Morrigan, it soon becomes clear, knows the Wilds far better than the others could ever hope to. She moves quickly, with a lithe and easy step, and at times almost disappears from Talvinder's view. There is no time to stop and eat, nor do any of them want to ask Morrigan for a break, even though the day grows old. Instead, at turns they pull provisions from their packs, practically inhaling them with hurry. As they move, their group falls into a consistent order, with Morrigan at the front, of course. Savreen is the first behind her, her training in gatka giving her more nimble feet than Talvinder, who is near the middle of their line. Daveth keeps a relatively close step behind Sav, Tali behind him, Alistair behind her, and Jory, often swearing and wheeling his arms as he tries not to fall into swampy pools, brings up the rear. At times, Tali thinks they are near their destination, but then it comes to naught. There is little to fill the time but anxious thoughts about Fergus and Sikander, somewhere in the Wilds, beyond her reach, beyond her aid, beyond her ability to find them. And so, with little else on her mind, she moves forward.
Just as she is beginning to think that perhaps Morrigan is leading them on a merry chase through the Wilds, and perhaps there is no hut, no scrolls, no mother, perhaps there are only Darkspawn and a bad end—they cross one last fallen log and there, in front of them, in the divot between two hillocks, is a small house. The size of the structure seems to indicate two rooms inside, sheltered by the wattle and daub walls and the thatched roof. Around the house is a well-kept patch of yard and a small garden—almost a paradise in its peacefulness.
"Well I'll be—" Alistair's voice is surprised, and Tali knows she isn't the only one who had begun to doubt that Morrigan was leading them anywhere. But the house stands there, very real, and as they approach it, the door swings open. An older woman walks out, wiping rough ground flour from her hands with a ragged kitchen cloth tucked into the belt of a patched apron.
"Greetings, Mother," Morrigan starts, "I bring before you five Grey Wardens who—"
"I see them well enough, girl. My eyes are not that far gone, nor my fingers for counting upon." The woman looks, Tali notes, very much like Morrigan, though far older, hair gray instead of black, cheeks hollow rather than plump, lips thin where her daughter's are full. Yet her skin is the same warm brown (though wrinkled and spotted by the sun), her ears also pointed (though perhaps a touch more), and she has those same brown eyes that flash with amber flame in the light. As Tali is examining her, Morrigan's mother lets those eyes rake across their small group, appraising. "Hmm. Much as I expected, in the end." At her words, Alistair scoffs slightly.
"Are we supposed to believe you were expecting us?" Morrigan's mother smiles at this, wide and toothy, but with a regal character Tali can't quite pin down. As she does so, she lifts her arms, gesturing noncommittally.
"You are 'required' to do nothing, certainly least of all to believe. Shut one's eyes tight or open one's arms wide…but either way, one's a fool!" At this, Talvinder looks to Savreen, a touch confused, and catches Alistair's equally nonplussed expression. But the complexity of the witch's words, and the implication of some other, deeper meaning, seems to confirm Daveth's fears, as he shakes his head vigorously and takes a step back—almost bowling Morrigan over—before speaking frantically.
"She's a witch! We shouldn't be talking to her!" His mouth pressed into a thin line, Jory grabs Daveth by the arm and hisses out a rebuke.
"Quiet, Daveth, unless you want to be turned to a toad! If she's really a witch, do you wish to make her mad?" Jory is quiet, but not quiet enough to escape the notice of Morrigan's mother, nor indeed anyone else present. The witch, as Daveth has dubbed her, laughs a bit, steps forward, and walks to stand in front of Jory, who now seems even more unhappy. But her next words are not harsh—instead, they are spoken as though to a child.
"There is a smart lad." When she pats him on the cheek with her open palm, Jory flinches, but does nothing else. He makes a very obvious effort to remain frozen, eyes wide and chest heaving in quick panicked breaths. "Sadly irrelevant to the larger scheme of things," she continues, grabbing him by the jaw and turning his face this way and that, examining him with slightly disappointed cluck of the tongue, "but it is not I who decides. A shame, really." The whole thing reminds Tali of how she's seen farmers examine livestock, cattle meant for slaughter. Dropping Jory's face, Morrigan's mother turns back to look at the others, while Jory rubs at his jaw. "Believe what you will, each of you." Next to Tali, Sav crosses her arms, her expression thoughtful, brows slightly furrowed. This catches the witch's attention, and now she moves to stand in front of Sav, looking her up and down, then Tali, before she addresses them both.
