A continuation of the chapter titled Night Watch. This was going to be tomorrow, but inspiration just struck, and, well... I just couldn't keep it to myself.

I got the line about "like when I was sent to the Chantry" when talking about Duncan, and was surprised that, even from the beginning of the game, Alistair is quite openly sympathetic towards mages, even with his history.

You know the drill: Game world, game lines, copyright BioWare, though we mostly have David Gaider to thank for the "official" lines herein. One of the very few shorts that has some game re-hashing in it, sorry!

Bad dreams?

Morgana

He is still sitting, staring at the fire, when sleep takes her.

She expects the nightmares and the dragon, certainly, but what she does not expect when she jerks into wakefulness, uncurling herself from the desperate foetal position she seems to have found herself in, is to see him watching her, thoughtfully, almost as if... he was waiting for her to wake up.

They are simple words, but now she understands, understands everything. "Bad dreams, huh?"

She doesn't answer his (rhetorical) question, instead murmuring, "Oh. I thought so."

He frowns, so she answers, "It was you, wasn't it? The bread and the tent. Thank you."

He nods briefly, embarrassed, waving it away, then the explanations begin, and apparently the dragon is the archdemon she's been hearing so much about, and she shudders at the thought of that thing inside her head -

When it finally registers, her eyes flicker to his in surprise, and, more deeply, a kind of mutual understanding (He has them too, all Wardens do. She isn't insane, and, more importantly, she isn't alone) and is surprised when she sees the same feelings mirrored; any anger she'd felt at him not telling her sooner dissolves.

"I did tell you after you'd Joined," he says, "but you'd just drunk darkspawn blood, and... well... you didn't seem in much of a state to listen."

"So," she says, smiling weakly and feeling stupid at the way she's putting it, "it's... a Warden thing?"

"I guess you could say that."

Something occurs to her, remembering those odd feelings. "Does the taint do anything else?" Her voice is nearly a whisper now - what if the nightmares are normal, but she's losing her mind anyway? "Like... letting Wardens sense each other, their... feelings?"

He nods, smiling. "So you spotted that, did you? Yes. Darkspawn do it too, but it's... different."

She laughs, remembering Redcliffe, the mysterious gratitude flowing through her veins. "You really have thanked me every time I've healed you."

Abashed, he stands, walks to his pack and begins looking through it, eventually bringing out a piece of cheese and a couple of books - "Some of the few things I took with me from the Chantry," he explains, at her questioning look - and sits by the fire once again. "I'd nearly blocked them out, but... Can't sleep."

She spots the real words behind the simple remark - I'm afraid to. "Me neither." Another small smile, and she wonders when she started smiling at him.

She wonders whether she is overstepping a line, but he knows about Jowan, and they are alone, and suddenly she needs to ask, because she is deeply ashamed at herself for not getting past whatever has been stopping her and asking sooner. "Do you want to talk about Duncan?"

He looks surprised, muttering something about how she never knew the man and doesn't have to do this, but something flickers behind his eyes - she sees straight past the charade and knows that he needs this, had needed it since Ostagar, and suddenly remembers all the times that she pushed him away, spoke coldly or didn't speak at all to him. For once, she listens properly to him, tries her best to say the right things, doesn't let it show in her expression when his voice cracks.

She isn't quite sure what to say when he asks her if she's lost anyone, and tells him, honestly, "No-one since I went to the Tower. I... don't really remember my family, though I know that I fought." She remembers Jowan, suddenly, and Anders, and sympathy stirs in her. "Maybe that's a blessing," she adds, quietly.

"That must have felt a lot like when I got sent to the Chantry. You mages don't even get a say in the matter, after all."

She looks up in surprise, wondering when this side of him came about, or if it was there the whole time and she just ignored it, assumed he felt nothing for the mages. She thinks grimly that it's probably the latter.

When he thanks her, apologises for what he seems to think of as burdening her with his grief, she finds herself saying, "Any time."

They sit, watching the fire, and she drifts off to sleep sometime before the dawn.