Grimoire
Morgana
She is walking to her pack, cursing the Grey Warden appetite, when she nearly trips over something.
She looks down, crouching and finding a book tucked underneath one of the tent corners, as if meant to be hidden. Probably one of Wynne's yarns, she thinks, carrying it over to a tree stump where she's sitting.
It is large, bound with an unfamiliar animal skin that is not quite black; it's also heavy, and it takes her a moment to open it.
Instead of a badly-written romance, there is a picture of a flower, with parts labelled, and list of ingredients for various mysterious teas. She only realises her mouth is open when she closes it.
Morrigan.
She is about to close it when something catches her eye; she opens it fully. At the start of the book, the writing is a spidery scrawl - it reminds her of her handwriting when she was about nine - with surprisingly few misspellings; towards the recent entries, hundreds of pages later, it is more refined, precise, but occasionally, especially in some paragraphs that look hastily written, she sees traces of the little girl's handwriting. She must have had this for years. She pays little attention to the writing, however, because she is distracted by the drawings.
They start as vague shapes, and, as the handwriting becomes neater, change to sketches of plants she is sure she has seen in the Wilds, as well as a few animals (some she can't even name) - all are painfully careful, precise. She finds herself open-mouthed once again.
Then she finally begins to read the text - while about a quarter are the expected ingredients, notes on spells, many are... diary entries? She looks away quickly, trying to respect the woman's privacy, before her eye is drawn to a picture of Flemeth.
Simple, realistic - as far as she knows - and years old; the Flemeth in this is younger, drawn sat frowning at the sky, as if hoping to find something there.
The tales are true, at least in some respects - the woman is beautiful, a little of her daughter about her in the swan neck, around the mouth and eyes.
Morgana swallows. She knows that this is not her book, these are not her thoughts, that she should close it - and she wants to - but she finds herself flicking to the latest entries.
What she finds there makes her stop, nearly drop the book. As well more studies of flowers and animals, there are pictures of their little group, every feature, every frown line or upward turn of the mouth captured: Leliana strumming her lute, a contented smile upon her face; Wynne, licking a finger to turn the page of a book Morgana now recognises as The Rose Of Orlais; Zevran polishing his daggers, an eyebrow raised, on paper even down to the ever-present mischievous glint in his eye; Sten and Brian, teeth bared, each attempting to intimidate the other.
The last makes her smile, a strange warmth filling her at the memory - her sat on the ground, sword beside her, after being bested yet again by her fellow Warden, while he offers her a hand to help her to her feet; they are battered, bruised, exhausted, and grinning at each other.
There is something in the drawings that makes her stop and look at them, and it takes a moment to name it - a certain sense of... wistfulness; they are always drawn from the view of an observer, never involved, but warmth shines through each of them. They are drawn in the same way as the others, as if they are something new and exciting, watched carefully, a sense of... well, if she didn't know Morrigan better, she'd call it affection, in every line. Precisely studied they may be, but they are certainly not cold.
The thought of Morrigan, alone, sitting and watching all this, makes her suddenly feel sorry for the witch, and more than a little guilty. She crouches, carefully sliding the journal back under Leliana's tent, as if it has never been moved, and makes a promise to ask Morrigan about that strange black book, not unlike her own, that they found in Irving's office.