After spending the night at the Spoiled Princess, we left for Redcliffe.. We were less than a day into our journey when they found us. I should have been prepared. I knew it was coming. I knew to expect it, I just didn't know when.

As soon as I saw the woman in simple peasant clothing running down the dirt track towards us, I knew who she was. She threw herself at Grayson, who was riding up front, and clutched at his leg, with crocodile tears streaming down her face.

"Please, ser! Please! We need help! They attacked the wagon...oh, Maker!" She cried, turning to run back the way she had come, disappearing around a bend in the road, knowing we would follow. Grayson and Alistair dismounted immediately and drew their blades. Leliana, Sten and Wynne followed suit as the large grey wolf beside them drew itself up to stand on it's hind legs, shimmering, and Morrigan appeared in it's place.

"Grayson, wait!" I called, sliding down from my saddle and drawing my own blades.

"There's no time." He snapped, turning to follow the woman. I grabbed his arm and spun him around to face me.

"But didn't you get the rest of her message?" I asked.

He shook his head in frustration. "What are you talking about?"

"You know, the part where it's definitely a trap?" I looked at Leliana for assistance and she nodded.

"Trap." She agreed.

"How can you possibly-?" Grayson started, but thought better of it, "Alright. So it's a trap. We can't very well evade it now if they already know we're here."

"We should split into two groups. Hammer and anvil." Leliana said, in a business-like tone. The Chantry sister had gone to bed and the bard had come out to play.

"I agree. Leliana, take Sten and Wynne around to flank whatever ambush they have prepared for us." She nodded, and the three took off without another word, disappearing into the trees that lined the road. I turned to Morrigan. "They're likely to have archers with them. Try to stay out of sight and take out as many of them as you can before they can pin us down."

I was hearing the words for the first time as they came out of my mouth, the battle-aspect of my brain that didn't belong to me took over as my adrenaline surged.

"How do you know it's a trap?" Grayson demanded, his eyes searching my face.

"Because I know." I replied, firmly. "I'll explain later."

"The list of things you have to explain later is growing longer by the day, Lauren." He replied, quietly, so that only I could hear. I brushed him off and we made our way down the dirt track at a brisk walk. My heart was pounding in my ears and my knees felt weak and shaky, but I took a deep breath and kept my face set in what I hoped was an intimidating glare to mask the fear and uncertainty gripping my heart.

I recognised him immediately. He wasn't exactly like he was in the game. He looked a little taller than I would have guessed, and his white-blonde hair was almost waist-length, but there was no mistaking that face. The damsel in distress was, predictably, no longer distressed, and now faced us with a victorious smirk on her face. Zevran waved his hand, lazily, and I suddenly remembered what he was signalling for.

"Get down!" I cried, and we dodged and rolled just in time to avoid being crushed by the falling tree that now separated us from our horses. I turned back to Zevran just in time to see the rest of the Crows emerge from wherever they had been hiding. I instinctively took a step back and gripped my blades tighter. I didn't remember there being so many of them. A quick scan of the area showed at least twenty men, all armed with both bows and daggers, and all moving with the quiet grace one would expect from highly trained assassins.

Since arriving in Ferelden, I had been worried about abominations. I had been worried about darkspawn. I had been worried about the archdemon. I hadn't considered that the monsters I should be most worried about were the ones who didn't look like monsters.

"The Grey Wardens die here!" Zevran ordered, and the air was filled with the sounds of blades being drawn and arrows being nocked. From up ahead, I heard Sten bellow as he cut down two men with a single blow. A few of the Crows hesitated, thrown by the new players as Leliana stepped into the scene behind the Qunari, firing arrows faster than I would have thought possible, but their hesitation didn't last long. At either side of me, Alistair and Grayson were already fighting, and Morrigan was firing spells at the archers. The hounds moved as one, joining Sten in his path of destruction.

It was chaos.

The woman who had been sent as bait darted across the field towards me, and I deflected her blades and planted a kick high on her body, hoping to incapacitate her. She almost lost her balance but quickly recovered, attacking me again. She moved like a viper, striking and retreating repeatedly. I couldn't attack her. I had killed, yes. I had killed darkspawn. I had killed demons. I had killed abominations. But this was a person. A person who was trying very hard to kill me, but a person all the same. She was someone's daughter. Someone's sister.

