AN: It's been a long and hectic couple of months, with family weddings and birthdays and constant work in between and, honestly, writer's block. Every time I've tried to type a coherent sentence, my brain refuses to cooperate. So apologies for the late update. Hopefully it was worth the wait!
Alistair carried me through the camp, to where Duncan was waiting for us. Morrigan had left us at the same clearing she had left me before, and Grayson had been chattering about her since she disappeared.
"She said she's lived in the Wilds all her life...can you believe that? Imagine! And her mother seems like such a strange woman...they're definitely apostates, but they must be very clever or very powerful to have avoided the Templars all this time, don't you think?"
"Grayson?" I responded, my energy waning once more as the effects of the potion Flemeth had given me started to wear off.
"Yes?"
"Do shut up. Nobody cares about Morrigan."
"I care." Daveth replied, with a shudder. "She gives me the willies. But that mother of hers is worse. The way she looked at me back there...it was like she could see inside of me, like she could hear my thoughts. I thought she was going to kill us all for sure."
"You're just being paranoid." Grayson scoffed, defensively. "They helped us. And they kept the scrolls safe. They didn't have to do that. Just because someone is a little different doesn't mean that they're evil, Daveth."
"That's right, Daveth." I drawled. "These are the nice kind of dangerous apostates who live in the Wilds and eat little children."
"Little children?" Daveth asked, wild-eyed. I shrugged.
"Dunno. Probably." I offered. "Grown men too, I'll bet." Daveth let out a squeak of fear, which he tried unsuccessfully to mask with a cough. I was having fun.
"Well, they're your friends, Lauren. You said they helped you before." Grayson frowned. I sighed. His affinity with the witches did not bode well.
"Well, "friends" is a strong word. Acquaintances, is more like the word I would use." I muttered, dismissively.
"I have to agree with Daveth on this one." Alistair muttered. "There was definitely something sinister about them both."
"That's the Templar in you." Grayson insisted. I raised an eyebrow at Alistair. We hadn't discussed his Templar background, and I figured surprise was the correct emotion for me to convey at Grayson's statement. My brain was cloudy, but somehow I was managing to keep up with the conversation. So far, anyway.
"You have a Templar in you?" I asked, feigning ignorance. Alistair made a non-committal grunt, clearly unwilling to get into it at that moment, as Duncan came into view. Kahn bounded up to us, and ran circles around Grayson's legs, clearly happy to see his master. I groaned in dismay and the men all looked at me with concern, obviously assuming it was a moan of pain.
"I forgot to get a Wilds flower." I wailed, mad at myself. "For the Mabari. I guess, with the fighting and then...well, with everything else that happened, it just slipped my mind."
Grayson cleared his throat and unhooked a suede pouch from his belt. He emptied the contents into his hand and, among the few silvers that he had brought from Highever, was a slightly crushed white flower with an orange centre. He held it out to me with a boyish grin. I beamed at him, gently taking the delicate flower from him and turning it over in my hand.
"You remembered! Oh, Grayson...thank you. I don't know what to say." I gushed, genuinely taken aback by this act of kindness.
"Nor I." Alistair muttered under his breath, and I nudged him with my elbow and shot him a warning look - be nice - and he rolled his eyes. Grayson shrugged, placing a hand on Kahn's head.
"I have a bit of a soft spot for the beasts. The thought of leaving one to suffer irks me just as much as it does you." He held out a hand for the flower and I returned it to him, gratefully. "I'll get this to his keeper, you just concentrate on getting better."
"Alistair." Duncan strode towards us and I shot Grayson a final look of gratitude before turning my attention towards him. "You're back."
"We have the scrolls, and the vials are full." Alistair nodded to Jory, who held the scrolls out to Duncan immediately, with the air of an obedient guard dog. He took them, unfurling them and scanning them silently. Satisfied, he rolled the parchment back up and and looked at Alistair, and then at me, still lying limp in his arms. I tried to smile, but it was more of a grimace as the pain shot through my chest again.
"Were you injured?" He asked, scanning my body with his dark eyes for signs of a wound.
"It's the taint. She's succumbing faster than we anticipated." Alistair responded for me, tightening his hold on me ever so slightly as he did, in what I figured was a subconscious action. I doubted he even realised what he was doing, but it was enough to strike the fear of God in me. You only hold on to things tighter if you think they're slipping away.
Duncan stepped closer to us and took one of my hands in his, a death-bed gesture if ever I saw one.
"Don't worry, Lauren. Nightfall is almost upon us. As soon as the last of the daylight is gone, we will begin the ritual. I will go now and prepare. The rest of you wait here with Alistair. I will come for you when we are ready to begin."
