46. The Elven Spirit

Meila had always been one of the more difficult of his companions to read. Still, Finian was rarely one to back down from a challenge, so he had with great care learned to tell the difference between her stony looks and her icy ones. Between her confused frowns and her annoyed ones. It was a process that required trial and error coupled with careful observation.

Still, it seemed to pay off, because he could tell that the frown on the Dalish elf's face now was definitely puzzled. It wasn't a promising expression, when she was leading them through a thick, possibly haunted forest.

"Okay, now I know I've seen that rock before." Kazar stopped and pointed at a boulder up ahead on the game trail. "I remember thinking, 'hey that looks a bit like a mouse getting eaten by a fat bird.' And look, there it is again."

Meila stared at the indicated boulder stonily. She was definitely puzzled, and a little frustrated too.

"Just admit it," Kazar went on. "We're lost. We're lost, and we're going to die in the spooky forest, nothing left to mark our passing but our bleached bones."

"You're feeling particularly morbid today," Fin observed lightly.

"Can you blame me? An hour ago, I almost got sat on by a tree. Being killed by a tree… I never would have lived that down! Well, not lived… gah, you know what I mean."

"At least you set it on fire before it came to that."

Kazar paused, then smiled fondly at the memory. "Yeah, there is that."

"We are not lost," Meila's voice broke in. She was still staring at the boulder Kazar had pointed out, this time glaring at it as if it had done her wrong. "I know exactly where we are. However… we are not where we should be."

"And that means… what?" the mage asked.

Meila sighed through her nose. "It seems the legends of this part of the forest being guarded by a wily spirit are true. It is turning us away from our destination."

"A spirit." Kazar crossed his arms and smirked. "Right. Or maybe you were just so busy thinking about Mithra and her sexy bare midriff that you got turned around."

The hard look she gave Kazar was annoyed, but Fin detected the slightest reddening of her tanned features. "I was doing no such thing."

"Is that sort of thing frowned on among the Dalish, too?" Finian broke in as Kazar took a breath to continue baiting her, feigning less interest in the subject than he should rightfully have been able to. "Because it is in Ferelden, at least among the Alienages. Marriage is considered this huge rite of passage, steeped in tradition. You don't even get a say in it; the elders pick someone of the opposite gender for you, and if you deviate from that, it's you who are in the wrong."

He'd often wondered if it was the same way among humans, especially given Percy's... no. No. He wasn't thinking about Percy right now. It was too sore yet.

Meila was frowning at Fin now. Possibly consternation? This was one expression he had difficulty reading. He felt like he was on pins and needles here, with this particular subject… one of the few things he rarely talked about, in the interest of not implicating himself.

"There is nothing against it in the old ways, but it serves no purpose," Meila said sharply. "It does not benefit the clan—or community, I suppose—for two women to bond in such a way. There can be no offspring of it, when a Dalish's utmost priority is to see that our lore is carried through to the next generation. Pursuing such bonds is therefore pointless."

"So…" Kazar said, tilting his head. "…you're a virgin?"

Now Meila's face was definitely red. Her glare, however, was ice cold. "I don't see how that is any of your business."

"It's not wrong, you know," Finian said, proud that his voice sounded soothing instead of defensive. "I say people should be free to enjoy themselves with whoever they choose, however they choose."

"You would think that," Kazar grumbled.

"You don't agree?"

"Sex shouldn't be a free-for-all." Finian was honestly taken aback to hear such candid words from a sixteen-year-old. "There are some things that should probably be common to all of it. Like consent."

Finian forced a laugh. "Well, that's a given."

"Not to some people," Kazar grumbled, not looking at either of his companions. Finian had difficulty keeping his smile.

The ensuing stretch of silence was broken by a nearby howl, and the three Wardens' conversation was abandoned as their weapons came out. Finian held his daggers loosely in his hands as he scanned the treeline, and Meila had her bow out as she did the same. There was another baying howl, this time from a different direction.

"I think we found the werewolves," Finian said lightly.

"Thank you, stater-of-the-obvious." Lightning danced up and down Kazar's arms. "You're as bad as the Templar."

"Alistair doesn't state the obvious. He simply tends to make observations."

"Yeah. Obvious ones."

"Be silent!" Meila hissed, and they could hear the sounds of several large forms crashing through the trees around them. A moment later, they appeared.

Seven large, looming creatures emerged from the trees. They were humanoid in build, though their ragged fur and vicious, slavering snouts left little doubt that these were not, in fact, humans. They walked with deadly, loping grace, and each sported fangs and claws that looked like they could cut through steel like cheese.

