(Estrea: Andraste's knicker-weasels... did you get your hands on my notes? XD Not all your guesses were dead-on, but most were in the ball-park, and you picked up on a couple threads that literally have all of one sentence dedicated to them so far. Very nicely done. I hope I don't disappoint your expectations!

Also, thank you to people who've been pointing out errors, both in comments and pm. With a story this big and wieldy, little details tend to slip through, and the demon, as they say, is in the details. )

39. Not Like Other Templars

"Of course elfroot is important, but 'tis hardly the only herb in the woods, now is it?"

"But none of the books I've studied on the subject mention cattails as a legitimate herbal supplement."

"No… I don't suppose they would, would they?" Morrigan's knowing smirk might have been infuriating, if Felicity hadn't been so fascinated by the information the witch was imparting.

They had been in Lothering for three days now. In that time, Felicity had had plenty of time to make good on the deal struck with Morrigan back at Ostagar. She had taught the witch a basic heal spell and what few spirit spells she could pull off, like the shield. Morrigan, in return, had proved to be a font of information in her own right.

The other mage's shapeshifting abilities, for example, were fascinating to Felicity. She had badgered the other mage with questions over the last week about what it was like to wear another form. In response, the witch had merely rolled her eyes and answered something along the lines of "you will never know."

That did not stop Felicity from continuing to ask, of course.

Morrigan was tolerant of the attention, at least (perhaps flattered, even?). The same could not be said of Sten, who was the other main source of interest in their camp.

Felicity had never seen a Qunari, of course, and mentions of them were surprisingly scarce among the reading material allowed in the Circle. It was a pity, really, as any nation that could face the Tevinter Imperium was certainly significant in the larger picture. Yet so little was known about the kossith and their strange religion. At least, so little was known to her.

She'd attempted to rectify that ignorance, of course. When the other Wardens had walked him into camp, she'd peppered him with questions about the Qun and his homeland. He had tolerated it for a few minutes of spare, single-sentence answers, then had cut her off with a terse, "This is pointless," and had walked away. Garott and Kazar had both burst out laughing.

In the three days since, it had been a source of both frustration and fascination, and she wasn't certain which emotion she should feel more strongly.

Now, Morrigan and Felicity were wandering the woods just southeast of Lothering, collecting herbs to replenish their stocks. Alistair trailed behind them, looking thoroughly bored as he stared up at the sky.

"Alistair," Felicity teased, "I do believe escorts are meant to keep an eye on their surroundings. Or do you expect an attack from a wily nimbus cloud?"

Alistair's lips quirked. "Just keeping an eye out for stray dragons." He tipped his head forward to aim that roguish smile at her, and she felt her face go inexplicably hot. "Can't have them swooping down and gobbling up our healer, right?"

"Oh please," Morrigan groaned.

"You, on the other hand… I think I'll let them eat you. Then I'll probably laugh."

"How very chivalrous."

"Be nice," Felicity scolded, though she didn't really expect either of them to listen. They'd been at one another's throats since their first meeting, after all. Or so the others had told her, as she'd been otherwise occupied during that particular event.

Morrigan harrumphed and resumed gathering cattails.

Alistair, however, stepped up alongside Felicity as she collected the leaves off an aloe plant.

"So what nefarious mage use will you put this plant to?"

Felicity smiled. When he waggled his eyebrows, it turned into a giggle which she quickly stifled. "Aloe is most commonly used for soothing burns."

"Ooh, sign me up for that. Especially if I'm going to be squadding with Kazar in the near future."

Felicity couldn't fight back a laugh at her fellow mage's expense. "It can't be that bad."

"He seems to think 'friendly fire' means 'setting his friends on fire.' And he loves doing that, let me tell you."

"Yes, he did always have a habit of such things back at the Tower. Being rather careless about the wellbeing of his peers, that is." Felicity gingerly worked off a branch, careful not to waste any leaves. "Most of us other apprentices wondered why Jowan followed him around, when no one else could stand the little horror. With the revelation that Jowan is a blood mage, I suppose it makes sense… obviously, Kazar made him bleed, making it easier for Jowan the practice his magic."

