled, Jory got up on the rubble again to peer at it.

"Seems we managed to make a hole," he took the pick and started clearing more away. "However, the hole is rather small."

"Can you see anything inside?" Alistair asked.

"I can not see a thing. It's too dark."

"Keep working at it then," he told Jory. Alistair then looked at Aedan. "I'd suggest we get a couple of torches going for whichever of us gets to go in there."

"I'll get on that," Daveth said, not hesitating to hand the shovel over to Aedan.

"Anything to get out of the drudge work, right?" Aedan snorted.

Daveth grinned wide and shrugged, "I'm not built like the rest of you blokes. Weak fellow like myself has to take it easy, you know."

"Uh-huh," Alistair wasn't buying it either. "Just get the torches lit and get back to helping us out here."

Damn them. Damn the lot of them.

Kallian had a feeling that the moment she told Daveth her story that it might have been the wrong thing to do. Something had shifted in his attitude toward her and while he sounded sympathetic to her plight, he peppered her with questions on what it all had to do with Aedan. Every question only made it more and more glaring that she didn't have a leg to stand on. In the end, she begrudgingly agreed, but she still thought Aedan's comment was unwarranted.

Then she overheard snippets of the conversation between Aedan and Daveth from within the tent. Not only did Daveth agree with Aedan's assessment of him, he thought that she needed to "stew in her own juices" and "get over herself". It sent her anger soaring right back up where it started. She didn't head out to holler at them, though. Kallian would have been outnumbered three to one - because Jory would have certainly sided with his Lordship - and they could have gotten her into trouble with Duncan.

So she kept to herself and curled into the corner of the tent where her bedroll was. That night she pretended to sleep and waited for the others to slip into deep slumber. When she heard the snores and shallow breathing, she ventured out. There were things she wanted to see and she had a key to a chest she needed to find. A tiny voice in her mind had warned her about being on parole, but a louder voice said to screw it. All she needed to do was to make sure she didn't get caught.

And she didn't get caught, not even when she woke the Quartermaster to trade in some of what she found for a good deal of silver. She figured that even if the mages went to find their missing goods that the Quartermaster would feign ignorance. He certainly wouldn't have wanted to be caught with his "things on the side" and risk being jailed like that deserter. Calling her out would have been as good as putting the noose around his own neck.

Kallian got back to the tent with more coin in her purse, but with only a few hours of sleep to spare. When Daveth shook her awake, she wanted nothing more than to curl back into her bedroll and close her eyes till midday. She snapped at him when he became insistent. None of them cared about her plight, so she grumbled and glared the whole time she got herself ready.

As Alistair lead the way to the outpost, a part of her began to suspect that Daveth had already broke his promise to her and that he told Aedan everything. The more they journeyed, the more she believed she was right. They kept casting unsure glances at her, shaking their heads, and muttering among themselves. They didn't speak to her and hardly noticed when she'd peel off to pick up something she noticed.

When the darkspawn came, she welcomed it. The spite she had held in her heart since coming to Ostagar lashed out. It wasn't a hurlock she was cutting down, but the Arl of Denerim. It was the king she couldn't scream at for not knowing what happened right under his nose in his own capital city. It was the Quartermaster who immediately thought her a servant and the Ash Warrior that scoffed at her being "another blasted elf". For every person who would question why she was "dressed so preposterously" or eyed her with suspicion, she crafted a hit or a cut to hurt and maim. It was something she knew she wouldn't be able to do to those ... sodding shems. Nor would she ever. Not for words. But the anger was there so she took it out on the creatures that needed to die.

Kallian took pride in the fact that she landed the killing blow on four of them, taking two completely on her own. Then Aedan had the gall to complain about her charging the enemy after she did more than her fair share of the fighting. Her direct words silenced him and she took some satisfaction from that.

Killing the darkspawn did take some of the starch out of her anger, but now that anger was being replaced by thoughts of the thing she feared. She could tell they were muttering between each other, purposefully keeping their voices low so she wouldn't overhear. There was no doubt in her mind that she was the subject of their conversation. When she caught Aedan looking at her in a judging fashion, that told her everything she needed to know. He knew, he judged, and now found her company wanting.

Who wanted to associate with a human-killing knife-ear after all?

They were going to ostracize her. They would keep her out of their conversations. They would sup in a corner away from her, never offering a seat. They would do all the little petty things that petty men often did to people they disliked, but couldn't kill. That was worse than going to the Arl of Denerim to turn her in. That was worse than plying to Duncan to release her because they didn't think she was worthy. It was worse than simply calling her knife-ear all the time to try pressing her till her temperament would cause her to react.

Don't let anyone tell you that you don't belong.

Kallian sighed and eyed the ground a moment. Teyrn Loghain's words rang in her mind over and over. He had mentioned about a female Grey Warden, but perhaps he also had meant about her elven heritage as well. Maybe he knew she'd face this sort of treatment, warranted or unwarranted. Whatever reason he had for saying it, she held on to the words and stiffened her spine with it.

