BioWare owns everything but my character's and her dog's names, and the Ceffyl's and their names. : )
So it is back to Denerim we go folks, just a little plotting before the Landsmeet hall scene.
Thank you again for all your support and reviews!
Blessings!
Kai groaned as the carriage they were riding in hit yet another pothole that sent everything and everyone inside it shooting about a foot into the air before landing hard on the pillow covered benches. The jolt caused everyone's jaws to clack together and their spines compressed with the sudden stop, Kai wondered if she would be a foot shorter by the time they got to Denerim. She almost wished she were back in the field watching Alistair's remains finish burning. They'd had another party of sorts, a wake, a little more sober and at times sad, then the one they had in her room the night before. It was so hard to take the armor and sword still whole and warm from the flames and put them into a chest. Scooping up the ashes had been another extremely difficult task.
Kai fingered the small leather pouch around her neck which held some of those ashes, until her hand went flying as her arms flew up to reflexively catch the wall, when they hit another pothole, "Nug humper!"
"You didn't complain this much the last time we were on the road Warden." Oghren grinned at her.
"Yes, well being comatose really helped." She couldn't help but wink and smile back. Leli laughed and then continued sniffing the bundle of herbs she'd had the foresight to bring, she'd given each party member a bundle tied in ribbons. They made the air in the carriage a little sweeter when you rubbed them releasing the aromatic oils. Oghren with his usual couth manner had asked if he was supposed to wipe his arse with the twigs in lieu of leaves. Leli had merely smacked him and taken them back, before walking off with her nose in the air. Kai had no idea what Sten and Shale had said to the proffered gift. Especially since Shale had no sense of smell that she knew of.
They were traveling in what amounted to covered wooden boxes with the merest hints of slotted windows at the top which let in the barest hint of light and air, and could be closed quickly in case of attack or used as archer's holes to shoot from. The lamps inside them held the same runes in them that the mages used at the Circle. These lanterns wouldn't spill oil and set people alight if the carriage should overturn and it least allowed enough light that one could read or play chess with pieces with pegs in the bottoms to fit in holes in the board so they stayed in place, or mostly stayed in place. Some of the potholes must have been the size of cows.
They were all taking turns riding in the carriage or on horseback around the carriage with the armored retinues that Anora and all the nobles hired. Any highwaymen or bandits who would try and rob this group of travelers would do so at their peril.
Only Sten and Shale did not ever ride in the carriage or on horseback. No horse could hold either of them, Sten found the carriage claustrophobic, and with good reason. With him in the carriage the space became considerably smaller.
Shale the golem didn't care about the elements. After thirty years stuck in a village square being a statue, as long as she was moving Shale couldn't care less about the weather. Oghren was the only one who rode in the carriage almost full time, as his horsemanship consisted of him staying on a horse for about four to six seconds, give or take, before he invariably slid off one side or the other. Even when they'd gotten a child's saddle so he could reach the stirrups, which he found demeaning, it hadn't worked.
The carriage's closed in space was not conducive to keeping friendships for long if one didn't get out to fresh air. Even without the Horde having destroyed large swaths of the countryside on its way to Denerim during the Blight, there was only the occasional inn along the way in this section of Ferelden. This area consisted of mostly farm holds, so inns and baths were hard to come by.
It reminded Kai of the, not so, good old days when they were on the road during the Blight. But back then they weren't stuck indoors with one another and could walk a ways apart if they were a little pungent. "You mean like Wynne accused me and the dog of being?" Alistair's voice sounded in her ear again feigning hurt. Kai smiled at the thought.
It also didn't help that the rain was following them, ever since Alistair's funeral. And the roads were nothing more than streams with mud that sucked at the horses' hooves and made the wagon wheels slid precariously down slopes. That was if the wheels didn't get stuck all together, requiring everyone to get out and push. One good thing about the rain, it was almost like having a bath so body odor wasn't as bad as it could have been. With the exceptions to that being Oghren and Argus who, when wet, seemed to amplify, rather than dampen, their aromas.
Kai always liked the rain, and had a tendency to walk in it as if it was a sunny day. It didn't bother her to be soaked through, but poor Zev was just miserable. Speaking of Zev, it seemed time to switch places with him and take a ride in the rain. Kai pushed open the door in the back of the carriage and looked out to find Fergus, Teagan, and Zev riding their Ceffyls with Argus trotting along beside them. They rode between their wagon and Eamon's which was following them.
Ceffyls like everything else in Ferelden were built for survival and independence. Orlesians considered them excessively ugly in comparison to their own Chevals. Ceffyls used their huge thick heads, with sharp flat teeth, for cutting off short and sparse grasses, twigs on trees, and even bark, making them able to live off of plant material that would stop up the guts of their pretty Orlesian counterparts. They could and did live on very little water, able to get what they needed from dew and rainfall, or snow if needs be. And like Mabari, Ceffyls were smart enough to do independent reasoning and problem solving, which included scraping snow away in winter to get to grass underneath. They were stocky muscular, and if thought you had insulted them, very, very mean. A Cheval while pretty, would stand in snow and starve before it would think to scrape the snow to look for grass.
During the Orelsian occupation Meghren had ordered the slaughter of the breed as Fereldans used them as battle horses. It was just another means of trying to keep the Fereldans in line. The breed had almost died out. But a luckily two herds had been found after the occupation, roaming around the countryside, and a re-breeding program was under way. It was a slow process, as they had so few numbers to work with. And they needed to be careful of birth defects and physical defects that could show up down the line. But so far, they were making great progress.
