There is blood in her mouth and flesh in her teeth, and Talvinder can taste the bitter tang of rot and dirt. A song courses through her even as she eats, gorges herself, frenzied and mad. She is starving, hungrier than she has ever been, and yet the meat she rips in chunks from the corpse in front of her does nothing to quell the root of that hunger. Hair and nails and small bones tangle in her jaw as she eats, hungry and hungry for more and more and more, something unknown that she can only blindly stumble toward.

The song intensifies, and for a brief moment, the hunger is quelled. In the clarity that the song brings, she realizes that perhaps it isn't hunger after all, but something else, some sort of longing mistranslated into sensation. Following the song, she looks up to the dark sky, above the clouds of flies and sounds of others feasting around her. Up above, the tattered wings of the great Archdemon snap heavily. It roars, the sound of the song made real as it does, a beautiful sound of rusted metal and heartbeats and screams and the very fabric of the Fade and the world. The song washes over her like a balm, like water steeped in healing herbs, and she smiles, feeling the skin of her cheeks rip as she does so.

And then the Archdemon is gone, flying further down the valley. The song recedes, and with it, the feeling of contentment. Frustrated, hungry once more, Tali turns back to her meal, to the corpse clad in blue quilting, rent armor emblazoned with griffons, black hair and a single hooped earring in his ear.

She wakes already retching, feeling as though there is still hair in her throat, cords of flesh on her tongue. Her whole mouth tastes of metal still, and she is crying and shaking. Fumbling for the flap of her tent, Talvinder has the urge to claw out her tongue, to scrape at the insides of her mouth until she can no longer remember the sight of Duncan's body.

"Nightmares, huh?" Abarie's nose is warm and wet as she nuzzles against Talvinder's cheek. There is a breeze on the night air, carrying the smell of campfire into Tali's nostrils. It wakes her more fully, does the trick in distracting her from the memory of her dream in her mouth. When she looks up, still on her hands and knees, heart still pounding, braid sliding and falling from her shoulder to tickle the backs of her fingers in the grass, she realizes that Alistair is still there, waiting for an answer.

Relieved, Tali closes her eyes, blinks, and swallows before pushing herself back into a kneeling position. Abarie whines, sensing her panic and discomfort, and absently, Tali pets her large forehead, scratches the small flaps of her ears.

"Are they normal after the Joining?" she finally manages to ask, her breath back in her lungs, allowing her to speak once more. Alistair nods grimly where he sits by their watchfire, poking at the embers within with a long stick.

"Had mine for months. Of course, we weren't in a full Blight yet then. Yours are likely to be worse."

"That makes me feel much better," Tali tries to inject humor into the words, but ends up mangling them with a frown. The sarcasm dissipates, lost in the way her fingers still tremble slightly as she stands and walks toward Alistair, sitting across from him. He, too, frowns, though there's pity in the expression, and a bit of guilt.

"Sorry. If it helps at all, I'm having them again. Company and misery, and all that." Tali is silent for perhaps a moment too long, looking at Alistair, and he clears his throat. "Anyhow, when I heard you thrashing around, I thought I should tell you—it was scary for me, too, at first."

"I—thank you, Alistair."

"That's what I'm here for. To deliver unpleasant news and witty one-liners."

"What are yours like?" Embarrassed, Tali looks down. She regrets the question almost immediately, the invasiveness of it all. But Alistair doesn't seem to mind.

"After my Joining, it was mostly Darkspawn, in the Deep Roads. Lots of digging. I was the Darkspawn most of the time. Ate quite a few dwarves in my own head." Relief again courses through Talvinder. At the very least, she's not alone. "Now, though, I see the Archdemon usually. The Blight does that, I suppose." Tali nods.

"Me too. They're…horrible." Alistair laughs a little, humorlessly.

"They're disgusting, aren't they?" His nose wrinkles as he speaks, nostrils scrunching up.

"Do you think they're worse in the dreams, or in real life?" The air isn't quite cold, but it is cool, and Tali is grateful that Abarie sits next to her, solid and warm. Especially as she remembers the Darkspawn they faced in the swamps of the Korcari Wilds. The clearing around them is well lit by the fire and moonlight, but still, Tali finds herself watching for movement in the shadows at the corners of her eyes, scooting just a little closer to the mabari next to her.

"Definitely dreams. Has to be." Alistair barely thinks about the question as he reaches next to himself for another large stick, tossing it onto the fire. "In real life you can kill them, simple and easy. In dreams they're just there and you can't do anything at all until you wake up. And then they ruin your lovely night's sleep." Lightly, Talvinder scoffs.

"In dreams they can't kill you, though," she counters. Done feeding the fire, Alistair considers her words, lips slightly pursed as he does so, one finger brought up to rest against his chin. It's such a comical expression, so out of tone with their current situation, and Tali can't help but smile at it.

"Fair enough. But in dreams you have to see them up close." She shakes her head at his logic, pulling a knee up to her chest so that she can rest her chin on it.

"You have to see them up close to kill them in real life. And in dreams you don't have to smell them." Disgust crosses Alistair's face and he laughs a little bit.

"You've got me there."