They could cut her out of a lot of things, but they couldn't stop her from doing her duty. She owed it to Duncan and she'd pay him back several times over for saving her life. Kallian was going to need to be strong and needed to be stalwart. Sod the rest of them and their judgement of her. She'd show them that not only did she belong, she'd excel.

A sudden noise to her left brought her head back up. Her hands quickly rested on the pommels of her daggers, ready to draw.

Wonderful, she immediately chastised herself. Try to excel and immediately fail as a lookout.

The noise happened again, but this time it was paired with the appearance of a raven flying to the top of a column. After looking around more to make sure the raven hadn't been frightened out of its spot by something more deadly, Kallian let out the breath she'd been holding.

"Really," she looked up at the raven who looked back down at her with a beady black eye. She got the impression that the bird was looking down its nose at her in a haughty manner, as if it just proved to her how badly she was doing.

"Alright, alright," she grunted. "More looking out and less looking in. I hear you."

The black bird tilted its head in a curious fashion at her. The mannerism reminded her of another animal that did the same to her before. A mild frown returned as the last thing she needed to recall right now was a dead dog. More so, who that dead dog used to belong to. Someone she no longer had a chance of making friends with.

"Don't you need to be feasting on a carcass somewhere," she told it in irritation, then wrinkled her nose in thought, "or have the darkspawn made that idea unappetizing?"

The raven didn't answer and she certainly wasn't expecting a response, but it did turn its head to look at her with its other eye and took a little hop-step in her direction.

"Hey, I'm not dead yet," she wagged a finger at it, "and I don't give hand outs when there's plenty enough around for you to have. So, shoo already."

"Taking to talking to the wildlife, I see."

Kallian turned quick, hand going to one of her daggers. Alistair stood there with a slightly amused look on his face and a torch in his hand.

He raised his free hand in an act of supplication, "Easy there, now. I'm on your side."

She let out another sigh of relief, but then quickly frowned in annoyance. Kallian only had herself to blame for distracting herself twice in a row. Had the raven or Alistair been darkspawn she'd be dead by now.

Drawing herself up, she relaxed her shoulders and crossed her arms. Kallian couldn't tell how their Grey Warden minder felt by looking at him, but he didn't seem like he was about ready to give her the cold shoulder. Maybe he was the sort to not care about her past situation and had only been speaking to the others to find out what was going on. Maybe he just wasn't the sort to judge. There were humans out there that did that. She didn't know the man well enough to tell, though.

"So you say," she said, in the most neutral tone she could muster. "How are you getting along over there? Manage to find the treaties?"

"We haven't yet. As a matter of fact we've come to a dead end. We..." he hesitated a second before continuing, "need your assistance."

Kallian arched an eyebrow, "What? Four strong backs and it's still not enough?"

"Well it isn't strong backs that we need right now."

She said nothing in return and kept her eyebrow arched as she waited for further explanation. Her silence apparently made him a little nervous and he continued with an unsure smile.

"We have a way open, but," he motioned a hand back in the direction he came from, "we can't get the hole any wider than it is. Daveth tried to get himself in there and almost got stuck in the process."

Her eyes narrowed a fraction. She already knew what it was he was going to ask.

"Would you be willing to help? See if you could possibly get in there?" He quickly pressed on before she could say anything. "We do need to make the effort, at the very least. I would hate to go back to Duncan without really and truly trying. Especially not on a task this simple."

Sighing through her nose, Kallian stared at Alistair feeling a little disappointed. For a hopeful second she thought he was there to just keep her company on watch for a while. She was open to the idea that he was possibly different than the rest of them. Instead, he was sent there by the others to ask her to do some work that they couldn't do. Maybe they figured that she wouldn't rock the boat with him because he was a full fledged Grey Warden. A part of her wanted to prove them wrong, but at the same time she wasn't going to spit on his politeness.

Before she could say anything though, the raven took off from its perch, cawing as it flew off. They both watched as it flapped away and then dipped out of sight.

"Seems your friend didn't want to wait around to talk," the amused smile returned to Alistair's face.

Kallian sniffed and grunted, "Was a one sided conversation anyway."

That drew a short laugh from the man. Somehow, it made Kallian feel a little bit better about things. She started walking to where the others were.

"Right, let's see if I can get into this hole you're talking about."

Alistair quickly followed, "So you'll help?"

She shrugged a shoulder idly, "I'm here for this task too, y'know. Sooner in, sooner out, sooner back. Don't want to be out here all day talking to the birds."

When Alistair returned with Kallian in front of him, Aedan felt some hope. They were right to send Alistair, the one she seemed to be glaring at the least, and whatever words he used seemed to do the trick. Honey apparently did work better than vinegar. Kallian approached, looking all business, and only spared the rest of them a brief glance.