Suddenly, Fin wished they'd brought one of their sturdier comrades along.

"Hrr…" One of the creatures stepped forward, this one taller and more golden in coloring than the rest. "You are sent by the treacherous Dalish… you will come no further."

All three Wardens stared. Kazar sputtered, "Did… did that thing just speak? Because I think I just heard that thing speak."

The werewolves growled and, Finian, sensing an avoidable confrontation, stepped forward. "What Dalish do you speak of? We are simple Grey Wardens…"

"Do not play me for a fool, elf. I can smell the evil one's presence on you. He sent you to kill Witherfang!" The werewolves howled in apparent rage, now surrounding the trio from all sides.

"Well, yes, he did," Finian hedged, trying a different tactic. These things had encountered Zathrian before, it seemed. "But we're honestly a third party. We have no quarrel with you. Perhaps if you could take us to Witherfang, we could work out something—"

"NO! No deals with elves! You will only trick us!" The wolf growled. "I am Swiftrunner, and I will not stand by and let you elves hurt our lady!" He threw back his head and howled, and the werewolves attacked.

Lightning erupted all around them, scorching dirt, trees, and werewolves alike, and Finian heard the dull twang of a bowstring. Fin could only hope that the other two had the rest of the pack in hand, because Swiftrunner dove in at him, snarling, and it was all Finian could do to keep his feet under the onslaught.

Swiftrunner was vicious, pressing the attack in a way that had Fin unable to do much but dodge and roll. He came out of a roll behind Swiftrunner's back, and managed to slash out at the werewolf's hamstrings, but the creature's hide was thick, and Fin had to jump away again before it truly did any damage.

"The prey thinks it can run away?" Swiftrunner growled in outrage, its arm darting out faster than Fin could anticipate as he was trying to skirt around the large creature. Swiftrunner's claws pierced his leather armbands, drawing blood, and the creature used its grip to whirl the elf around and slam him into a tree.

Fin's breath whooshed out of him—parts of him were still a bit sore from last time he'd been slammed around like that—and he blinked spots away from his eyes. When he could properly see, Swiftrunner loomed over him. The elf swiped toward the monster's throat, but Swiftrunner's jaws snapped out and caught his left hand, even as the right one slit a shallow red trail across the werewolf's neck. Finian winced as he felt the creature's strong jaws crushing the delicate bones of his hand, and his dagger dropped to the ground.

Swiftrunner's claws came up and pinned Fin's hands to the tree. "You take a message to the Dalish elf," Swiftrunner growled, its rancid breath stealing over Finian's face. "Hrr. You tell him no more tricks. He knows how to end this. Hrr. You tell him to break it, or all of his precious elves will die." Finian nodded, his mind whirling through what such a message might mean.

With a final snarl, the werewolf pushed away from the trunk and howled, and the three werewolves left standing bounded away from the globe of fire that had sprung up in the middle of the road. The werewolves growled and ran off up the path.

"Finally!" Kazar's voice groaned, and the globe of fire dissipated in a puff of smoke. Meila and Kazar were inside of it, though the archer was on her knees. She raised her bow after Swiftrunner's retreating form.

"No!" Finian cried, jumping into the woman's shot. A moment later, the werewolves had disappeared into the forest.

Meila lowered her bow, scowling at him. "You would defend such a creature?"

"They're sentient," Finian panted, rubbing at his injured hand. "Zathrian never said they were sentient."

Kazar was looking at him as if he'd sprouted another head. "They're also still werewolves."

Meila nodded in agreement and tried to stand, but promptly doubled over again, hand going to her midriff. Four deep lines crossed her stomach where one of the beasts had gotten its claws in her.

"Blast it!" Kazar spat, noticing the marks at the same time Fin did. "I think we're out of poultices too. We should have bullied Amell into making us more back in Lothering."

"I am fine," Meila said, this time succeeding in standing. It did not make Finian any less wary.

"I'd… like to head back to the Dalish camp anyway," Finian said. "I think we need to talk to Zathrian about something before we try to go any farther."

"It's not like the haunted spirit forest will let us get any farther anyway," Kazar said, and the trio started back—reluctantly, on Meila's part.

Finian sighed. "Anyone else get the feeling we're just running a maze for someone else's entertainment, here?"

Kazar snorted. "Remember when you accused me of sounding paranoid?"

Fin shrugged. "I don't do well with being… trapped. And that's what this whole thing feels like."

"…trapped."