"Wait… Kazar's only friend was a blood mage? That explains so very much…"

She laughed. "Doesn't it just?"

Morrigan could be heard muttering something under her breath not far off, but both of them ignored her.

"What about you?" Alistair said. "Did you have any tagalongs, blood mage or otherwise?"

"Oh, no. No, I didn't really have any close friends growing up. I was far too shy."

That made Alistair stop and give her a quizzical look. "You, shy? You?"

She laughed, moving onto the next plant. "It's true. I've always related better to books than to people, and I'm afraid most of my peers found me quite intolerable. The enchanters who taught my classes liked me well enough, but I've never really connected with any of my peers on a personal level." She cut off a branch. "The only two people who ever seemed to genuinely care about me beyond my schoolwork were Wynne and Cullen."

"Ah, right. Wynne was that mage at Ostagar, right?"

Felicity nodded. Not for the first time, she felt a pang of worry about how her mentor had fared. The mages wouldn't have been on the front lines. They might have made it out.

"And Cullen? Was that another shy apprentice?"

She shouldn't have brought him up; already, guilt was stirring in her stomach. She straightened from her herb collecting, glancing at Alistair to see that he watched her curiously. "Actually… he's a Templar."

Alistair's eyebrows shot up. "A Templar took an interest in you? How, exactly? Did he hurt you?"

"What? NO! Cullen would never have hurt me." Felicity felt her face heat up again, this time in embarrassment. "Quite the opposite, actually."

"What do you… oh. OH!" Alistair's own face went red, and he stared at Felicity. "Are you serious? You… with a Templar?"

"Nothing so untoward as what you're thinking!" Felicity protested. By the Maker, she could have curled up and died of mortification right there. "We never got that far. He didn't allow it."

"But if he had, you would have…?"

"Perhaps." She studied Alistair, trying to read the tension in Alistair's shoulders. Alas, she wasn't sure why he looked like he'd been hit with a paralyzing spell all of a sudden. "It's… hard to say. We were… well… sweethearts, I suppose."

"How did that happen?" He asked softly, his eyes still masked.

"I'm not quite sure, to be honest. It just sort of… fell together." She shook her head, a fond smile coming at the memory. "When he was first stationed at the Tower, fresh out of training, he was constantly stuttering and dropping things around me. I thought he was maybe a bit lyrium-addled, to be honest, and made it my business to help him about his duties as the charitable person I was. Little did I know that his bumbling was nerves, and my proximity only made things worse. Still, he was unbelievably sweet, and I often got the feeling that he watched me not with intent to guard the world from me… but rather to guard me from the world.

"Then, I was selected for my Harrowing." Her smile faded. "As you may know from your own training, it is a process we must go through, to weed out those apprentices without the mental acuity to become full magi. The Templars take the selected mage apprentice out of bed in the middle of the night and bring them up to the top of the Tower. There wait a number of mages, including the First Enchanter, and a greater number of Templars. One of those Templars is afforded a spot right next to the magical font where the ritual will take place, and it is he or she who is tasked with the duty of slitting your throat should you fail the Harrowing and fall to the demons of the Fade… or even if you simply take too long."

Alistair was staring at her, wide-eyed.

"When I walked into the Harrowing chamber, my stomach all tangled with nerves and my mind abuzz trying to dredge up every little magical fact I'd ever learned… I crested the stairs to see Cullen standing next to the font. The look on his face as I approached… he was so very frightened. His eyes were pleading with me to be strong enough for this, but he was also proud. Of me, for being afforded this chance. It was that which made me set aside all the theoretical babble that my mind was tangled up in, and to forget the fact that, for all my good grades, my actual spell abilities were really not strong enough to warrant a Harrowing, and to instead simply dive in and do it.