Ceffyls never pulled wagons, it would be boring for them, and a bored Ceffyl was nasty and hard to control. In perhaps a turn of fortune, Chevals left behind after the occupation, were being bred with some of the genetically weaker Ceffyls creating a sturdy hybrid capable of doing more menial labor. It smartened up the Cheval and dumbed down the Ceffyl. But it made a horse less likely to bolt in fear and take your carriage racing off. Luckily for Anora, Highever was one of the places breeding full blooded and hybrid Ceffyls again,so they had been able to provide more for the journey back.
Zev, as well as the others developed a routine which did not require the wagons to slow. One simply guided their Ceffyl up to the wagon door and the horse would side canter allowing the one rider to jump off into the wagon and the new rider to take the reins. Zev looked up from under the hood of his oilskin raincoat to see Kai. Zev's Ceffyl was a dappled gray creature with a snow white mane and tail when dry, and who was now dark gray and cream as the rain slicked her coat. He guided Rhia, as his Ceffyl was named, into the side canter and slid back so Kai could jump on and take the reins. She was surprised when he didn't jump in the wagon but merely closed the door and slid his arms around her waist.
Kai guided Rhia back into formation next to Teagan, not that Rhia really needed guiding, being as smart as a Mabari, meant the Ceffyl pretty much guided herself.
"Nice day for a ride is it not, dear lady?" Teagan grinned at her rain slicking his honey brown hair down and darkening it to muddy brown. Fergus too grinned at her over the head of his Ceffyl. Like her and Teagan, Fergus didn't mind the rain.
"Ugh, you Fereldans are so strange. You act as if there is no water falling from the sky." Kai felt Zev speaking into her back.
"It rains too much here to let a little water become an issue, Zev. Why didn't you go into the wagon and dry off?" Kai tried not to smile at the elf's obvious misery.
"Maybe because I prefer to have my arms wrapped around a beautiful woman rather than sitting in a closed in space with a dwarf who smells like a cross between a tavern and a privy?"
Kai laughed and playfully slapped the hand that had crept up her front to skim the edges of her armor across her chest. He made his reach obvious so she knew he was joking. It didn't mean her skin didn't tingle where he touched her.
Damn she missed intimacy with another warm body, Alistair's body. Maker besides missing his smile and jokes, she had to miss their lovemaking too? Life was very cruel indeed. "And a cruel thing you would have done to me had it been the other way around. Everyone knows it is much worse for men than women." His voice gave a cheeky response.
"Hah, 'everyone' knows no such thing." She answered back.
She tilted her head to better hear Zev when she felt him talking into her back again. "Or maybe it was because I wanted to talk to you. There are some things we should discuss before we reach Denerim, especially if you are going to keep angering our soon to be queen, no?"
"Hmm, I just have a bad feeling about her being queen. And it has nothing to do with her not being of royal blood." Kai began.
"Just about her being a royal bitch?" Zev jested back his laugh ringing out amongst the raindrops. Kai, Teagan and Fergus let their own laughter join his.
Kai sobered almost immediately. "Yes, that would be it. I would almost rather saw my tongue in half then say it, but I wonder if she won't be worse than Loghain."
"No doubt dear lady, you echo what Eamon, Fergus, and I have all been worrying over as well." Teagan smiled at her.
"She may not be, she may turn out to be a good queen." Kai retorted, but she didn't believe it. "Great, we need to rebuild Ferelden, rebuild the wardens, and fight off rogue darkspawn bands that are going to keep popping up, and try and keep an eye on Anora, yes, nothing to it!" Kai let out a bark of cynical laughter. "Do we know who she is going to take as her adviser? I am guessing not Eamon, since he wanted Alistair on the throne."
"Anora plans to advise Anora. Word is that she is confident in her ability to rule all by herself." Teagan looked at Kai.
"Sounds like a dictatorship to me. Is there really no one else we could get the people behind who would be better? Are you sure Cailan had no royal indiscretions running around with his color hair or blue eyes, or the Theirin nose?" Kai asked hopefully "Preferably one that looks just like Cailan, or Maric?" Kai made her voice do the tone of a child saying 'pretty please,' for a sweet.
Teagan laughed at her obvious attempt at light heartedness for a very serious situation, "None that we know of. Of course we haven't had a lot of time to look either with the Blight and all. We might be able to start looking in a lot more earnest now. Since the letters you found when you returned to Ostagar implied Cailan was aware that Anora was the problem not he, despite his anger at Eamon suggesting it was. We can only hope that maybe there will be one somewhere. It isn't a lot to pin hope on." Teagan replied.
"Yes, but it seems that is the best have at the moment." Kai looked at Teagan and Fergus.
"I would still like to know what she meant by 'you still haven't figured out everything, Warden, meh meh meh'." Alistair's voice used frippery to draw attention to a serious question as he did when he was alive.
"I would like to know what she meant when she told me I haven't figured out everything yet. You don't suppose she meant that there are children with Theirin blood out there do you?" Kai looked at her riding companions.
"Oh good, take credit for my question" Alistair's voice spoke in her ear feigning being insulted.
"Hush you," she retorted back with a mental smile. It was getting surprisingly easier to talk to what, herself, she still wasn't sure.
"Maybe, we can only hope." Teagan smiled back at her, but she could see the worry in his eyes at Anora's cryptic statement.
It was then that she felt Zev tug on her arm and point. They had come to a rise in the road, and Denerim was straight ahead.