In the female guard's locker room - the men's was roped off after the unfortunate snake incident - Teneira buckled on the leather armor that was to be her uniform. She'd never worn armor before, and it felt strange against her skin. The set that Duncan had brought her fit very well, buckling tight under her arms and hardly constricting her breasts, which was something she'd heard women complain about. She felt a little better about going into a fight knowing that there was half an inch of leather between the enemy's blades and her. The armor had come with two daggers, each as long as her forearm, and a harness to sheathe them on her back. With her hair tied up and tucked under a leather cap, it was as though no trace of Ten the Alchemist remained. She looked dangerous. She was dangerous, she always had been – but her power had always relied on appearing harmless. Oddly enough, all armored in leather, she felt even more vulnerable.

Daveth walked in as she was pulling on her gloves, fingerless, intended to protect her hands while leave her fingers free. She flexed her hands, cracking her knuckles. She took her dagger out. She didn't know why Duncan had bought two – she was terribly clumsy with her left hand, and would probably do more harm than good. She brought it up to a fighting stance, holding it sideways like a knife, palm outward, hilt gripped in her first.

"You're going to be battling darkspawn, not knife-fighting with thugs," Daveth said. He took the blade from her, and gripped it properly. He swung it around a few times, "This is a good weapon. Should respect that."

"I've just realized," Ten admitted, "I don't know the first thing about this." Back in the arl's estate, she had been running on pure adrenaline. She hadn't actually had to fight properly, she had the advantage of surprise. Darkspawn would not be lulled into a false sense of security by her size or femaleness. The darkspawn cared not and would come at her with all of their fury.

"Aye," Daveth said, "But think of the alternative!" He pointed out the window where the gallows stood in the jailyard.

She fingered her neck, very happy that her vertebrae were intact, and nodded. She wasn't quite sure what to make of Daveth. He was human, to be sure, but he didn't talk to her like other human men. Neither, in fact, did Duncan. They seemed like an entirely different breed than what Teneira was used to dealing with.

"The old man says we're heading out," Daveth said, "I'm not a prodigy, but I know my way around a dagger. I can show you a few of the ropes on the road there. It's a long journey to Ostagar." He looked uneasy at this last pronouncement.

She nodded, and caught a final glimpse of herself in the mirror. For the second time in a week, she saw an alien creature, this one the opposite of the one she had been on her wedding day. Instead of the paints, she saw her own brown skin, her own brown eyes, all of her scars and blemishes. Without her hair hanging around her face, her high-bridged nose and pointed ears were more prominent than ever. She loved those things about herself, the features that had graced the faces of her ancestors, the ones that the humans liked to mock. She imagined herself a shield maiden of the great empire that her people had once commanded and thought herself far more beautiful like this than she had been as a bride.

When she left the jail, her father, Soris, and Shianni as well as elder Valendrian - useless as ever - were waiting for her. Nobody was there to bid farewell to Daveth, and he waited uncomfortably by Duncan's side while Ten went to say her goodbyes.

"I had always hoped you would do great things," Cyrion said, taking his daughter by her shoulders, "I am grateful that the gallows won't claim you. I hope you have as much of your mother in you as I have always seen."

"Someone's got to fight darkspawn," she said, shrugging, "Might as well be me."

"Return to me, someday," he said, "When you've dealt with this threat."

"You have my word, dad," she said. She looked at the old man through new eyes, at that moment. Before her stint behind bars, she had never been away from him for more than a day. Even after she moved in with Shianni when her aunt died, it was two doors down from him, and her stall was across the street from his shop. She'd been three years old when her mother had died. Cyrion had been a witness, a constant presence, to her rise to power in the alienage, and now… now he would watch her turn her back on Denerim, possibly for the last time.

"You've always been a woman of your word. I see I managed to teach you that much," Cyrion said, a slight smile crossing his features.

"Dad…" she said, "I'm sorry." She meant it, too.