"It was only afterwards, as I was moving my things to my new quarters with the other mages, that Cullen finally came in and said it. He stopped by to help me carry my belongings to my new room and, over the course of four trips, confessed that he had always had a crush on me, and that he had been so relieved not to have to kill me that he simply had to let me know so, as a point of honor."

She smiled fondly at the memory of Cullen's flustered face as the words tumbled out of him, occasionally stuttering and uncertain, but still carrying their own brand of assurance and strength.

"And that's when you got together?" Alistair asked.

"Oh, no! No; I hadn't previously even considered the possibility, though he was certainly kind and handsome enough. But Cullen was always very dutiful, and would not have accepted any actual actions on such feelings. Even as I warmed to the idea over the next weeks, he refused to acknowledge me and took pains to avoid me, obviously embarrassed over his slip. It seemed that every time I turned around, I was catching glimpses of him escaping around a corner in the other direction."

"So you found the one thing a mage can do to truly frighten a Templar," Morrigan's voice said. Even she had paused in her foraging to listen. "Bravo. I think I shall have to try that." She eyed Alistair pointedly.

"Don't even think about it," the ex-Templar said.

"Still," Morrigan continued. "I take it you must have forced a confrontation at some point, since this Templar of yours was obviously too much of a scared little boy to do it himself."

"I did." Felicity felt her cheeks flare up again, wondering why she was saying all of this. To make it hurt less, perhaps? "By this time, I had realized that I reciprocated his fondness, and thus thought it unproductive for the two of us to stumble over ourselves avoiding the subject. So, I cornered him while he was on nocturnal storeroom duty—a relatively secluded post—and… forced an acknowledgement of our mutual affections."

"What," Alistair said sharply, "did you walk up and kiss him or something?"

Felicity felt her face go so hot that she wished she was any good at ice magic, just to cool it. Morrigan burst out laughing.

"You… did, didn't you?" Alistair's expression was incredulous. "You, a mage, walked up to an on-duty Templar and laid one right on his lips! Felicity, do you have any idea how dangerous that is?"

She tried to will her blush away. "It's not as if I made a habit out of doing such things."

"If anyone had seen you…!"

"I know, Alistair. Cullen said much the same thing." He'd been both horrified and delighted by the kiss. Felicity could remember his strong hands resting uncertainly on her upper arms. "But as I assured him, I had made quite certain that we were alone, for the moment, and, unless he intended to do something quite a bit more involved, we would notice someone coming in long before they noticed us." She smiled. "He turned completely scarlet at the mere words."

"Frustration over your insanity, no doubt," Alistair grumbled. "A Templar, of all people."

"Cullen was hardly just any Templar. He was different." Felicity's face was burning. "Besides… don't you think it isn't a little romantic? A mage and a Templar, caught betwixt duty and forbidden love."

"Romantic?" Morrigan scoffed. "Try disturbing."

Felicity twisted the sleeves of her robe. It was in dire need of a good wash, she noted. "After that first kiss, things got away from us, a bit. We never set up any formal meetings or anything… but the Tower was only so large, and thus we certainly ran into one another from time to time. And when we did, his protestations about duty and his vows as well as my own resolution not to let him distract me from my studies were thrown aside. Our eyes would meet this certain way, and then we'd be stealing off behind a bookcase for a kiss, or ducking into an alcove for an embrace. It went on like that for months.

"And then, the rumors started. They were innocuous at first, and no one paid them much mind, since mages are awful gossips. But then, Cullen was called into the Knight-Commander's office and given a stern lecture about the dangers of mages and the importance of duty. He told me later that no names were mentioned, but it was obvious that Greagoir had heard something.

"And so, as the whole thing was my fault in the first place for drawing him into it, I realized it was my duty to push him back out. All it would take was for us to get a little sloppy, and we would be found out. Discovery was something neither of us could risk."

Alistair nodded. "He would have been ejected from the order, and you…"

"Precisely. So, when I realized that the two of us could never work…" She sighed, the next part making her heart sink. "…I called it off. I told him I could not afford the distraction, and it was better if we both forgot anything had ever happened. It broke his heart." She bit her lip. "I don't think he ever did forgive me."