"And what of you? Do your women's minds give you a different viewpoint? Or do you believe as these boys do? Do you believe the old wives' tales that have passed between your ears, or do you believe what your eyes may tell you?" It is Sav who responds, arms still crossed, voice carefully measured, diplomatic, far more calculated than anything Tali would have thought to say.
"I believe," she begins, "that it would be foolish to offend you, my lady, whatever the case may be—no matter how uncertain I am of what else to believe." Morrigan's mother brings a hand to her chin and strokes it thoughtfully, a gleam in her eyes. She does not reach out or grab Savreen's face as she did Jory's, instead choosing to scrutinize Tali's cousin with her eyes alone. Sav continues, gesturing to herself and then to Tali next to her. "My name is Savreen, and this is my cousin, Talvinder. Might we ask what name to call you by?" The witch gazes at her a moment longer, but does not answer the question, instead lowering her hand to cross her arms and reflect on Sav's earlier words.
"To admit to caution, even confusion, in the face of an unknowable mystery, the demand to choose a belief. A statement that possesses more wisdom than it implies. Be always aware…or is it oblivious? I can never remember." Her last words are muttered, asked of the sky, answered by none of them, and she continues to speak vaguely to herself. "So much about you is uncertain…belief most of all, and yet I believe. Do I?" She pauses, and a slow smile crosses her face. "Why, it seems I do!" Behind her, Tali hears Alistair shift, the clanking of armor sounding out his movements. When he speaks, it is with a voice that is unsure, cautious, wary, and more than a little doubtful.
"So…this is a dreaded Witch of the Wilds?" His question snaps Morrigan's mother from her reverie but does not shift her smile. Instead, it makes her laugh, deep from her belly, and she holds a hand to her stomach as she does so, reaching out to Savreen's shoulder with the other and grabbing it as though for balance. Sav's face betrays nothing, but the sudden movement causes Tali to flinch, though there is little reason.
"A Witch of the Wilds, then, eh? Did Morrigan tell you that?" Alistair doesn't answer, but then again, the witch gives him little time to as she lets go of Sav's shoulder and gestures back to her daughter, who, Tali notes, looks none too pleased. Although, on second thought, that might simply be her face. "She must have, for she fancies such tales, though it would put her at great pains to admit it." At this, the witch begins to laugh again, and can barely force out her next words. "Oh—oh how she dances under the moon!" The laughter overtakes her once more, and a faint feeling of unease begins to settle in Tali's stomach. If this witch keeps speaking, Tali fears somehow that she will tell them some sort of truth that none of them will wish to hear. It makes little sense, just as much of the witch's words have made, and yet she fears it nevertheless, the feeling of it bubbling up in her gut. But Morrigan, it seems, has had enough of her mother's words. She steps forward, closer to the laughing woman, and mutters in her ear, though all the others can hear her words as well.
"'Tis enough, mother. They did not come to listen to your wild tales, nor to have their fortunes read as by some common seer." That quells the bulk of her mother's laughter, though she still chuckles lightly.
"You speak true, my daughter. They came for their treaties, did they not?" Alistair moves again, and the witch is suddenly serious, laughter gone, sharp as cut glass. She stares Alistair down and holds out a hand, as though to stop his approach. "Before you begin barking, little Warden war-pup, your precious seal wore off long ago. I have protected these since." She flips her wrist, places her hand behind her back, and pulls the scrolls out, seemingly from the air, which Talvinder does not entirely doubt. They are smaller than Tali had thought they would be, and not so aged, either, the vellum still supple and mostly unblemished. The witch steps forward, towards Alistair, and the others part to let her through as she hands him the treaties.
"You—you protected them? What for?" A faint tinge of suspicion enters his voice as Alistair looks down at the scrolls in his hand, then back up at the woman who has just handed them to him. She shrugs, that enigmatic smile back upon her lips as Alistair moves to place the scrolls gingerly in his pack.
"Why not?" She waves her hand now, as though dismissing them, and speaks again, moving away from Alistair. Tali can see no pockets hanging from the back of her belt or apron, nowhere whence the scrolls could have come but the air itself. Another ripple of unease runs through her as Morrigan's mother continues speaking. "Take them back to your Grey Wardens and tell them this Blight's threat is greater than they realize." Her words make Tali frown, their meaning startling her. Unthinking, she steps forward, desperate for an answer, desperate to know what the witch's words mean for her brother and cousin, out in the Wilds somewhere, though that feeling is in her stomach that the answer will not be a good one.
