(Snorpenbass: Thanks for the correction. I've been figuring it's pretty big (a bit smaller than Lake Michigan-ish?), but I sorely underestimated historical boat speed. It's hard to research. I tweaked the previous chapter a bit to just an overnight voyage. Fortunately, the meat of it stays the same. :) )

67. Open Mouth, Insert Silk-Shod Foot

Leliana hummed to herself as she dug through the next bureau. The tune was an old Rivaini sea shanty… nothing all that deep or meaningful, but fun. Lots of verses about wenching and plunder. In her old life, it had kind of made her want to be a Rivaini pirate.

She laughed to herself at the thought. Companion to the Grey Wardens during a Blight was a definite step up from anything she'd been in the past: bard, lay sister, spy, or anything else. Who knew that in running from Orlais, she would find her true calling?

Ah, but the Maker did work in mysterious ways. To think that the Chantry thought that the Maker had turned from the world; it was obvious His hand was still at work. The Wardens alone were proof of that!

Leliana paused in her rummaging to pull out one of the outfits in the bureau. It was a classic man's quilted doublet with embroidered stitching in various colors, with a white linen undershirt underneath: most men would look quite dashing in it. It looked to be about Alistair's or Percival's size. Maybe she could get one of them to wear it somewhere, just for fun?

Well, maybe not Percival. The dour man obviously didn't like her, with how he glared at her whenever she tried to speak to him. But Alistair was nice. Maybe Felicity could help bully him into it; it'd be doing the girl a favor, after all, to put him in decent clothes for a change!

She laughed at the thought and draped the outfit over a chair with a handful of other salvageable ones. She was currently in one of the various abandoned quarters around the castle. Most of the remaining staff and the guests had all taken rooms as near the entrance hall as possible, leaving little hallways like this one abandoned yet.

Leliana wasn't really one to steal wantonly… Maker forbid! But such nice clothes would be eaten by mothballs before the servants ever got to this wing of the castle, so it was her civic duty to rescue them. And any matching shoes, of course.

It was a relief, anyway, to be away from the Wardens for at least a little while. They were fascinating people, and many of them were quite nice, but she needed a break. If it wasn't Alistair and the elf mage nearly coming to blows, then it was everyone's mistrust of the Antivan Crow. If it wasn't that, then it was Percival and Meila both glaring at her if she so much as looked in their directions. And dinner had been very awkward, because Alistair was still angry at the elves, and everyone else obviously wanted to know about the other teams' adventures, but no one was willing to reveal more than the bare details of their own.

It would have been funny, if Leliana hadn't been bursting with curiosity after the elves clammed up over as simple a question as where the white wolf had come from.

Leliana laid a final outfit—a slimming satin dress she intended to give a try herself—on the top of her pile and folded all of it into the wicker basket she'd brought for just that purpose. Humming to herself, she left the room and started down the hall, toward the next set of rooms.

She paused though, her humming falling silent, as her ears picked up another song. The voice wasn't refined, but it was strong and sure, and the melody of the song itself was positively haunting.

"Melava inan enansal
"ir su araval tu elvaral
"u na emma abelas…"

She set the basket down and stepped softly as she followed the sound. She turned a corner in the corridor and reached a window that faced into a small courtyard. The moonlight illuminated a copse of decorative trees and clusters of flowering bushes, with a stone path weaving between the greenery. A garden, though one much less strictly organized than the kind Leliana had often seen in Orlais. This garden was still somehow untamed, much like the rest of Ferelden.

"...in elgar sa vir mana
"in tu setheneran din emma na."

Between two of those trees hung a hammock, with a familiar Dalish elf sprawled in it, lit by a lantern swinging on a branch just above her head. Meila sang to herself in what the bard recognized as the ancient elven tongue, the elf's expression and posture utterly serene as she concentrated on something she was doing with her hands. Carving, Leliana realized, seeing the glint of metal.

"...lath sulevin
"lath araval ena
"arla ven tu vir mahvir…"

Leliana perched at the window, fascinated by the song. Meila Mahariel was no bard, able to evoke any emotion by an inflection of the voice… but her heart was in whatever she was singing, and her voice caressed the ancient language like family.

Abruptly, the song stopped, and Leliana blinked and realized that Meila was staring over at her.

"Oh, please don't stop. That was beautiful."

"I wasn't singing it for you," Meila said shortly. She turned back to her carving, but now seemed to be glaring at the item in her hand more than shaping it.

"I'm sorry to intrude, then. But may I ask what it's about? It sounds sad."

The elf's eyes flickered back up toward her, unreadable. "It is, and yet it isn't."

Leliana waited, hoping that the elf would go on.

