I need to give credit to MsBarrows here for the concept of "rest days", an idea that I'd genuinely, utterly missed. Her stories are excellent at the quiet moments (and the loud ones, and the in-between ones) - if you haven't read them, they come highly recommended.

Rest Day

Morgana

Her eyes snap open, as, sweating and thrashing from yet another nightmare, she absently notices somewhere at the back of her mind that the sky is light - morning? She finally registers the steady hand on her shoulder, gently but firmly holding her down as she wakes up fully and regains control of her movements.

"Another one?" asks Alistair next to her, his voice concerned, and he doesn't need to explain the question.

Wait. Next to her? They haven't taken watch together...

She sits up, remembering the events of the night before, and nearly headbutts the concerned Warden crouching beside her with another hand on her back.

She places one of her own on his shoulder, and he watches her slowly get to her feet, braced to help her. She looks down at him, and sees that he looks... tired to the point of being ill. He stands with her after a moment, dusting himself off, and sighs. "I'll wake the others, then I guess we better get moving?"

He probably didn't intend for the hopeful question to slip into his voice, would probably have walked and fought beside her as ever, but she takes one look at him (hair in a thousand directions, heavy eyelids, what could - with work - be a beard, every muscle still tensed) and shakes his head. "Rest day, I think."

Maybe it would be good. A day to gather any herbs they need, catch up on rest... maybe just breathe in amongst all the bloodshed.

There's a long pause, then he nods, face breaking into a smile she suddenly wishes she saw more often. "I'll just..." A half-hearted gesture, an awkward grin, and then he walks to his pack and makes the first movements of setting up his tent.

She sees Leliana leaning against a tree, an eyebrow raised, and trudges to her, still shaking off the remnants of sleep. Her voice is hushed, eyes following him, as she asks, "Bad night?"

Leliana seems to consider it for a moment. "Not... necessarily."

Morgana frowns. "Am I missing something?"

Leliana simply smiles. "All will become clear in its own time. Stew?"

A rest. The thought rings repeatedly in her mind as she sits on a stump, watches the water sparkle in the afternoon sun. Even though she has given the spare time, she still can't help treasuring it. Ignoring the quiet - perhaps vaguely menacing now - burble of the river close to her, she plucks the strings of the lute that had once been hers. She had found herself asking Leliana to borrow it, had simply walked from camp until she found this place - another expanse of water like the one that had nearly claimed her, in a clearing, tucked away amongst trees and shadows. The wind runs gently through the leaves, more a whispered breath than a gale.

Perhaps she should be scared of the water - she isn't sure. It looks so beautiful when she isn't in it. Anders would probably have given his right arm to draw this, and she isn't certain whether to cry or smile at the thought; perhaps he would have appreciated it more, the only mage who could swim.

She looks down at the lute, finds herself absentmindedly plucking at it, fingers dancing on the strings with little purpose. An old tune forms as she continues, and before she knows it, her voice has joined the lute, and she's singing, on her own, for the first time in so long - singing at all for the first time since after Jowan's death. It's different, smaller, without Leliana, but she finds the tension fleeing from her, muscles relaxing.

She looks behind her at the hint of a rough cough, song stopping abruptly, and sees Alistair sitting, back against a tree and hands on knees, looking significantly better-groomed than he did this morning, and, now that he's been spotted, very, very awkward. She wonders how long he's been there, but the answer is obvious - long enough. "Sorry. I was training, and just... followed the song?" He smiles sheepishly. "I'll... go now, before I do something even more stupid." He stands to go, but stops, frowning, seeming to realise something; he turns back to her. "You were singing. After we got back to Redcliffe."

There's a pause, and then she nods, cheeks flushing, looking down at the lute and praying for the moment to be over.

She hears rather than sees him cross the distance and sit on the grass next to her; she looks up at the tentative and quickly removed hand on her arm, surprise and a hint of something else she can't place, warm and confusing, flaring in her. Her eyes quickly flicker back to the lute, but he just leans slightly until she looks him in the eye, and says with a smile, "It was good. You're good. Stop apologising for it."

"I didn't say - "

"Your face did."

He doesn't rise - she knew he wasn't going to - and, adjusting her hands on the lute, she softly begins to play, listening to the appreciative silence beside her.