"Don't be," he said, "I only wish I'd have been there to kill him myself. That bastard deserved it."

She laughed in shock at her father's uncharacteristic candidness and profanity, "One might almost mistake this as you being proud of me," she said.

"I have always been proud of you, my girl. I regret I did not make this more clear," he said

"Well shit," sighed Ten, wiping a tear from the corner of her eye, "I hope one day we will understand each other better."

She wasn't permitted to wallow any further, for Shianni approached her from behind thrown her arms about Ten's shoulders. When they were children, Shianni being four years her junior, Ten had often carried her younger cousin on her back like this. Now, Shianni had three or four inches on her.

"Ten," she said in her ear "I can't believe you're going to live!"

"Don't burn the place down while I'm gone," she said, turning, and putting her arms around her cousin, stroking Shianni's fiery hair, "You're going to be just fine," she whispered, "It's all going to be all right."

"We might not have to," Soris said, looking uneasily around, "I'm pretty sure there's a bunch of people eager to do it for us." Ten did the same, and saw that it was not only her family that had come to see her leave town. A dozen or so stony-faced citizens were staring at her with less than kindly expressions on their faces. She said nothing.

"It won't be the same without you," Shianni said, "I… I thank you for what you did."

"You would have done the same for me," Teneira said, "And someday you may have to. Take care of my shop for me, Shianni. I left a few sovereigns under my mattress…"

"Yes, I found them already," Shianni said, sheepishly, "I figured that the alienage was going to need another alchemist, and that Antivan bitch who taught you charges an arm and a leg! Now I'll just have to find myself another cattle adder…"

"Did something happen to the Reverend Mother?" Teneira asked.

"The guards came through and searched the house," Shianni said, "That Orlesian copper confiscated the snake, cage and all. I only hope he let her go somewhere safe." They all had some fondness for the small, dangerous creature that Ten kept as a pet, though none of them dared to handle her.

"Yes, like the locker room down at the barracks," Soris said, "I heard our old friend Eddin Rasphander found himself on the wrong end of some fangs there."

"I'm sure it was just an accident," Shianni chirped loudly.

"Lass…" Duncan's deep voice said. He put one gauntleted hand on her shoulder, "We must away. The road to Ostagar is long and time is of the essence."

"Well," Teneira said, "It's been fun."

"Return to me," Cyrion said again.

"I will," she said, "I promise."

She turned her back on her family and followed Duncan and Daveth into the bright morning. She had been outside Denerim's walls only a few times, once on an excursion to the Bannorn to dig up the herbs that now populated the small plot of land behind her house, another time to go hunting for cattle adders at a farmer's barn on the outskirts. The world outside the city seemed darker, bleaker than it had when she had seen it before. It was summer, but autumn was on the wind. She trusted that the Grey Wardens would provide her with what she needed.

A few hour's walk along the road, she saw first on the horizon, and then caught up with, a great host of men. They stretched out into the distance as far as she could see. They stayed about half a mile behind, but never out of sight of the marching soldiers.

"Who are they?" she asked, not recognizing their insignia.

"Those are soldiers in the service of Teyrn Loghain MacTir," Duncan said, "We could certainly travel more swiftly than an army, but there is safety in numbers in these dark days. Should any darkspawn or others who wish us ill come upon us, they will be fighting these men as well."

"The queen's father," Teneira said, a little awed, "The man who drove the Orlesians back over the Mountains. This is his army?"

"Aye, the same," Duncan said, "You've been well schooled. All of that happened well before you were born."

"My father is illiterate," Teneira said, "And yet I never wanted for books."

"Your father is a wise man," Duncan said, "You have inherited much from him, as well as from Adaia."

"How do you know my mother's name?" Teneira asked, looking up at the Grey Warden in alarm.

Duncan chuckled, "I once came asking a favor of the Arlessa of the Alienage, nearly thirty years ago. I wanted her to join our ranks, but she would have none of it."

