128. The Rounds

Every morning, Wynne spent an hour brewing potions. While the water boiled, she cataloged her ingredient stores, just to ensure she had enough to care for the entire estate. It was a large estate, and a good many people needed her support, even if they weren't aware of it.

Wynne smiled as she bent to take two of the kettles off the fire. One, she poured in a bowl with powdered deep mushroom. The other, she stirred in with elfroot paste. She hummed softly to herself as she worked the paste in. As an ache sprang up in her wrist, she took a break, pulling the third kettle off the fire.

Finally, once she had all that morning's necessary supplements gathered together on a tray, she took up the tray and headed out for her rounds.

Her first stop was Oghren's room. The small guest room stank of whatever cheap spirit the dwarf had been into the night before, and Wynne dutifully placed the hangover reliever onto his bedside table. It didn't entirely cure the man's ails—she wasn't about to condone the man's excesses—but it would take the edge off. If there was one thing the Wardens didn't need, it was an irritable Oghren adding to their cumulative stress.

She slipped out as softly as she'd come in with the dwarf none the wiser and headed for the next room on her mental list. She passed Garott's and Morrigan's, and knocked on Sten's. A grunt from inside bid her enter.

The Qunari was up, unsurprisingly, and eyed her as she came in, affording her the same guarded wariness he extended to all mages. She only offered him a warm smile and set the replacement for his disinfectant at his feet, as he was undoubtedly getting low. The Qunari did not often speak up about his ails, but the experienced healer could tell that the bear's claw marks from their prison charade three days before were bothering him still.

After a moment considering the balm, he nodded to her. "I thank you."

"You're very welcome," she replied with a smile, and left.

Next, she took a hallway toward the back of the estate, toward Eamon's personal study. Already, she could hear arguing from down the hall.

"...appreciate the necessity, I can hardly tie myself to a man I've never met! The banns would have a field day! You cannot expect them to simply accept an untried stranger into the fold."

Wynne settled outside the closed study door, picking up the appropriate vial from her tray.

"I am certain, my queen, that if you vouch for him, they will accept him."

"If you vouch for him, you mean." A sigh. "Honestly Eamon, I'd rather take on one of the Couslands. They, at the least, are familiar faces to the court."

"I'm afraid that is rather out of the question. One is mourning his late wife and son yet, so marrying him would certainly not be proper at this time. The other is a Warden."

"So is Alistair."

"Trust me, my queen. When you see him, you will understand why I do not believe an unfamiliar face will be the problem."

Anora's voice sighed again. "Very well. I will withhold judgement, for the time being. Do not think this is the end of the discussion, Eamon."

"I would not dare presume, my queen."

Footsteps neared from within, and the door opened. The flustered queen stepped out, rubbing her head. Wynne proffered the headache cure she had prepared.

"At it especially early this morning, I see," Wynne said with a light smile.

"Thank the Maker. You, madam, are a life-saver." Anora downed the vial in one gulp, then replaced the vial perfunctorily on the tray. "It's always a constant tug back and forth, with Eamon. It almost makes me miss letting Cailan deal with him."

Anora started down the hall, and Wynne followed a respectful distance behind.

"Something tells me, my dear, that you were the one making the actual decisions, even then."

"Not all of them. Merely the ones that mattered." She sighed, but Wynne could see by the set of her shoulders that the queen's constant stress headache was easing. "Would that I had spoken a bit more sternly against sending to Orlais for help, and my father would never have been driven to this."

"Do not let your regrets rule you, dear. They are there to learn from, nothing more."

"I would disagree with that. They are there to correct. We will fix this, one way or another." Anora nodded a thanks to Wynne and turned off down a small hallway, and Wynne continued onto the dining room.

When she entered, it was into an awkward silence. The source was easy to spot: Fergus sat at one of the tables, picking at a breakfast of eggs and cheese. Percival stood some distance away, his arms crossed stiffly and his mabari looking fretfully between the two. They had been staring at one another in silence, but they both looked up guardedly as Wynne walked in.

She paid no mind to the thick silence, heading straight for Fergus. She set his daily potion on the table in front of him with a stern look; he should have known better by now than to try to eat without his digestion potion—a necessity until his stomach could process whole foods properly after his long captivity. Fergus smiled wanly in return.

She turned to the younger brother. "And how are you feeling this morning, Percival?"

"Well, thank you," the young man replied stiffly, his eyes flickering to his elder brother once.

"Your burns aren't bothering you further? I seem to recall you scratching them last night over dinner."

