The area they stopped in was a nice enough one. There was a stream nearby, and they had a good view of the road in either direction. There was a low chance of anyone managing a successful ambush on them, and they had two, if not three, people keeping watch at any one time in the night. The area had a few trees, but they had a decent amount of space between them and grew thinner the closer they got to the stony bank of the stream.

Varric was telling another one of his stories as they sat around a fire a small distance from the bank, a bit away from the rest of the party that had been sent out to locate Dedrick. Siara had been there when the story Varric was telling actually took place, though he was embellishing a few of the facts. It wasn't unusual for him to do that, but Siara didn't mind too much. She wasn't paying particularly much attention anyway. It was just a story about something stupid Anders had gotten up to one time, and how he, Hawke, Jacen, and Siara had stepped in to get him out of trouble.

"Blondie wasn't allowed to live it down for months after that," Varric finished with a chuckle.

"Good. I can't imagine I would have let him live it down, either," Dorian grinned. Solas and Ser Barris didn't comment, just glanced quick looks at Siara before going back to their own thoughts, Solas staring into the fire and leaning on his staff, Barris idly running a whet stone along the edge of his sword.

Varric looked at Siara when she didn't react to the story, mild worry written on his face.

"You got any memories you wanna share, Spooks?" he asked, almost too gently. Siara gave him a slightly cold look, then shook her head.

"Memories are all I have left of them now, Varric. I'll share them when I'm ready."

She realised he was just trying to help her, trying to get her out of her mood, but she wasn't ready to talk about her brother or Anders particularly much yet. It had been a week or two since everything happened in the Fade, everything still felt much too fresh for her. Maybe if there weren't so many other things going on at the same time she would be coping better, but maybes didn't make any difference to the truth.

"Speaking of memories," Dorian piped up, seeing the looks on Siara's and Varric's faces, "I've been wondering something. Why is it that our dear Inquisitor was able to regain her memories, but Siara didn't? You also have no memory of what happened to you when you were first in the Fade, correct?"

Siara didn't reply, just stared into the fire.

"We do not know how truly large Nightmare's realm is," Solas started. "It is entirely possible that Siara's memories were stored elsewhere. Or perhaps it chose to return the Inquisitor's memories for its own purposes, and returning Siara's would not help with that goal."

"No," Siara shook her head, "that's not it."

Everyone shared looks, Varric frowning slightly.

"How do you know?" he asked, still talking to her almost too gently.

Siara sat up, clicking her back slightly, staring at something off in the distance, not really concentrating on anything.

"Nightmare never took my memories."

Dorian and Solas seemed to catch on to what she was saying before anyone else did.

"You've already regained your memories," it didn't sound like Solas was saying it as a question.

Siara shook her head slightly.

"Not all of them," she said, "but a bit. They've been coming back for a while."

"If you don't mind me asking," Dorian leaned his head to the side slightly, "what do you remember?"

"Enough to know that I don't want to remember anything else," Siara muttered. "I remember my brother dying, only to see him seemingly alive and well mere seconds later. Then being told that no, he is in fact dead, and being told to escape through a rift that was nearby."

Quick glances around her friends told her everything she needed to know. No one was questioning her story, except for Solas. The small crease in his eyebrows told her that he knew she wasn't saying something. He was right, of course, but the other details she could remember weren't ones she was ready to share with everyone yet. She could tell Solas later. They might help him figure out her predicament with her magic.

"Well, it makes some sense," Dorian mused. "I imagine that your memory loss was some sort of trauma response."

"Probably."

Siara didn't sound too interested or enthused by the conversation, and she didn't feel it. She just wanted to be left alone for a bit, standing up.

"I'm just going to go for a short walk," she said. "Don't wait up for me."

She turned and started to walk away. She could vaguely hear one of the others, she thought it was probably Varric, muttering about 'not needing to tell people not to wait up if the walk was really going to be short'.


Siara returned later in the evening, finding her way to the edge of the camp near the stream. She knew she wasn't going to get much sleep. It was almost as though her brain was somehow too tired to sleep, and she couldn't stop thinking about… well, everything. She just sat there for a moment, staring at the running water. The sound of water over rocks was relaxing, and she had always enjoyed the way firelight danced across moving water. But tonight she didn't enjoy it the same as she usually did. It was nice, but it hardly made her feel any better.

A sigh escaped her as she leaned back against the tree, her head bumping against the bark slightly.

"Are you doing all right?"

Siara opened her eyes and rolled her head around to look at Ser Barris. For a moment she tried to force a smile, but she gave up, looking back across the water.

"Been worse, I suppose," she muttered.

Barris didn't say anything, just silently took a seat nearby, joining her in looking out over the water. Siara didn't know how to put it into words, but she appreciated him being there, appreciated him not asking her any questions or even expecting conversation. It was nice just to have his company, which caught her slightly by surprise.

