Updates have been a bit slower lately due to the fact that I'm working on multiple fics ("long time, no write"), but I haven't abandoned Armour. Here's a chapter to prove it...
Interesting Monsters
Morgana
They camp a few metres away from the Brecilian Forest, after guessing that they'd find the Dalish somewhere close to woodland.
She sits in silence, just looking at the trees; she can't help thinking that they look like the illustrations in the books of old tales - dark, lush forests, usually with a few interesting monsters within. The crackling, yellowing pages, the paper and the pictures, were the closest she got to real trees for years.
She sees Zevran, poised in a way that is carefully casual, eyes flickering around the camp and taking in every detail, as if he, too, is waiting for something to attack them. She has seen Leliana like this many times before, though she never used to think much of it then, and has come to think of it as "the assassin's look" - the trademark of those who deal in lies and carefully placed daggers.
She voices her thoughts of the Forest, though she has never spoken much to him, and he laughs. There is something distinctly... wolfish in his smile, and it makes the hairs on the back of her neck rise. "In the woods? No, my dear Warden. Monsters are everywhere."
She knows she isn't imagining the rustling around the edges of the forest, the twigs snapping around the edge of their camp, and she can't shake the feeling that something - someone? - is watching them.
After trying to sleep and failing, ears tuned for every small sound around her, she climbs, bleary-eyed, out of her tent and decides to relieve Alistair of his watch - it's not like she'll accidentally fall asleep, after all. They usually take it together, but, trying to be kind, he told her to get some sleep.
He gives her a tired smile as she joins him at the campfire. "Something wrong?"
She shakes her head, and silence falls, but then she can't stop herself. "Is something... here?"
He frowns, seeming to stop to... listen? What to? "The Veil's pretty thin here. It's probably making you uneasy."
Ah. The templar training. For a pleasant moment, she'd forgotten about that.
He gives her another smile as he speaks. "But you knew that, right?"
Recent magic has been performed, she can sense it. She nods, because she's a mage - she can touch the Veil, if she wants to. That's not the point. "Something... here, though. Not the Fade."
He shrugs, emitting an attempt at a laugh. "The Dalish have found us first?"
Her reply is quiet, her mind absent, remembering the tales, the things she read. "Oh, I hope not."