"But you did not invoke the Right of Conscription?" Teneira observed, "As you did with me?"

"I did not," Duncan said, "Your mother was very brave, but very hotheaded. To have brought her against her will would have been…"He paused for a moment to consider his next words carefully, stroking his beard, "Inadvisable. Considering her temper."

"What do you mean?" Teneira asked.

"She would have fought us the whole way," Duncan said, "I saw the woman beat a man bloody for looking at her the wrong way, in front of half the alienage, in the middle of the street. From what I have observed and heard of you, I would not imagine you doing something similar. You are more… measured."

"No," Teneira said, a little disturbed by his description of Adaia. Wouldn't have beaten him in public. Maybe broken into his house and put a laxative in all of his food. To hear her father talk, Adaia had been a talented brawler who had gotten herself into trouble through little fault of her own. Duncan spoke of a woman with no self-control.

"And considering how she died…" Duncan sighed.

"How did she die?" Teneira asked, interrupting him. She had very little memory of her mother. She knew that she had died when Ten was nearly a baby, and that it had been premature – she was younger than Ten was now. Cyrion refused to speak of his late wife's death. But he had never remarried. Theirs had been a love match, Cyrion having come to Denerim as a child and thus there being no fear that they were, in fact, related. It was clear that Adaia had been a woman whom he had loved, but also feared. In fact, nobody talked about it. Her aunt Pali wouldn't give her a straight answer before she died, and Soris's parents claimed not to know.

"Oh dear, you don't know?" Duncan said, raising his eyebrows, "She challenged one of the king's knights, one Ser Edric, to a duel. He had been having an affair with her younger sister, you see, and she fought the duel in her honor."

"Shianni's mother? Pali?" Teneira asked in disbelief, "She died fighting for her?"

"The same," Duncan said, "She fought bravely, and wounded the knight sorely, but in the end, she was killed. She died an honorable death, Teneira, but an unnecessary one. Pali loved the knight, but could no longer look at him after he slew Adaia. Ser Edric may have walked away from that duel, but nobody won."

"Pretty useless for an elf woman to love a human man," Teneira commented, "It's not as though he would have married her, or given her a status higher than his concubine. She was just looking out for her sister's well-being."

"Perhaps you are right," Duncan said, "Then again, perhaps he would have treated her fairly. The world is not as black and white as all that."

"Hmph," Teneira snorted, "I'm sure you are a very wise man, ser, but I assure you, there are a few things that I know plenty about, and one of them is that it's very hard to see someone as an equal when everything around you insists that you are not. And, if you'll forgive my treading into a territory that I know very little about, it seems to me that love must be a relationship between equals."

Duncan graced her observation with a slight smile, and walked ahead, making it clear that the conversation was over. She found this attitude frequently among humans. They would say with their words that they didn't really believe that elves were savages or that the alienage was the only place for them, but the minute someone actually called them out, they would change the subject or end the conversation. Duncan was clearly not categorically against elves serving in the same capacity as their human counterparts, after all, had he not taken her from the foot of the gallows and equipped her with a set of blades that would make a guardsman envious? And yet… when asked to face up to the things that his own comrades had actually done to hers, he became uncomfortable and did not want to discuss it. Typical entitled humans, she thought, Sure, you can trumpet your belief in liberty and equality from the highest tower, but how would you want an elf as a commander? He probably thinks he knows me because he had an elvish nanny growing up and an elvish woman cleaned his sheets!

"My mum died when I was young too," Daveth offered. He had evidently been walking close behind and listening to the whole thing.

Teneira snorted, feeling quite ill-disposed towards humans in general at this point. She supposed she should be grateful for the kindness these two had shown her, but felt a bit put out all the same.

"Was she defending her sister's honor too?" she asked.

"Nah," Daveth said, "She was defending me. From my dad."

Teneira looked up at him, regretting her words, "Your dad killed your mum?"

He nodded, "People are shite sometimes, you know that as well as I."

