"We can't just… leave them here."
Elissa looked up at Alistair from cramming her bedroll into her pack. How many times had she done this now? It never seemed to go in easily. Back in the day, she'd always handed it over to Zevran, who seemed to be an expert in all things bedroll related.
She stood and gnawed at her lower lip. The pair of bodies still lay in the corner of the throne chamber, now covered with twin blankets that were weighted down with stones. She sucked in a breath, "What do you suggest?"
"What do dwarves do with their dead?"
"They bury them," Nathaniel chimed in, slinging his pack over his shoulder.
"What, in the ground?" Alistair stared at him, appalled. "That's barbaric! We are not doing that."
"We're already in the ground," Fenris muttered, hovering in the doorway. He was clearly eager to leave. Of course, the way out of the Deep Roads was a mystery. The path they took in blocked by molten stone. The day was no doubt going to be spent looking for an alternative route.
"We're not burying them," Alistair repeated. "The ground. Darkspawn come out of the ground."
They heard a heavy sigh from Lindise. She only spoke once since they'd awoken and broken camp, to ask Fenris if he had any more wine. He'd informed her she'd already drunk it all the previous night.
The slender mage wiped her face, turned around, and lifted her staff. Instantly, the two bodies burst into magical flame.
Elissa stepped back in alarm, blinking at Lindise. "We should... say a few words..."
"He was a foolish man who should have seen this coming," Lindise muttered. "He was a hypocrite and... and a liar..." Her shoulders shook and her voice cracked. Vash rested a hand on her shoulder and pulled her closer to him.
"He was not without his flaws," Elissa said softly. "But he was a strong man, dedicated to the Wardens and those in his charge. I am richer for having known him."
"He lived up to our code, embodied everything a Warden should be," Alistair murmured. "In war, victory. In peace, vigilance. In death, sacrifice."
Nathaniel coughed and motioned at the ceiling. The domed ceiling of the ancient dwarven throne room was rapidly filling with choking black smoke. With no air flow, the smoke was quickly filling the room.
"Ah," Alistair said. "That would be why the dwarves bury their dead..."
With rattling armor, they quickly scuttled out of the throne room, shutting the door behind them.
"Right," Elissa said as she studied the platform and bridge. "The way we came is blocked. We'll need to start a systematic search for another exit. Together. We can follow this wall here-"
There was a loud boom, and earth and rock whizzed past their ears. Lindise stood in the middle of the bridge, and reached out into the air with her hand, making a fist. The rock and stone beside the flooded tunnel cracked and flew away, tumbling down into the crevasse in huge chunks. She was using her magic to dig. She swung her arms as more of the earth gave way, and within minutes, a fresh new tunnel had been dug beside the old one.
The mage looked over her shoulder at them, and frowned at Vash, who offered a lyrium potion. "I am not weak or delicate. And I will thank you not to treat me as such." She turned again and stepped through the opening she had just created.
Alistair blinked, "Were we…? I didn't think I was."
Elissa closed her eyes a brief moment, "Perhaps a little." She stepped through the portal to follow.
The return route was clear. It was still filled with darkspawn bodies, of course, and while they had been prepared for an ogre at the top of the steep climb to the entrance, none was there to greet them.
Elissa noted that Fenris looked disappointed. He slid his blade into its sheath on his back and turned to the Wardens. "You know the way back to Bisbeck, don't you?" He asked as if he didn't want to, as if the possibility existed that they might ask him for help, and he clearly did not want to supply it.
"Yes," Elissa said with a nod, "we know the way."
"Then I shall leave you."
"Here, take this," Alistair stepped forward with a purse in his hand. "We owe you a great deal more than this."
Fenris paused before he took the purse. He opened it, bow arching at the contents, and he quickly closed it and tucked it away.
"You're not returning with us?" Lindise asked.
"I was not planning to," he answered with a slight sigh. "And now that I find myself in possession of an adequate amount of coin, I think I will now turn south."
"Further from Tevinter," observed Nathaniel.
The tattooed elf nodded to him and bowed slightly. "While you seem like an honorable lot," his gaze lingered over Lindise, "I hope you'll understand if I never wish to meet a Grey Warden ever again."
Nathaniel let out a snort. "Trust me, we understand."
Fenris smiled crookedly, "Then may the road ever rise to meet your feet." He nodded once more to Elissa, lifted his head to check the position of the sun in the cloudless sky, and slipped off without another word, disappearing into a copse of fir trees to the south.
It was another few weeks before the Wardens arrived home, mostly without incident. There were bandits on the road, as always, quickly dispatched. Vash hung back, hesitant to engage in battle.
At camp, Alistair would often attempt to give him lessons in swordplay, borrowing one of Elissa's shorter, lighter blades. It was the closest they had to his dagger.
"We should get you a mace, or an axe. Something heavy," Alistair suggested one night as they clanged steel on a clear, moonless night. "Something that lets you use your size against them."
Vash merely frowned down at the blade. "I am a healer," he said.
"Yes, well..." Alistair rubbed the back of his head.
Nathaniel looked up from where he sat at the fire relacing his bracers. "You were a healer. Now you're a Grey Warden."
Alistair grimaced at the Howe before he turned back to Vashoth, "And now your desire to aid people can be translated into killing the darkspawn that threaten them. Now. Thrust from the side. It's quicker. Like this."
The former qunari seemed to be transitioning to being a Warden just like any human, elf, or dwarf. He awoke every night with nightmares, but refused to comment on them. He was never a chatty man, but he was certainly more talkative and affable than Sten ever was.
With the Joining, that seemed to change. He became far more withdrawn, and his rare little smiles seemed to disappear altogether.
The ship that took them back across the sea to Amaranthine initially refused to allow the Vashoth to board.
"Nah, nah," said the ship's captain. He was a tall, underfed man with as many teeth as he had fingers, and in neither case were there as many as there should be. "I ain't havin' one of them ox-men on my ship. We'll all wake up with our throats slit!"
"If you had your throats slit, you wouldn't exactly be waking up, would you?" Alistair asked philosophically.
Lindise stared the captain down. "He is my brother Grey Warden, and you will permit him passage."
"You must be joking!"
Vash's eyes remained on the rolling sea when he finally chimed in, "I was on a boat once that was nearly captured by pirates. As they tried to board, I plucked them up off their ropes as if they were lice, crushed them in my hands and dropped them into the waters for the sharks to feed upon." His gray head turned to look at the captain. "I'm very good at keeping pirates away."
The captain stared up at him wide eyed. "Right. Well. Pirate deterrent. That seems fair. Welcome aboard."
Lindise eyeballed him once they had moved below decks and well out of the earshot of the crew.
At her look, Vash said simply, "That was a lie."
His words brought the first smile to her face since the Deep Roads.
The guessing games played with Alistair on the way from Cumberland were completely absent on the way back. Lindise had also sung a few songs around the campfires before Paien's death. No longer.
But that smile and Vash's wry humor gave Elissa hope that the Deep Roads had not completely destroyed the people they were.