"Well, you know what it's like, Kazar! Having everything dictated for you by others: where you can go, what you can do, where you can live…"

Kazar stiffened. "No one tells me what to do."

Finian stifled a sigh, because really. "Well, they did to me. I've never handled… cages… very well, I guess." He paused, noticing that both were looking at him curiously as they walked. He figured a story might illustrate his point best. "My cousin Shianni once caught a rabbit. It was a spindly little thing that had been getting into the neighbors' vegetables, but she managed to catch it with an old water cistern. Next thing I knew, she'd dubbed it Cabbage and pestered my father into building an enclosure for it in our yard.

"I felt sorry for it. It was like it had its own Alienage, separating it from its natural brethren." Meila made a soft sound, and Fin didn't look up to see whether it was from the story or from her wounds. "So, one night, I snuck out and let the rabbit go. I snuck out of the Alienage with Cabbage bundled in my arms—if anyone had caught me, they'd probably have thought I was smuggling something. But I let it go among the noble estates, where it would have plenty of food and room to roam, then snuck back into the Alienage with no one the wiser.

"Of course, when Shianni saw what happened, she immediately guessed it was me. She was so furious… I had to do chores for her for a week before she would even speak with me again." He chuckled fondly at the memory. "Can't say I regretted it."

"The freedom of a dumb animal was worth a week's chores?" Kazar said incredulously.

"It was symbolic," Meila posited softly. She eyed Fin thoughtfully, and only Finian's diligent study of her allowed him to read the new respect there. "You could not free yourself, so you freed the rabbit."

Fin nodded, smiling. "I've never liked the cage of Alienage life, but I couldn't think of any way to get out of it. Any other city would treat me exactly the same, and I certainly wasn't going to bank on stumbling into the Dalish—no offense Meila."

"We do pride ourselves in being difficult to track."

"Then, Duncan came along, and freed me in a way that I never thought possible. We're more than elves, you know? We're Grey Wardens, and that means that even the shems have to respect us."

"They should respect us for being elves, as well," Meila said quietly. Uncertainly, Fin nodded. They thought about that all the way back to camp.

They had been walking the Brecilian forest for two days, yet it took them only a handful of hours to return to the Dalish camp… as if the forest had been deliberately turning them around in hopes that they would stay near it. Meila, Fin could tell, was agitated by this revelation.

They walked into the camp at dusk, weary and dirty. Zathrian greeted them just inside the camp.

"Ah, you return. And yet the curse remains. Have you given up the quest?"

"No," Finian said, suddenly annoyed by the older elf. Still, he hid it well behind his tiredness. "But there's something we need to discuss."

Zathrian nodded, as if he'd been suspecting as much. "Now is not the time for such things, then. Come, rest and heal. We will handle such things by the light of the morning."

He left them at that, and another robed elf came forward. "I'm Lanaya, Zathrian's First." To Meila, she said, "Come, lethallan, I'll see to your wounds." Meila sighed and nodded, and Lanaya turned to the men. "Are either of you hurt as well? If so, we have herbs that can ease such things. It's the least we can do, after what you've agreed to do for our people."

Finian waved her off, and Kazar sniped, "It really is the least, of that I agree."

"Thank you, Lanaya," Meila said. "Perhaps you might show me the uses of some of these herbs, so we might be better prepared?"

"Of course. This way." The two women headed off, toward the area that still seemed to be functioning as a hospice.

This left the two non-Dalish elves alone. For a moment, Finian just looked around, at a loss as to what to do. The Dalish camp was beautiful in the evening light, in a wild, yet homey way. Torch posts littered the grounds, casting a flickering orange glow over the dusk-lit earth. The craftsmen seemed to be tidying up their workstations for the night, and Finian saw a group of elves gathered in a circle around a man who gestured in the manner of one telling a story.

"Great, so now we're spending a night among these people," Kazar's voice grumbled next to him.

"I don't know, it could be exciting," Fin said, understating his curiosity so as not to upset the mage any further.

"Exciting? Facing an army of darkspawn is exciting. Setting a demonic tree on fire and listening to it burn is exciting. But this? This is just… aggravating!"

"How so?"

"How so what?"

"I find the atmosphere rather relaxing. So why do you find it aggravating?"

Kazar had obviously never been asked to explain such a thing before, by the way he stuttered. "Well…I… it's… it just is!" He huffed and stalked off, leaving Finian alone.

Finian wasn't one to waste such an opportunity to explore. He'd spent his whole life confined to the narrow world of Denerim, where an elf was better off keeping out from underfoot and blending into the humans as much as possible. As it happened, Finian had very often taken advantage of how beneath notice elves were—not being worth attention made it a great deal easier to slip away with things that may not have been strictly his.