"I'm sorry," she said.

Daveth shrugged, "He actually lived not too far from the ruins of Ostagar, where we're going. I grew up there – a small village in the Korcari wilds."

"Is he still there?"

"Village fell to darkspawn," Daveth said, "I doubt he survived. He had a lame leg and couldn't win a fight with a grown man if his life depended on it. That's why he reserved his fists for his children."

Teneira nodded, knowing the type of man he was talking about. The man who was weaker than his fellows and took it out on the only ones around weaker than him. She'd spent her life surrounded by them. Her father had never raised a hand to her, but it was a barely disguised secret that elvish women and children suffered only a little less violence at the hands of their own husbands and fathers than at employers. Of course, humans liked to point to it as evidence of the elves' inferiority. It wasn't as though human homes were free from it, though, as Daveth had pointed out.

"I didn't mean to say that elves have a monopoly on being treated like shit," she said.

"Well I should hope not, for we both know that that's not true," Daveth chuckled, "Happy people don't wind up here, Ten. I hear things about the rites you have to go through to become a Grey Warden, and it's not pretty."

"I was happy," Ten said. She sighed, "Before it all… To think, how things could have gone differently. Only a few days ago, things could have been much, much different."

"Aye," Daveth said. He glanced down at her hand, and the ring on the third finger.

"You've been looking at that since you showed up in the cell," Teneira said.

"Well," he said, "The stories they've been telling, about the revenge of the bride… I just… he died, didn't he?"

"They're probably true," Teneira said, "And yes, he did die."

"Why do you wear it, then?"

"I have a respect for many things, Daveth, and one of them is that for however short of time, I was a married woman. It would be a dishonor to my husband's memory for me to carry on like he had never come into my life – especially because he died trying to save it." She thought, guiltily, of the night she had spent with the guardsman. Or, rather, she tried to feel guilty about it. Feeling guilty was what a good woman would have done. Then again, a good woman would not have spent the night of her wedding and her husband's death in the arms of another man. The only negative feeling she could summon was sadness that she would probably never see Villais again. She felt a little sick, lying like that to someone she was supposed to respect, but couldn't see the value in telling the truth in this particular instance.

"I think I'm glad to have you along in a fight," Daveth said, "If you're so loyal to those you barely know, but are told you are supposed to be loyal to."

"I suppose I'll take that as a compliment," Teneira said, "Though I don't know how well-advised it is. I'm half the size of most of these soldiers, let alone whatever demonic creatures the Archdemon has sent up to slaughter us."

"Bullshit," Daveth said, "I'm not a big man. I'm five foot eight on a good day, barely taller than your average male elf. You saw me bring down a six foot four three hundred pounder in the jail cell, and that was with nothing but my pocket knife and wits. You've got wits, Ten, and so you're dangerous. Come, we'll be stopping for the night soon."

"And my legs will be too sore to do anything but curl up in a ball and cry for my daddy," she said, "So much walking!"

"C'mon, soldier!" Daveth said, clapping her on the back, "Onward!"

They did stop not too long after, when the sun was going down. They were at the top of a hill in the shadow of some Tevinter ruins, while Loghain's army marched further into the valley where there was more space. The horse was let out to graze, and tents were unpacked. Teneira went out in search of water, which she found in the form of a small river that wound its way through the rocks. She also found a large quantity of deathroot, a poisonous plant that she had to coax into growing in her small garden plot off the alleyway. She gathered a few of the buds where the poison was concentrated, and returned with them and a pot full of water. Duncan produced a few potatoes from somewhere in his pack, and Daveth went out in search of game.

"I certainly hope you're not putting those in our food," Duncan said.

"Of course not," Teneira said, "But you never know when you're going to need it."

"There's a mortar and pestle and some empty flasks in the brown leather satchel over there," Duncan said, gesturing to the pack saddle, which indeed had a brown leather satchel hanging from it.