She was someone's Emily. I couldn't do it.

My arms were growing weak from repeatedly absorbing the shock from deflecting her attacks, but I stood my ground until she moved again, faster than I could block and I flinched, closing my eyes as she slashed at my face. Before I could react, my battle-brain shoved me aside and reacted for me, just as it had when Flemeth had thrown that dagger at me all those weeks ago.

When I opened my eyes again, my knees almost gave out from under me. The woman stared at me, unseeing, her lifeless face inches from my own as I held her limp body off the ground, impaled on my blades. She was dead. I had killed her. Her blood coated my hands. My eyes widened and tears sprang forth of their own volition. I dropped my daggers and she fell to the ground with a heavy, sickening thump, never to get up again.

I stumbled backwards and tripped over something, but my brain barely registered that I had hit the ground. My eyes were still fixed on the body of the woman whose life I had ended. Slowly, instinctively, I turned to see what I had tripped over. It was an arm. I choked and scrambled away from the body until my back hit the trunk of the fallen tree. Someone called my name but I barely heard them. I vaguely registered that the battle was over, but it didn't seem to matter. I couldn't breathe. I couldn't think. My entire brain had locked down, and not even the battle-brain could break through.

I had killed someone.

I hugged my knees and tucked my head into my chest and I begged. I begged the universe, God, The Maker, anyone...please let me take it back. I take it back. Undo it. Let me load from the last save. I take it back. I take it back.

Someone called my name again. I didn't know who.

I felt a warm sensation wash over me but I barely registered it. Wynne, I guessed. They must have thought I was injured. A spell couldn't fix this.

I had seen dead bodies. In the Circle tower, I had seen enough dead bodies to last a lifetime. But I had never watched anyone die before.

That's not true. A tiny voice in my brain whispered.

And in that moment, surrounded by dead Crows with my eyes clenched shut to block out their faces, I suddenly saw Jordan Christie's face in my mind. A sob ripped through me as the ghost of little Jordan Christie returned to haunt me for the first time in almost ten years.

People still spoke about what happened to poor little Jordan Christie in hushed tones. One of the best and, at times, worst things about growing up in such a small, isolated community meant that every child in the village was your best friend. Given that there were only twelve of us, little things like age, gender and social status didn't factor into it. We all ran about together in a pack, building gang huts and exploring the surrounding areas.

We were forbidden by our parents to play in the nearby woods so, naturally, that's where we spent most of our time. Deep in the heart of the forest we knew as The Dunlap - whether that was it's true name or just a name given to it by the villagers, I never knew - was an old, burned out cottage. The roof and most of the walls were long gone, reduced to rubble by time, and the forest had reclaimed most of what was left. The only structure that remained standing was the old fireplace and chimney stack, and we used to play by it, pretending to cook meals and brew potions and anything else that our young imaginations could dream up.

That day, there were only five of us: Emily and I, our friend Claire, Niamh Christie and her nine year old brother, Jordan. Jordan was the eldest, and the leader of our rag-tag group. We were racing from the fireplace to the old oak tree which stood about a hundred yards away, and which we had adorned with a tire swing some weeks before in the height of summer, and back again. Being the eldest, Jordan was the one to beat, but nobody was coming close. He streaked by us every time, provoking tantrums and protests about fairness from some of us, but he just laughed, his freckled, dimpled face lighting up as he teased us in the innocent way that children do.

I don't remember when we started racing, or whose idea it was, but I will never forget how it ended. He raced by me for the last time, laughing, and he reached the chimney long before the rest of us but he had been too eager, had run too fast, and before he could slow himself down, he slammed into the unstable structure. It fell in slow motion, fell right on top of Jordan. I still remember the look on his face: the smile hadn't quite left his mouth, but his eyes were wide with shock and confusion, as though he didn't really understand why the sky was falling. And then he was gone, buried beneath the rubble.

Sometimes, when I'm lying in bed, and I'm drifting off to sleep, I can still hear the sound of Niamh's screams as she watched her big brother disappear forever.