"What do you mean, the threat is greater than they realize? Please—" The witch stops in front of Talvinder, eyes narrowed, and her hand flashes out, grabs Tali's face, pulls it down to her eye level, nearly throwing Tali off-balance. Morrigan's mother is quiet for a tense minute while she examines Tali, whose heart hammers in her chest. The air around them all has changed, gone cold, carrying tension. Out of the corner of her eye, Tali can see Alistair with his hand hovering over his sword hilt, Sav standing tense and ready, hands ready to grab Tali if need be. The witch's appraisal is longer with Tali than it was with Jory, and her eyes are hard and sharp the whole time, seeking. Eventually, she lets out a small sigh, and speaks again.
"A shame, for one so young to be called to so much. But it cannot be helped, nor can all you must lose. To gamble one future for another may leave you empty handed, in the end, with only the past to speak of." Cold dread shoots through Talvinder's stomach as Morrigan's mother speaks, and the words, so vague, so unclear, so full of dreadful possibilities, feel as though they've pierced her like a lance. "Death knocks at the door for you all, follows your every step. Do not be so foolish as to forget him." With those ominous words, she lets go of Tali, who takes a few steps back, unsteady, fear for Fergus and Sikander rising like bile in her throat. But she dare not ask for Morrigan's mother to explain what she means by 'loss'. She feels Sav's hands on her arm, the small of her back, and if the fear would leave her heart, Tali knows she would feel ashamed for being so plainly unsettled in front of everyone. But the witch is not done speaking, as she finally turns to Tali's question, the tense moments between now and the asking seemingly brushed aside. "Since you ask for clarity, either the threat is more, or the Wardens realize less. Or perhaps, as all chances go, the threat is nothing! Or perhaps they realize nothing!" Morrigan's mother laughs again, deep, full of mirth, the tension of the moment before forgotten, and turns back toward the door of the hut. As she goes, Savreen calls out to her, a little unsure.
"Thank you, for returning the scrolls. For keeping them." The witch stops at the door, turns back with her hand on the wood, ready to push it open. Her smile is still wide, the edges of laughter in her tone as she responds.
"Such manners, girl! Always in the least looked for place—like stockings." Another laugh. "But mind me not. You have what you came for. I bid you farewell." Morrigan speaks now, her voice full of irritation, as though this whole thing has gone on too long for her liking.
"Indeed. 'Tis time for you to go, then. Be off with you." Her mother tsks from the doorway, speaking once more with the familiar reproach of a mother lecturing a daughter.
"Do not be ridiculous, girl. These are your guests, for you brought them here. Show them some hospitality." Morrigan lets out a huff of breath, and Tali could swear she rolls her eyes, but she acquiesces with a faint groan in her voice.
"Oh—very well. I shall show you all out of the woods, back to the Tevinter road. But you will find the rest of your way from there." Alistair nods, and the others follow suit, and reluctantly, begrudgingly, Morrigan turns away from the hut, back into the Wilds, and calls back out over her shoulder.
"Follow me, then." Her mother stands by the door, watching, but does not go inside until she has vanished from Tali's view behind them all.
As they walk and the shadows lengthen, Talvinder tries to shake off the odd feeling that clings to her. It latched on the moment Morrigan's mother grabbed her face and stared at her, as though into her very being, and it hangs heavy on her shoulders still with arms like hooks. The sensation of it makes her shiver, even under the early autumn sun, which is still warm as it shines down, warm enough to make her sweat beneath her armor. The witch's words bounce around her skull, all loss and death. For a moment, just a moment,Tali wishes she could run into the Wilds, run behind the distant tree line, abandon the Wardens and seek the only family left to her. But Fergus and Sikander are not the only family she has left, she reminds herself. There is Sav, sweet Savreen, and though jealousy still curdles in her gut when she looks at her older cousin, Tali knows she cannot abandon her to run after a ghost of a chance to find her brother. The thought dies in her head nearly the instant it is born.
Casting her mind elsewhere, or at least trying to, Tali finds herself staring at Morrigan. Still light of foot, she leads them again through the swamp, then back into the marsh, back towards the road that was their entry into the Wilds. All the way, Talvinder wonders: has Morrigan's mother given her a glimpse into her own fate? Or is she just mad? If she's not mad, Tali reasons, she must be incredibly powerful, just like Flemeth in the old stories. If she's not mad, then she must also be right. That final realization is one she's been trying to push aside, but she just can't, coming back to it, worrying at it like a scab, driving herself to distraction even when concentration is needed the most. Lost in thoughts of witches and promises and prophecies, Talvinder nearly falls from the log they're all crossing into a deep pool of sucking mud. She's stopped only by Alistair's quick reaction, and when she meets his eyes, she thinks she sees the same thoughts reflected back at her. She tries harder not to think about Morrigan's mother, her brother, the Blight. She tries harder.