He turned on his heel and strode off, towards the ruins where I already knew the ritual would take place. I inhaled a deep, shaky breath, trying to calm my nerves. With everything that had been happening, I hadn't really given the Joining ritual the thought it deserved. Sure, it might save me, it might make this pain go away and give me shiny new Grey Warden abilities. On the other hand, it might kill me instantly. I knew for certain that it would kill Daveth and, after a fashion, Jory. I glanced over at them both and felt a stab of guilt pierce through the pain. I could save them. I could tell them to run, offer them the standard escape plan: go to Gwaren, take a ship to Kirkwall, have a pint at the Hanged Man and wait for all this to blow over. But they would never listen to me, not now, not with my face shiny with sweat and my body trembling with slow death.
And I had bigger problems to worry about. If convincing a gullible knight and a superstitious cut-purse felt beyond my capabilities, the burden of knowing what was going to happen in the imminent battle was almost unbearable. Even if I survived the Joining, and regained my strength, nobody was going to put that much faith in a brand new Warden, and a stranger. Certainly not the degree of faith that I needed. Not without some sort of evidence, and I had no idea how I would go about finding some, or even if there was any. In the battle scene, when Loghain turned to Cauthrien and told her to give the command to retreat, she was as surprised as anybody else. If his own Captain didn't know of his intentions beforehand, I doubted anybody else at Ostagar would. And if he was planning on committing such foul treachery, he was unlikely to go writing that shit down for me to conveniently find.
I could barely contain my frustration. What good was all of my knowledge if I couldn't figure out how to save anyone? How to change anything for the better? And now I had met Duncan, and he had been kind to me, had shown more faith in me than I could ever remember anybody doing before, and I had to just let him die? Or tell him the truth, have him think me insane and possibly dangerous, and then let him die anyway? Let them all just die? Daveth, Jory, Duncan, Cailan...countless others. They were all going to die, just as they would have done if I hadn't been here. They may as well just let the taint kill me, for all the good it would do anyone.
Then a thought struck me. A small spark of hope ignited inside me as a plan began to form in my head...a half-baked seed of a plan, but more than I'd had a moment before. I couldn't save everyone, that much was clear...but maybe I could save someone.
"Hey, Alistair, you can probably put me down now." I said, scanning the area for my rucksack. He lowered me gently to the ground and saw my searching eyes.
"Do you need something?"
"My pack, where is it?" I asked, urgently.
"Your best friend in the whole world, Grayson, has it." He drawled. I ignored his tone and turned to Grayson, but there was no sign of him.
"Right...and where...is Grayson?"
"Are you serious? He just told you he was going to find the kennel master. To give him the flower that he picked for you."
"He did?"
"He did. Just now. You replied."
"I did?"
"You said "Oh great, cheers". Wait, you weren't even listening?"
"No, I was..."
"Well that's just not very nice, is it? A man goes out of his way to pick you a flower and you can't even do him the basic honour of listening to him when he speaks." He crossed his arms, and his tone was one of mock-indignance, but he couldn't stop the amused grin from spreading across his face.
"I was miles away. Stop smiling. I need my pack. Or something...something to write with."
"Something to write with...hang on a mo..." He said, patting himself down and then holding his empty hands up in a hopeless shrug. "Nope, sorry. I must have left my quill and parchment in the top drawer of that old teak desk in the study."
"This is serious, Alistair." I said, quietly. His smile wavered, and he knelt beside me.
"What's so urgent?" He asked, and I witnessed for the first time the seamless transition between Alistair the clown and Alistair the Templar.
"My last will and testament." I snapped. He sighed and looked as though he was about to start trying to convince me that everything was going to be okay for the fiftieth time. "I'm joking." I cut him off, irritably, before he could begin. "I do need something to write with though. Anything."
"Well, you're in luck, here it comes." Alistair muttered, rising to his feet as Grayson jogged towards us, grinning, with Khan trotting along happily at his heels.
"Good news. The kennel master thinks he can save the Mabari with that flower. Larry the ankle-biter may live to see another day." He beamed down at me.
"Grayson! Thank you, and everything, that's really great, I really am grateful to you for doing all of that, thanks...I need my pack."
"Oh...right." Grayson dropped the pack by my feet and I grabbed it immediately, raking through it until I found my handbag at the very bottom. I yanked it out and rummaged around in it for my diary and my trusty Swarovski pen: a birthday gift from my horrible Aunt Irene.