Claire, being the second oldest at only eight years old, had ordered Niamh and Emily to run back to the village, to get our parents, while she and I stayed behind to try and help him. We were only kids, we didn't know then that he was beyond help. We dug furiously through the debris, adrenaline giving strength to our tiny limbs as we hauled bricks and mortar away from the site, all the while calling his name, all the while waiting for the reply that would never come. I thought we would never reach him. In all the years that have passed since then, I have never stopped regretting that we did. The first time I saw a dead body, I was six years old.

Little Jordan Christie had a closed casket, just like Emily, except his coffin was gleaming white and small...too small.

Niamh Christie never spoke a word to me or Claire or Emily again. Whether she blamed us, somehow, or whether she just couldn't face us, whether the pain of seeing us, of remembering, was too much for her to cope with, I could only guess. The very first time I heard from her after that day was when she had passed by me at Emily's funeral and whispered the most sincere, most heavily-loaded "I'm sorry" I would hear that day.

I've tried, over and over, to forget the sight of little Jordan Christie, crushed and mangled and bloody, covered in white dust. I've tried to forget that feeling, that horrifying moment when the world stopped spinning and my insides froze. And his eyes: lifeless and glassy, staring endlessly at something that none of us could see. And now, I was a killer. I had become the falling chimney stack, the car that spins out of control...I was everything I despised, and there was nothing I could do to take it back.

"Lauren!" Alistair's cry was somewhere between fear and anger as he grabbed my shoulders, shaking me. The sound of his voice snapped me out of my daze, sending me crashing back to reality. I fell forward into his arms and cried. If he thought it was strange, or he thought I was being weak, he didn't say anything. He still hadn't spoken a kind word to me since that moment in the tower, after Uldred was defeated, but he held me and he let me cry. He murmured soothingly into my hair. "It's okay. It's over."

"I'm sorry." I choked out, sitting back to look at him. His eyes were full of concern, and I saw a question on his face. He didn't understand what was wrong with me. I didn't know how to explain. "I don't kill people. I don't...I killed her. I didn't have a choice, she was going to kill me. I didn't mean to, I..."

"Shh." He pulled me back into his chest and I let him. "You did what you had to. We all did."

"I've never...I wouldn't...oh, God." I sobbed, uncontrollably. I vaguely registered a hand on my shoulder and I looked up to see Wynne with a sad smile on her face.

"Let's get you away from here. Hmm?" She said, soothingly. I nodded, wiping my face and taking a deep, shuddering breath. Somehow I managed to control my sobs, but the tears still flowed down my cheeks.

"I'm sorry." I said again. Alistair helped me to my feet and pulled me in for one last hug, stroking my hair. "I'm sorry."

I pulled away from him and he wrapped an arm around me to support me, but I brushed him off, gently.

"I'm okay." I said, in a voice still thick with tears. "I'll be fine. It was just a panic attack."

"Oh." The look on his face informed me that he had no idea what a panic attack was, but I figured I had given him a pretty good demonstration. I took a shaky breath and turned my gaze to the dead girl. My daggers still protruded from her chest. Alistair saw where I was looking and walked towards her, kneeling to retrieve them for me.

"No. Leave them. Please." I said, swallowing back more tears. He looked round at me, questioningly. "I don't want to touch them."

He nodded, rising to his feet.

"I'll have a look around. See what I can find to replace them." He said. I knew he still didn't understand but to his credit, he was doing his best to pretend that he did. In that moment, I loved him for that.

I looked around properly for the first time. I let my eyes skim over the dead Crows, forcing myself to keep it together, and saw Grayson and the others huddled around a pale and bloodied but breathing Zevran. There were a lot of twitchy sword hands as the assassin voiced his proposition to Grayson. I marched towards them, pretending not to notice the sideways glances from Sten and Morrigan and the sympathetic smile from Leliana, and took my place beside Grayson.

"I failed to kill you so my life is forfeit. If you don't kill me, the Crows will. The thing is, I like living. And you obviously are the sort to give the Crows pause. So let me serve you, instead."

This was met by several snorts of laughter from all of our companions, and Grayson smirked in disbelief at his audacity.

"Yes, alright." I said.