None of them speak to each other. Morrigan, who still seems more than mildly irritated by the whole turn of events, certainly put-upon by her mother's injunction that she lead her visitors at least partially back to their camp, is silent as the grave. It does not inspire conversation. The sun begins to set, and though the days are beginning to shorten, Tali knows it is still growing late. Soon the Wilds are dark about them, and tension blankets the whole group. Tali glances behind herself occasionally at Alistair, watching for any sign that he might sense Darkspawn and seeing none. His ears twitch this way and that as he turns his head, eyes raking across the gradually darkening landscape, alert but without alarm. Ahead of them, Morrigan has sped up. A flickering ball of fire hangs in the air above her open palm, conjured to light their way, and Morrigan's shoulders form a taut line in the darkness. She, too, is clearly not eager to remain out and about in the Wilds in the dark for too long.
The sounds of the night insects and animals, chirping songs, bellowing croaks, the occasional far away howl of a wolf or bark of a fox, are their companion as, slowly, they make their way back towards the King's encampment. The sun has gone completely and the moons have risen when, finally, a hill rises in front of them, one Tali recognizes. At its crest runs the uneven, shattered Tevinter cobblestone road. They are nearly in the clear. Morrigan ushers them up to the road, where, as Jory sweats and pants, hands on his knees, she laughs a little, the sound of it acrid and facetious.
"At last I, am rid of you all. I would say 'twere a pleasure, but 'twould be a lie, and while I indeed am in the practice of lying, it seems a monumental effort to make you all feel better about your company. Get you all gone, back to your king's tent, and do so before your unfortunate bodies are ripped to shreds by Darkspawn." Alistair scoffs at her words, and, were it not so dark, Talvinder would swear that she sees him miming Morrigan, using his hand as a puppet, eyes rolling in the faint cast-off of her magical light. Then the light passes and she's unsure of anything in the dark.
"Morrigan—" Savreen's voice is startling in the dark and both Tali and Morrigan snap their heads to her with record speed.
"'Tis my name; speak quickly, that I may go home to my precious mother." Sarcasm oozes from her voice, or at least an attempt at it. Sav steps forward and clasps Morrigan's free hand—much to the mage's shock.
"Thank you. You did not have to do as you did, leading us to your mother, restoring the treaties to our possession, leading us safely out of the Wilds. And yet you did. For that, we owe you." Morrigan pauses for a moment, eyes wide, glancing down at Sav's hand on hers, and then she seems to muster up a sneer, wriggles her fingers free from Sav's grip.
"Indeed. And you would be well to remember what is owed. Farewell." Quickly, she turns on her heel, back down the hill, into the marsh, and then her light goes out and she is gone.
"Where do you suppose she went?" Alistair asks, squinting into the sudden inky blackness as he pulls his pack from his shoulders, gently and gingerly, careful of the vials of blood and the precious scrolls of the treaties. In response, Talvinder shrugs. She can see nothing down in the marsh save for the occasional firefly, far past the height of the season. Even the moon and stars seem to struggle to light the scene.
"I suppose she returned home," Savreen says, logically. Talvinder can't help but wheedle.
"Maybe she turned into a bat." Alistair snorts out a characteristic laugh, and then there's the sound of tinder being struck, the sudden whoosh of flames as he lights a torch, pulled from somewhere in his pack. The warm glow of the fire illuminates his face, and he holds the lit torch out for Sav to take as he shoulders his pack again.
"I think she already was one," Alistair says dryly. "But no matter. We're less than an hour out from the encampment. We should hurry, try to make it back before too late. Hopefully it won't yet be midnight by the time we've returned. We've made…well, truthfully, we've made better time than I expected." With that, he takes the torch back from Sav, and they all head out for the final stretch of their walk, along the dark, Tevinter road. Despite the relative safety in their numbers, Tali feels as though there are countless watching eyes on them in the dark. When they finally reach the gates to Ostagar, both she and Sav enter them reluctantly, with one last, seeking gaze out into the dark, a prayer on their lips, and a silent wish for the safety of their brothers. Tali knows, as the gate closes behind them, that there was little else they could have done. Searching for Fergus and Sikander would have been an indulgence. It would have been impossible. But as the gates slam shut, wood against stone, the heavy crossbeam lowered and locked into place, all that sits in her stomach is guilt, and fear, and the memory of the witch's words.