"Here we are." I grabbed them and stuffed my bag back into the depths of the rucksack. If Emily were here to see the way I was mistreating my Mulberry, she would have a full-fledged anxiety attack. I flipped to the back of the diary and tore out a page, then looked up and realised I still had an audience. "Do you mind? This is private."
"What is that?" Alistair asked, squinting at my hands.
"It's a diary, Alistair. People write in them."
"Not that...that." He motioned to the pen in my hand.
"It's a pen." I frowned, before realising that pens didn't exist in this world. I grinned, mischievously. "A deadly weapon. It is said to be mightier than the sword." I whispered, dangerously. The men studied it, with similar expressions of alarm and distrust. "It's like a quill." I explained quickly, eager to be left alone to write.
"I don't understand...where's the ink well?" Alistair asked, suspiciously.
"It's a very special kind of quill. It doesn't need an ink well."
"May I...?" Grayson reached for it, inquisitively.
"Later." I promised, moving it out of his reach. "Right now, I need a few moments on my own. I have to write a letter to someone. It's important."
"If the lady insists." Alistair replied, feigning disinterest, but I didn't fail to notice the curious sideways glances he threw at me as he and Grayson moved away from me to join the others.
"Okay, Lauren..." I whispered to myself. "The pen is mightier than the sword...let's hope that's true. It won't be swords that save the King's life...not today."
I wrote quickly, then read, and reread my words several times, making sure that I hadn't omitted anything important, or made any terrible mistakes. After the tenth read-through, I sighed, folding the paper in half, and half again, and again, until it would fold no further. Then I signed one side of the folded square, for authenticity. If this was going to work, there could be no doubt of forgery or trickery.
"Alistair!" I beckoned him over and he excused himself from what looked like a stinted and awkward conversation with Ser Jory, and strode over to me. I turned the square of folded paper over and held it up to him, along with the pen. "I need you to sign this."
"Why?" He took the pen with barely concealed wariness, weighting it in his hand.
"Would you please just do it? Always with the questions." He frowned in confusion, but signed it anyway. He held the pen up to his face afterwards, turning it over in his hands.
"Remarkable...the ink is inside the device?"
He made to hand it back to me and I shook my head. "No, you keep the note. I will take the pen, though, that was expensive. No, yeah, give it here. I've signed the other side of it, just...check that for me...yeah? Great. Keep it safe, and don't let me or anyone else know where. I know this is a strange request but...just please, trust me. I need you to do this. And whatever you do, don't read it before I tell you to."
"Lauren...are you okay? Is the taint affecting your brain now? Do you...?"
"No, Alistair. I, Lauren Duval, do solemnly swear that I am of sound mind and...kind-of-sound body."
"If you say so." He sounded unconvinced.
"As sound as it ever was or ever will be. Just swear to me that you will not open that note until I tell you to."
"Okay, okay..." He muttered, half-heartedly, turning the folded paper over in his hands.
"Swear it, Alistair." I said, urgently.
"I swear to you, Lauren Duval, that I will not open this note until you tell me to." He replied, with apparent reluctance.
"Unless I die, during the Joining ritual, in which case, you can go ahead and open it then. But only once the ritual is complete." I insisted.
"You're not going to...yes, fine! I swear that I will not open this note until you tell me to, or in the event of your untimely death, until the Joining ritual is complete."
"Okay, good. Now...keep it secret. Keep it safe." I grinned, expecting him to grin back at me in recognition of the Tolkien reference, or reply with an "Okay, Gandalf", and then remembering that he had no idea what a hobbit was. "Thank you, Alistair."
"You're welcome...I think." He replied, gracing me with a half-smile. I returned it, hopeful for the first time that day that maybe I could achieve some good in this world. Even if I died tonight, I might have made a difference in this war. I had done everything I could, for now. I only hoped it would be enough. Now all I could do was wait. And the sight of Duncan striding across the campsite towards us in the last grey light of day told me that I wouldn't have to wait for long. For better or worse, my salvation or my doom, the Joining ritual was about to begin.
AN: The next update will be much sooner, I don't know if I'll be able to get it up by the end of the week, but I'm hoping next week at the latest. I'll do my best to make this a weekly thing from now on. There may be another familiar face popping up in the next couple of chapters for any fans of DA2, so there's something to look forward to! Thank you for reading, and thank you to everyone who's taken the time to review or favourite this story, it brightens my day every time I get an e-mail that's not about consolidating debt or the transfer of $10,000,000 from a Nigerian prince, so just know that every time you share your thoughts on my little story, you put a smile on my miserable face! Thank you!