"How thoughtful," Ten said, genuinely surprised. She went in and found what Duncan had said was there, a stone mortar and pestle, which she used to grind the buds, and a flask, one of which she filled with water and the crushed buds, and sat in the cinders of the campfire to boil. The buds immediately released their toxin, which was of a purple color, "Coat your blade with it, any wound will bite twice as deep. Put it in with an explosive agent, it will blind everyone standing within six feet of where you throw the flask." She wiped her hands thoroughly. While she was doing so, she felt the familiar cold touch of a blade at the back of her neck.

"I think Daveth is testing you," Duncan said, looking over her shoulder.

She could not move back. Forward was the fire. He prodded her a bit with his blade. She reached down slowly and grabbed handful of cool ash from the edge of the fire. She braced herself. One… two… on three she whirled, throwing the ash into the rogue's face. He stepped back, blinded, but had the good sense not to drop his blade. She kicked him in the shin, unfortunately protected by leather, and scrambled to draw her own blades.

The ashes cleared from his vision, he swiped at her once, twice. She ducked and evaded, and eventually did what Soris had always done in a fight, and went for his knees. Blades forgotten, she barreled into him below his center of gravity, and he toppled over onto the grass. She did not have the strength to make him stay down, but if she put all of her weight behind it, she might be able to.

No luck. He shoved her off him, and she went down on her back where she could not grab her blade. She tried vainly to use her feet to get him off her, but he had her quite securely pinned within five minutes.

"All right, all right, I yield," she said.

He chuckled and let her up.

"I bet you anything darkspawn don't fight like that," she said grumpily.

"You'd be surprised," Duncan said, "Still, not bad for a beginner. You have the instinct. We'll work on technique as we move along. Anyway, you ought to eat something. Tomorrow we have far to walk, and your legs are going to hurt."

Teneira sighed and joined her companions at the fire. Something had been niggling at the back of her mind all day. Finally, she gave voice to it. "Duncan," she said, "If you knew my mother, then you know how long it's been since she died, yes?"

"Twenty-one years," he replied, "I was new to the order myself. Why do you ask?"

"Twenty-one years," said Ten.

She cast back to her first memory again, this time searching it for facts, not simply letting it beat her over the head. Sitting in the front room at the house that had been her aunt's. The midwife bringing her a baby with fiery red hair and telling her that this was her baby cousin, her name was Shianni, and since neither of them had any sisters, it was up to Ten protect her. She had fought a knight to protect Shianni just as Adaia had fought to protect Pali. But I won, Mum. I won the fight. I was the one who walked away.

"If she died fighting for Pali's honor, that means that…" Her thoughts darted to her cousin, "She was pregnant when the duel happened. That's why Adaia went after him. He'd gotten her sister pregnant. And that means…. Shianni's father is human."

She shook her head, the stark revelations too much for her to take in all at once. Her aunt had never married in the twenty or so - well, shit, now she knew - it was twenty-one years since her daughter had been born. And there never was a father. It was something that nobody ever spoke about. She searched her memory of Shianni from that very morning. Were her ears always slightly less prominent than her own? Or did they just look that way in her memory now that she knew? And her hair, it wasn't the deep russet that Soris had inherited from his own mother, it was bright, fiery, a color that she most often saw in humans. Or was it? Did it… did it matter?

"I didn't realize you didn't know," Duncan said, "About… any of it."

"My father has made it his full time job, keeping me in the dark," said Ten, "Not preparing me for anything. So I had to learn it all myself."

"And you have," said Duncan, "I'm sure your father had his reasons."

"I will never understand the old man," Teneira sighed in frustration, "Perhaps it's best I'm off to die saving the world, he can give me a grand funeral and always have a reason to be proud of me. I can't shame him if I'm dead, can I."

"I think you're wrong on that count. I think one day you will learn to understand your father. And I also think he has never once been ashamed of you. Afraid for you, yes. Ashamed, no. I think his forbearance has done you well."

"I hope you're right," she said grimly.