After a long silence, Meila sat up in the hammock and peered at her. The bard had never met an elf with such piercing eyes before. Then again, she had never met a Dalish elf. They were not as savage and fearsome as the tales said, but they were certainly proud, if the Dalish Warden was anything to go by.

"It is a song of Arlathan, our homeland," Meila said softly. "Of loss, and enduring to a better future."

"That's beautiful."

"Yes. It is." The Dalish elf looked at her with stony eyes. "Is there something you want of me?"

Leliana leaned against the windowsill and shrugged, enjoying the cool night breeze that wafted past her. "What are you doing out here? Surely, you don't sleep out here?"

Meila stiffened, frozen as if by an ice spell. "And why is that so far-fetched? The others grow anxious if I camp outside the castle perimeter, and I do not wish to sleep within stone walls. This is a good compromise, is it not?"

"What's wrong with stone walls? I happen to find comfort in knowing there is a foot of stone between me and the rest of the world. Like a big shield, you know?"

"I do not know," Meila said flatly. She set her carving tools aside and stood, and Leliana realized she was still wearing her leathers.

"Are you sleeping in your armor?" Leliana gasped.

"Of course," the elf all but snapped. "What else would I sleep in?"

"A night-gown, or a robe. Something soft, and fluffy."

"And what good would that do if I were attacked during the night?"

Leliana stared, and realized then that the elf truly came from an entirely different world. How strange she must find everything here. "What is it like?"

The Dalish elf blinked, looking taken aback by the abrupt shift. "What?"

"To be a Dalish elf. Such a lifestyle, living in the forest, must be peaceful."

Meila's stony expression cracked into one of sheer incredulity. "Peaceful? Know you nothing about the history between our peoples?"

"Of course I do. I did not mean it like that." Leliana paused, trying to come up with a good way to say it. "I meant that your people live simpler lives, closer to the earth."

Meila stiffened. "It is not simple."

"I'm sorry, I'm not trying to belittle your culture. I have met few elves who were not pledged to the service of an Orlesian noble-"

"Slaves."

"No!" Leliana said in alarm. "They're serfs!"

Meila had gone very cold. "They serve humans and are never offered anything better. What you humans call the practice makes little difference."

"It is not a bad life!" Maker, this was coming out all wrong. "Elven servants are well-compensated for their services. A well-trained servant is highly valued in Orlais. Elves are nimble and dextrous, and many people find them pleasing to look at."

"So your kind treats us like pets, to be bred and kept for utility and entertainment?"

"No, that's not what I'm saying!"

"You asked what it is like, shemlen, to be Dalish." Now, there was heat in those piercing eyes. "It is not merely a matter of being close to the earth, as you seem to think. We live like we do because we have no place to settle that does not belong to shemlen. We are not content to submit to the servitude of your kind, and so there's no other option but to avoid your civilization altogether."

"It doesn't have to be that way. There are many ways an elf can get ahead in the cities-"

"We do not wish to be free in spite of being elves. Each of us should be judged on our own merits and abilities."

"You're an elven Grey Warden. Perhaps you can serve as a good example for your people."

"And what would count as a 'good example'?"

"Many city folk tell tales of the Dalish, of how you snatch away children in the night. If you showed people how well-behaved you are-"

"Well-behaved?!" Meila actually sputtered. "I am not some pet who can be told to sit and stay on cue!"

"I did not say you were!"

"You did not have to!" Meila gave her the coldest, hardest look Leliana had ever seen. It was refreshing, almost, to have someone show you unabashedly what they thought of you. In Orlais, people smiled and talked circles around one another, and this sort of conversation would never have happened. "You see my kind as different from yours, and that is why you fear us."

"I don't fear you!"

Meila's eyes narrowed. "Perhaps not fear, shemlen, but you still see us differently."

Leliana paled, because there was truth to the elf's protests. "I… did not realize I was doing that. I'm sorry."

The fury fell from Meila's face, and the elf eyed her suspiciously."You... truly mean that."

"Of course. I will try better in the future to not let my past conceptions cover my sight, yes?"

The suspicion seeped away from the elf's expression, making way for bafflement. "You do not mind that I stood up to you, just now?"

Leliana just shrugged and smiled. "No, I don't mind. You gave me something to think about."

The elf looked away, back to her carvings. "I had not... expected that." More softly, she muttered, "Perhaps there is some merit in rethinking preconceptions on both sides." With that puzzling statement, Meila slipped back into her hammock and resume her carving.

After a moment of Leliana watching her at it, Meila glanced up again. "What is it?"

"Thank you for the talk. It was interesting."

The elf blinked, startled. "You… are a strange human."

Leliana grinned and just nodded a farewell, "Have a good night." She turned and walked back through the castle deep in thought. So distracted was she that she did not remember to retrieve the found outfits until an hour later.