But this… this was entirely different, and the sheer magnitude of that difference only dawned on him as he wandered around the camp. These elves didn't just acknowledge their elvishness… they celebrated it. It was in their food, their clothing, the tales the storyteller spun around the campfire. It was a novel concept, to know that there was a culture here outside what little the humans afforded them. One richer and longer than any human's could hope to be.

For the first time, Finian didn't feel restrained by his race. No, he felt freed by it.

The Dalish elves seemed to sense his wonder, for they helped him with knowing smiles and eyes that only hinted about how deep this well could go. They shared their food with him, occasionally extolling on the religious significance of the beast they ate, and Finian was left marveling at the strange, yet pleasant palette of flavors. Rather like a metaphor for the entire camp, really.

One of the craftsmen spoke with him briefly while carefully wrapping a suit of leather armor he was working on. The leatherworker extolled on the importance of keeping the leather wrapped overnight so that it did not dry out before it was properly shaped. Then, Fin spoke to the halla keeper, who even brought one of the beautiful creatures out so that he could stroke its sleek white fur.

But it was Sarel, the storyteller, who enchanted Finian most of all. Though the man was initially wary, Finian's earnest curiosity won him over (although a bandaged Meila coming over to sit next to Finian undoubtedly helped too).

Soon Sarel was telling him about the long, often tumultuous, history of the elves. Finian sat on a log across the campfire as the sun disappeared from the sky, committing every word to memory. The other listeners around the campfire, including Meila—who was carving what appeared to be a bead out of a werewolf tooth—often joined in, making the stories an interactive experience that impressed upon Finian just how close to the core this history was to the Dalish elves. And how they overcame that history by doing everything as one.

Vir Adahlen. 'Together we are stronger than one.'

After the histories, they moved into songs, some in Trade tongue and others in the language of the Dalish. Suddenly, simply speaking the old words seemed to be clumsy… the melodic ancient language was obviously meant to be sung.

First, Sarel sang a ballad of an ancient elven hero, then everyone joined in on a traditional war march. And then Meila walked the whole gathering through one of her clan's favorite elven language rounds, the harmonies blending and flaring beautifully as they echoed against the trees. Finian joined in all of it with gusto, whether it was a soft, tragic song about a lost home, or a lively dance around the fire meant for couples (on that one, he actually got Meila to laugh as he dipped her and spun her about, and he counted that as one of his more impressive feats).

Then, while Sarel was singing a gentle lullaby—dropping any of the children still awake right to sleep in their parents' arms—Finian heard something from behind him, in the trees. A second voice sang along with it at barely a whisper… but it was the owner of the voice that surprised him.

Fin excused himself quietly and slipped away, working his way cautiously to the edge of the camp. Silently, he leaned around a large tree trunk to confirm the identity of the second singer.

Hidden from the rest of the camp but still within earshot of the storytelling circle, Kazar sat nestled against the base of the trunk, and Fin couldn't say how long he'd been there, listening. Now, the mage sang softly along with the Dalish lullaby, his arms wrapped tight around his knees and tears streaming freely down his face.

There was movement in Finian's peripheral vision, and then Meila slipped softly around the opposite side of the tree trunk and knelt down next to the mage. Kazar didn't startle or anything, but he did stop singing, looking over at her with wide, watery eyes.

Fin slipped in and gently sat at Kazar's other side, and the three silently listened to the lullaby for a moment. Kazar's eyes wandered upward, searching the sky. Roughly, he whispered, "I know this song."

Finian smiled, thinking that a lightly teasing comment about stating the obvious would be out of place here. "It's a beautiful one."

"Someone… someone used to sing it to me. In someplace warm and safe." The mage's voice wobbled, and he cleared his throat. "I think it might have been my... my mother."

"Mamae," Meila whispered.

"Mamae," Kazar agreed, fresh tears spilling down his cheeks. "I…" his voice broke. "…I'm Dalish."

Meila dared to snake her arm around Kazar, and Finian leaned his shoulder against his young companion's.

A grateful smile broke across the younger elf's face, which he cast at both of them. Then, with a bit more confidence, he repeated, "I'm Dalish."

Finian would have clasped Kazar's shoulder, but his injured hand gave a warning throb. So instead, he just sat with Meila and Kazar, listening to Sarel move from the lullaby into a song celebrating the elven spirit. Meila led them through it with a gentle smile, and Kazar's wasn't the only set of misty eyes that night.