Grayson looked at me as though waiting for a punchline. When he realised I wasn't joking, he frowned."He's an assassin. He just tried to kill us."

"Yes, and he failed. You heard what he said. His life is forfeit. He has no reason to betray us. Even if he did try to finish the job later, the Crows would more than likely have him killed anyway. Isn't that right?" I asked Zevran. He raised his eyebrows at me.

"Why, yes, that is true. The Crows don't look favourably on those who have failed them." He replied, flashing Grayson a winning smile.

Grayson looked from me to Zevran and back again, with a dubious expression on his face.

"Grayson." I said, quietly. I placed a hand on his arm. "No more killing. Not unless it's absolutely necessary."

He met my eyes and his expression softened. He let out a reluctant sigh and nodded. "Fine. You come with us." He turned to Zevran. "But one false move..."

"I know, and you'll strike my head from my shoulders. I am well aware of how it works." He said, cheerfully.

"Wynne, will you heal his injuries so we can get going, please? I can't stay here." I said, softly.

Alistair rejoined us and slipped a couple of salvaged daggers into my holster, wordlessly. He looked up to see Wynne standing over Zevran and cocked an eyebrow at Grayson.

"We have a new recruit." Grayson said, grimly.

"What? We're taking the assassin with us now?" Alistair's face was somewhere between disbelief and amusement. "Does that really seem like a good idea?"

"As opposed to the apostate daughter of the Witch of the Wilds, the Chantry Sister, the Qunari convicted of murder and...well, actually, Wynne was a pretty good call, but on paper the rest of our group don't exactly scream "good idea", do they? No offense." I added, quickly. Leliana and Morrigan looked at each other and shrugged.

"No. That's fair." Leliana replied.

"The point is that people can surprise you, if you give them a chance." I said, gently.

"Alright. I get it. Still, if there was a sign we were desperate, I think it just knocked on the door and said hello."

"A fine plan." Morrigan said, with faux sweetness. "Though I would examine your food and drink more closely from now on, were I you."

"That's excellent advice for anyone." Zevran mused, as Wynne helped him to his feet. She had healed the worst of his injuries, and his cheeks were starting to regain some of their former colour. He pledged his loyalty to Grayson and Grayson accepted with a firm handshake and another threat for good measure. We made introductions and Sten, Grayson, Zevran and Alistair worked together to move the fallen tree out of the path so that we could bring the horses through.

I stood a little away from the others, running a hand through the fur on Larry's head, when I felt a hand on my shoulder. I turned to see the last person I would have expected.

"Have you recovered?" Morrigan asked, in a surprisingly soft voice. I nodded, uncertainly. "I assume that where you come from, killing is not as commonplace as it is here?"

"That's...surprisingly astute, Morrigan." I replied. "You're right. I've never...this was my first."

"I see." She said, lowering her eyes. "I just wanted to say…'tis not a weakness to regret taking a life."

I started to thank her, but she silenced me with a fierce look.

"But you must learn that it is sometimes necessary. You cannot freeze up again like you did today or you will be killed and there will be one less Grey Warden in Ferelden to end the blight." Her voice had taken on a hard edge and I was reminded forcibly of Mrs. Walker, my old Maths teacher. She was a complete hard-ass, but she only really got on your case if she cared about you.

"You're right." I said, with a half-smile. "I'm sorry that I worried you."

"I was not worried." She sniffed. "I merely thought to say something because none of the others know your true origin. And Alistair at least is too dim-witted to say anything of any consequence. Grayson is a little better but he is still a man."

"I know. Thanks, Morrigan." I grinned. "I appreciate your candour."

"I am glad to be of assistance." She turned to leave.

"Morrigan..." I chewed my lip, unsure if I wanted an answer to my question.

"Yes?" She half-turned towards me.

"Does it get easier? The regret...does it get any easier?" I asked, hopefully.

"No." She replied, quietly. "But you do get better at it."

AN: Thank you again to my beta, Kira Tamarion, for all of your feedback and general awesomeness.

Thank you to Chimera Spyke, Madame Viper and Guest for your reviews, I really do appreciate you guys taking the time out to comment and I'm glad you're enjoying the story so far (and I apologise for the feels)

Thanks for reading, please review :)