"And he was still stationed at the Tower after that, wasn't he? Talk about awkward," Alistair joked wryly.

Felicity winced. "I… yes, it certainly was. In all honesty, shortly after our… falling out, word came that King Cailan was summoning mages to Ostagar. I wanted to go, because it would mean not having to pass him in the hall every day and pretend I couldn't detect the hurt under his helmet.

"And so, I studied. For weeks, I pored through the libraries and absorbed everything I could about darkspawn, and battle tactics, and anything remotely useful. I made my intentions clear to several of the senior enchanters, and most of them agreed that such things would certainly come in handy. However, in the end, I was simply not a strong enough spellcaster to go along. I never had been."

"Felicity..."

"But then Duncan asked me to join the Wardens, and I jumped on the chance. It would take me away, completely and utterly. No more Templars. No more mage politics. No more him, still watching over me like a fool even though I knew it pained him to do so now." She shook her head and sighed, staring down at her sleeves.

"Would you go back?" Alistair asked softly. "To start again with him, I mean, since you're a Grey Warden now?"

Felicity thought about that. She supposed that, yes, she was no longer technically under the Templars' authority. It wouldn't have been quite as taboo to involve herself with Cullen now, though it certainly still would have violated his vows. Still, not the world-rocking, career-ending kind of violation. Now that she was a Grey Warden, she and Cullen could have had something of a future together.

At long last, she shook her head. "No. Setting aside the fact that I can hardly afford the distraction, what with the oncoming Blight, I suspect this entire ordeal has had its toll on me, and will only continue to do so over the course of it. I'm not the same studious apprentice he stuttered over in the Tower halls, and I wouldn't pretend to be."

Alistair cracked a smile. "Well, if it helps any—which it probably won't—I can't really say I much care about that Felicity. I like the one who's right here."

Behind them, Morrigan muttered something and stalked ahead.

Felicity felt her blush shoot up to the tips of her hair. "Th-thank you. That's very sweet of you to say."

Alistair shrugged, but that lopsided grin was in full effect. "You heal me when monsters stab me. That's not kindness… it's self preservation."

She laughed and turned to continue picking herbs. "Then, thank you. That's a very selfish, shrewd thing of you to say, and you should be ashamed of yourself. You're a bad person, Alistair."

"Wardens-" Morrigan's voice called.

"At least I didn't use my feminine wiles to corrupt some poor Templar," he teased.

"I suspect, Alistair, that 'feminine wiles' hinge upon the status of one being female. Therefore, if you had, I would be rather disturbed."

"Oh, no you would not. You'd be fascinated; try to figure out how I worked. You'd probably try to dissect me or something."

Felicity paused at that, then shot him her best approximation of a sly grin. The way he was grinning back, it was like the two of them were the only people in the world. "You know, you may be right."

("Wardens!")

Alistair clasped his hands to his chest. "Maker, save me from the curiosity of Felicity Amell! I promise, I will forever be boring and predictable, if it will keep her dirty magey hands off me!"

"Oh hush. You could never be boring." As soon as she said it, her face flushed… again.

Alistair paused in his jesting to give her a quizzical smile. "You… you think so?"

"Oh, for the love of-" Morrigan's voice shouted from up ahead, a frantic note in it. "BEARS, YOU MORONS. BEARS!"

Felicity and Alistair whirled, and only then did they see the pair of large brown bears that were bearing down upon them from across a clearing. One charged right through Morrigan, and if she hadn't transformed into a cloud of insects, she would certainly have been crushed.

The other came for them, and Alistair's switch into battle mode was absolutely breath-taking. His sword and shield sprang into his hands, and suddenly the laughing jokester was gone, replaced with a strong, protective knight. His arm swept back to move Felicity firmly behind him, and then he set his feet in the ground to receive the bear's charge.