"So where's this hole you're talkin' about?" she removed her cloak as she spoke, indicating her willingness to do what they were requesting.

"Up here," Jory pointed to the opening they managed to make. "We tried moving this large slab of rock several times to no avail. This is as wide as we can manage to get it."

She climbed up on the rubble and then crouched in order to see into the entrance better.

While the others watched on, Aedan glanced at them and got the oddest sense. It was as if she was the ranking soldier here and the rest of them were nervously waiting for her assessment of their work. They'd either get a "good job, men" or she'd berate them for being idiots and point out six different ways they could have done it better. Something told him that she'd call them all idiots regardless of the situation.

No such repercussions happened, though. She grunted once as she straightened, then handed her cloak to Jory, "I'm gonna need one of them torches."

Jory took the cloak without her having to ask. Either he was just being a gentleman, he didn't want to irk her for any reason, or he was indeed treating her as if she were leader of their group. Kallian started removing anything that could potentially snag through the opening.

"If you manage to make it in there," Alistair stepped up, torch still in hand, "you'll be looking for a chest of some sort. It will probably have a griffon motif of some kind. Hopefully it will be small enough for you to carry back out. If it isn't and it's still sealed, then- ..."

"Then I'll figure out a way to open it," she stated as a matter-of-fact. She kept handing her things over to Jory.

"Uh... heh," Alistair smiled at her nervously. "Unless you happen to be a full Grey Warden then that really isn't possible."

"Ain't met a chest or door I never been able to open before," she grabbed the torch from him and before Alistair could protest further she ducked into the hole and crawled her way in.

She didn't get stuck in the same spot Daveth had, her slimmer frame cleared the sides just fine. After a moment, Alistair breathed out a sigh and rubbed the back of his head.

"She doesn't happen to secretly be a mage, is she?" he asked, looking at Aedan.

"No," he arched his eyebrow, finding the question to be odd. "Why? Would it bother you if she was?"

"No, but she'd have to be an extremely good mage to break that magic seal, provided it was even possible." Alistair added with a mutter, "That and I just like to know what my chances are of being turned into a frog is at any given moment."

"Pretty sure we'd all be eating flies and sitting on lily pads right now if that were the case," Daveth quipped. "She's capable of doing much worse to us if we're not careful."

Again, Aedan had the feeling that whatever it was that Kallian had told him had scared Daveth more than he was willing to admit. He'd seen it in the few times he watched Daveth look at her. The temptation to ask him about it rose again, but Aedan wasn't going to force the man to break what he said was a promise to her.

"Well frankly I think it's a good sign she is willing to do this with not so much as a complaint," Jory said while carefully shifting Kallian's things in his arms to get a better hold of it. "We should be thankful to her when she returns."

"Says the chief complainer of us all," Daveth grumbled at him. "I didn't hear you volunteering to stick your thick head into that hole."

"I beg your pardon?" Jory began to bristle.

"Gentlemen, please," Aedan put a hand on Daveth's shoulder and looked at Jory. "Let's not lose our tempers here. That won't do us any good. Alistair, one of us should get back on lookout. Last thing we need is for the darkspawn to attack while Kallian is still underground."

"We're not of any danger of that right now," Alistair said confidently, "but that doesn't mean there aren't other things that can creep up on us. I'll take watch."

Daveth grumbled more while Alistair got himself up on the rise, "Let's just hope she doesn't take that long. This chill has got me too edgy."

The minutes were stretching on a little too long for Aedan's liking. He had gotten to pacing, his eyes occasionally drifting to the hole waiting for some sign of Kallian to reappear. Just as worry was about to fully set in, shifting noises came from the entrance and dirt started to spill out. It wasn't Kallian's head that came out, however, but a carved ornate wooden box.

"Oy! Out there! Grab it!"

Kallian's voice got them to moving and Aedan grabbed the rectangular box. It indeed had a griffon motif with a metal seal on the side and it looked big enough to carry several scrolls. The seal was flopping back and forth and didn't look like it was keeping the box closed anymore. Had she really managed to open it?

She popped out next, looking a little disheveled with dirt on her face and cobwebs in her hair. She looked uninjured, though.

"Good news," she said getting herself upright, "I found the chest. Bad news, looks like it's already been plundered."

"You've got to be joking," Alistair apparently heard the commotion and came down from his lookout. "You certain this is it?"

"There's nothing else down there," Kallian started to dust herself off. "That place was raided a long time ago. Surprised that chest was even left for us to find."

Aedan held the box while Alistair opened it. Sure enough it was empty and bare as a box could possibly be.

"It doesn't make any sense," Alistair frowned while fingering the seal. "Only a Grey Warden should have been able to-.."

"Well, well, what have we here?"

Next chapter - Meeting the Magpie