Even if she was getting better about her fear of Templars, she still didn't feel all that at ease around them. It was part of the reason why she was struggling to be around Cullen. He had always kept a hint of the scent of lyrium about him, even when he was trying to come off it. But now that he was taking it again the smell had gotten stronger, and now she didn't want to be too close to him. The smell of lyrium on him and the things he had said combined had her struggling to even be in the same room with him.

And yet, there was Ser Barris, looking very relaxed as he sat not that far from her. He was close enough that Siara could smell the lyrium on him, and she didn't like it, but she didn't feel uneasy around him. Not like she did around Cullen. He wasn't pushing her to talk to him, and she never felt any judgement from him. She genuinely thought he wanted to help her.

"I never told him that he was forgiven," she said, not quite sure why she was telling Barris.

"What?" he asked, looking around at her.

Siara stopped watching the water and looked around at Barris, pursing her lips together slightly before she spoke again.

"Anders. I never told him that Jacen - my brother - forgave him. Or didn't hate him for what he did to the Kirkwall Chantry," she closed her eyes, holding her head in her hands in irritation with herself. "I think… I mean, I don't know for sure, how can I? But I think that after the events at the Winter Palace… I thought it was a dream, you know?"

She stood up, starting to pace. For his part, Barris didn't say anything. He just watched her, listening. He was almost annoyingly easy to talk to, and part of Siara felt guilty for just dumping this on him. She could be talking to Varric about this, part of her felt like she should be talking to Varric about it, but Ser Barris was just… there.

"I thought it wasn't real, I thought it was just my stupid, tired mind showing me what I wanted to see. But now I think that it was actually Jacen. I think that I heard Jacen. Is that possible? The things he said make me believe that it was him, before he became Duty. He wanted me to tell Anders that he forgave him, and I didn't. And now…" she paused and angrily rubbed at the dampness on her cheeks. "Now they're both gone."

For a moment neither of them moved, Siara just trying angrily to stop crying. She was sick of it. Crying didn't fix a thing, and she silently cursed Hawke for breaking the walls she'd put up for this very reason.

Barris slowly stood up and crossed over to her, gently placing a hand on Siara's shoulder. She felt herself flinch ever so slightly, Barris taking his hand away for a moment before replacing it when she didn't move away. She looked at him, knowing that she wasn't managing to hide any of the hurt she was feeling.

"I didn't know your friend or your brother," he said, "but I think both of them would forgive you. And I think your friend probably worked out that your brother would have forgiven him."

Siara wasn't sure where to start unpacking what he said, wanting to believe them but not feeling capable of it.

"Jacen cut him out completely, from what I know," she muttered, "so how would Anders have known? They loved each other, then Anders had to start a Maker-damned war and then I went and got…" she stopped again, feeling a sob catch in her throat. "I went and got my brother killed."

She wasn't sure that Barris had heard her for a moment, she'd spoken so quietly.

"From what I've heard about what happened, it's not your fault."

"For years I blamed myself for Mara's death when she didn't even die, then I decided that we should take the job that got Jacen killed because of that guilt. It was my plan that went wrong. Of course it's my fault."

"Did you deal the final blow?"

Siara looked up at Barris, frowning slightly.

"No."

"Did you do everything you could to save him?"

"I should have tried harder, I should have -"

"Stop," Barris cut in, Siara falling silent. "Was there really anything else that you could have done?" he asked again, his voice gentle but firm.

After a moment, Siara shook her head. She knew that she'd done everything that she could have at the time with the knowledge that she had, even if she wished there was something else she could have done.

"Then it's not your fault. He could have let you do the job on your own, he could have talked you out of the job. He didn't. He made his choices. And the person that killed him made their choice, too. What happened to your brother was awful, and I am very sorry for your loss, but you need to be kinder to yourself. None of it was your fault."

Siara appreciated the sentiment, but she wasn't entirely sure she believed it. She just shook her head slightly, but didn't verbalise her disagreement.

"I don't even know why I'm talking to you about this. Varric knew both Jacen and Anders, I know I should be talking to him. He's also grieving. It's just…"

Barris took half a step back, removing his hand from Siara's shoulder, and smiled at her kindly.

"Sometimes it's easier to talk to someone you don't have a history with."

Siara scoffed quietly.

"Yeah. No kidding," she sighed, running her hand through her hair. "Thanks for the talk."

"Of course."

Barris started to walk away, paused for a brief moment as though he was thinking of saying something, but then seemed to think better of it and carried on back to his tent. Siara took a moment longer, glancing back out over the water, then headed back into the camp. She wasn't sure that she wanted to, but she knew Varric was grieving too. Now that she'd had a bit of a chance to work her brain around a few things, maybe she was ready to at least grieve a little with someone else.