It lumbered up, roaring low in its throat as it rose onto its hind legs in front of them. Then, it let itself fall on top of the man. Felicity focused what healing magic she could, and began knitting his wounds from a distance, even as the bear's claws bit through his armor.

Finally, Alistair managed to kick and wiggle his way free. He rolled away, and then jumped right back in. Felicity risked a look over at the other bear. It was caught in a swarm of insects, but didn't seem to be particularly hurt by it.

The bear Alistair was fighting bayed in pain, and Felicity turned back to see that Alistair was repeatedly bashing his shield against its snout, disorienting it. He slashed at its hide, but his sword did not seem to be having much effect. Even worse, the other bear heard its fellow's cry and started lumbering toward them, ignoring the flies.

Felicity turned and shot a spell-bolt at it, but the bolt was as weak as all of her offensive spells, and that only seemed to provoke the creature. It turned toward her and ran at her at a full-on charge. She could only watch, frozen in horror as the gigantic mountain of fur bore down on her.

"FELICITY!" Alistair fought to step to her aid, but his own opponent knocked him aside.

Felicity shot another bolt at the charging bear, but the spell fizzled harmlessly against its fur. Three more bounds, and she would be crushed beneath its massive paws. Two more.

One more.

There was a rumbling bark, and a blur sprang out of the foliage and attached itself to the bear's neck. The bear roared and drew back on its hindquarters, close enough that Felicity could feel the spittle falling from its mouth. Hanging from the bear's throat by a powerful set of jaws was a gigantic, filthy mabari.

It couldn't be!

The dog growled and tightened its jaws, even as the bear thrashed and pounded at it. It seemed that the dog was weakening… but then a giant spider crawled up onto its back and added its own mandibles to the bear's throat. Between the two of them, the bear tumbled down with a final sputtering growl.

Alistair, meanwhile, was still fighting off his bear. His right arm and back were a mess of scratches where the bear's strong claws had broken straight through his armor. Still, they were largely superficial wounds, and a burst of healing magic knit them up without any fuss.

The warrior's sword plunged deep into the bear's hide, even as the Morrigan-spider spit a glob of web into its face. The bear tossed about, but finally went down as Alistair smashed his shield over its head one more time. Finally, gasping for breath and splattered in blood, Alistair stepped back and noticed the dog.

"Andraste's knickers… Hugo?"

The mabari hound raised his head, his tail wagging tiredly. Then, he whimpered and collapsed. Felicity and Alistair both rushed over to meet him.

"Ugh. What is that thing?"

"This thing, Morrigan," Alistair bit out as Felicity knelt to inspect the dog, "just saved our collective hides. So shut up for once, would you?"

Felicity ran her hands along the dog's back, regretting that she had never really studied canine anatomy. Hugo was an absolute mess… his fur was matted and burned, and caked with blood both black and brown. His hide was covered in a patchwork of scratches, many more than a week old from the look of it. Still, she couldn't feel any broken bones, as far as she could tell. And when she ran a hand along his snout to check for bruising, his tongue snaked out to lick her hand.

Experimentally, she sent a burst of healing magic into him, and was surprised as it rushed through him as easily as any human, closing many of his worse wounds. The dog startled at the sensation, its head popping up with a growl.

"Easy, Hugo. I'm healing you. We can't take you back to Percival with you in this state."

At the mention of his master's name, the dog's ears perked, and he abruptly jumped up with a happy bark. His tongue lolled out.

"I wonder where he's been all this time," Alistair said, studying the dog.

Felicity only shook her head helplessly and scratched the dog behind the ears, sending more healing magic into him as she did so. Then, she wiped her hand on her robes. "All I can say is that, wherever it was, it was filthy. Let's stop by the stream before we take him back to Lothering, and see if we can't wash some of this off."

"That," Alistair laughed, "sounds like an excellent idea. And since it's your idea, you can be the one to wash him."

"Alistair, I can not say enough how very chivalrous and gentlemanly you are."

"I do try."

"Somebody kill me," Morrigan groaned.

Hugo barked happily, and followed the rest of them as they turned back to Lothering.