He shook his head. "Morrigan gave me a balm for them." A flicker of a smile flashed in his eyes. "Said she found my 'incessant shifting irritating and suspicious'."

"I see."

"Brother..." Fergus began.

"Don't," Percy snapped, smile instantly gone. "You don't know her, and you don't know me."

Fergus' mouth snapped shut, and he turned to stare down at his breakfast.

Wynne sighed, but pressed her lips together and let it be. Percival already knew her opinion on the matter of his brother, and he would relax and rediscover the relationship only with time. Until then, this tension would hang over them every time they shared a room, and there was nothing much that Wynne could do about it.

And so, she nodded farewell to the two of them and headed to the kitchen, putting a bowl of cooling porridge on the tray, along with some meat and cheese.

Riordan, she found in the library. The older Warden was hunched over Felicity's codex, delivered by brother Genitivi some days before. The man was always far too wan and tired, in Wynne's opinion, but she could detect nothing wrong with him other than the same oily Taint that plagued all the Wardens. He was simply aged by his experiences, it seemed.

He smiled gratefully as she delivered her other batch of balm to him. Most signs of his imprisonment were healed, but a few lingered on, and those few could mean the difference between victory and defeat, if the archdemon arrived tomorrow.

"This is really not necessary, but I appreciate it," he said in his light Orlesian accent.

"These are trying times, Warden. Each of us must help in our own little way."

"Rest assured, yours is more helpful than most. Thank you."

She accepted the thanks and turned to head out, winding through the corridors to her final destination.

Both elves were up when she arrived, Finian nestled comfortably back against Zevran while the latter held a book in front of them. Judging by the way they were sniggering, and the way Zevran snapped the book shut as she walked in, the contents of said book were not fit for polite company.

She suppressed an eye roll and instead sat on the bed at Finian's feet, offering them their breakfasts. It was reassuring how Zevran always ensured Fin had his food before he took his own—though she would certainly never point the habit out to him, lest she inadvertently dissuade him from it.

While they ate, she reached over and began her daily checkup.

First, she reached up and tilted Finian's head to the side, taking a look at the pickpocket's ear and its new gold hoop. She had been rather miffed, the day after the escape, to walk in and find that the pair had pierced Finian's ear overnight without telling her, but it seemed Zevran had known what he was doing, as the puncture had shown no sign of infection thus far.

Satisfied with that, Wynne turned her attention to the thief's hands, taking each in turn and carefully running a magic-imbued finger over each healing break. They were still stiff and weak, but they would heal correctly, and that was more than could be said if Wynne hadn't been here. She had spent all of that first night tending to the boy's hands, only satisfied once her magic was exhausted that she'd done everything she could. She had felt her spirit slip a little closer to death that night, but she knew that it was for a good cause. These Wardens were destined for great things, after all.

Once satisfied that the hands were healing well, she did a cursory check on the rest of him, knitting torn muscles and punctured skin a bit more every day. He would always have scars but, again, he would heal to full functionality, and that was more than many who had gone through his experience could say.

"Well, healer?" Finian said around his porridge. "What's your prognosis?"

"That you should know better than to speak with you mouth full," she chided with a smile, and both elves chuckled. She offered them a smile. "I think, perhaps, you may be ready to leave your bed today."

Finian lit up at that and reflexively moved to try to get out of bed, but Zevran held him down. The Antivan tsked. "Not before you finish your food, amor."

Finian slumped back into the other elf's arms, pouting. "Fine. You're as bad as my father."

"Warden, I have met your father, and you know I am not above fetching him and bringing him here for a proper dose of familial guilt."

"You wouldn't." He craned his neck to peer at Zevran. "All right, you would, but please don't? He'd have a heart attack if he knew I was sent to Fort Drakon."

"Then I suggest you do as the beautifully bosomed healer says, yes?"

Wynne sighed. "Really, Zevran." He winked over Fin's shoulder, and she fought a fond smile. She would not encourage this.

Carefully, she stood, spending a moment to stretch her aching joints. "Rest for now. I will be by around lunchtime, and we will perhaps experiment with a bit of movement then."

Fin sighed. "Alas, it seems I am sentenced to a couple more hours of bedrest. Whatever will I do to fill the time?"

Zevran smirked, trailing a finger down Fin's nightshirt. "I can think of a few things."

"Bedrest, boys," Wynne said sternly. Even so, she turned and left them to their own devices, a bit against her better judgment. At this point, she trusted Zevran to be attentive enough not to injure Finian outright, and she had to be content with that.

With a final sigh, she took her now-empty tray and headed back for her own room.