They lapse into an amicable silence, listening to the soft crackle of the fire, the breeze in the trees, the sounds of small woodland creatures, late summer bugs, the breathing of their companions. Talvinder is tired, but not ready to sleep, not with the memory of Duncan so fresh still. Duncan. The thought of him draws her attention back to Alistair as she realizes with a faint start that she's not really spoken to him about Duncan yet, about any of the others—not in any meaningful way. She doesn't know quite where to begin, and she feels the silence turn sour around her own mind as she stumbles for words, staring at Alistair.

Eventually, he looks up, catching her gaze. Embarrassment, white hot, floods through Tali as he glances over his shoulder and then back to her, as though making sure she's really staring at him.

"Is there something on my face?" he asks, and Tali finds herself dropping her head into her free hand.

"No, no—no, I just wanted to…I'm sure it's been hard for you, lately. We haven't—that is, I haven't gotten a chance—how are you holding up? Do you want—do you want to talk about Duncan?" The faint smile that had been on Alistair's face falters and then disappears, sliding from his eyes and cheeks and lips until his face is blank. He stares, now, though not at Tali—into the fire. There is a void behind his eyes, and Talli wishes that she had never asked as she sees the emptiness within him spill over.

"Duncan…he saved me from becoming a Templar. You know. I've told you." Tali nods, not wanting to speak. "And I really do think he saved me. I can't imagine a life chained to the Chantry, shackled to it even as you lose yourself to fanaticism and paranoia. They work it into you from a young age, the minute you arrive as a child." He pauses here, eyes falling down toward his hands. "It seems foolish to say that he was like a father to me."

"You don't have to make excuses for caring for someone, Alistair."

"Yes but I should have handled it better, shouldn't I?" There's a frantic edge to his voice when he looks up at Talvinder again, and she wants to stand, to walk around the fire, to sit next to him. "He warned me right from the beginning that this could happen. That it would happen, one day. Any of us could die in battle. We will die, all of us, some day, with the Taint in our veins. I shouldn't have lost it, not when so much is riding on us, not—" She can't stand it, can't bear it, the way Alistair hates his own feelings, and she does stand, finally, abruptly.

"There's no need for you to apologize." Not when she remembers the way Alistair held her back from attacking Duncan herself, not when she remembers the way she cried into his shoulder. Now, standing awkwardly, hands balled into fists at her sides, she isn't sure how to say just that. Instead, she clears her throat, moves, and sits a little closer to Alistair—not next to him, exactly, but close enough to reach out and touch the top of his hand. "It's not—you don't—"

"I'd like to have a proper funeral for him," Alistair says suddenly. Talvinder can't help but notice that he doesn't move his hand away, doesn't shy from her touch even as he turns back to the fire, away from her. "Maybe when this is all over, all done, if—you know, if we're still alive. I don't…I don't know if he had any family to speak of, but it would be—it would be good to let them know." He sighs, quick and sharp, and Talvinder sees tears glittering in the corners of Alistair's eyes. She looks away first, before he hides his face. But still he doesn't move his hand away. Instead, he stretches his fingers out ever so slightly, moving them just so under Tali's palm.

"He had you, Alistair." Alistair makes some sort of noise, half laugh, half strangled sob. Tali can see him biting the insides of his cheeks for a brief second before he speaks again, voice hushed.

"I suppose he did." Silence once more. The breeze cools, and the fire darkens, but Alistair doesn't add more fuel to the fire, doesn't move his hand, doesn't move at all.

Finally, then, he speaks.

"Part of me wishes I was with him." Slowly, hesitantly, Tali looks up to find Alistair already staring at her, anguish in his eyes. "In the battle. I feel—I feel like I abandoned him." She wants to say something else, something comforting, something to make him feel any other way but that. Instead, she says the truth, unvarnished.

"I understand completely." Alistair takes a deep breath before looking away and continuing.

"Of course, then I'd be dead, too, wouldn't I? And probably you, and Savreen. It's not as though that would make him happier." Hand still resting beneath Talvinder's, he considers his words. "I think he came from Highever, originally. Or I remember him talking about it. I think some of his family was from one of the Free March states—"

"Hasmal?"

"Yes, that was it. I know I likely can't go all the way to the Marches, but maybe…maybe I'll go to Highever, someday. See about putting something up in—in his honor. I—I don't know. Maybe that's foolish." A hint of embarrassment creeps into his voice, darkening his cheeks, and finally he pulls his hand away, scratching at the tips of his ear. "Have you—I mean, have you ever had someone close to you die? Not that I mean to pry, I'm just—"

Waheguru help her, but Talvinder lets out a sharp laugh. Alistair looks at her, bewildered for a moment, and then his eyes widen and he groans, smacking a hand to his forehead with no small amount of chagrin.

"Maker—by Andraste's flaming knickers. I've been so stupid. Here I am, prattling on and on about Duncan—to you! And you—Maker, Talvinder, I'm so sorry."

"No, don't be." In spite of herself, Tali feels her smile still. "It's good…it feels good to not think about it, to be there for someone else." She brings her knees up to her chest, wraps her arms around them, rests her chin atop them. "This might sound foolish, but it's nice to know that someone can forget what's happened. Makes me feel like one day, I'll forget…I'll forget what it felt like. What it feels like."

In front of her, the fire glows, and in the crackling embers, she pictures for just a moment the way Highever Keep looked as it burned. It's Alistair's hand on her shoulder, though, that pulls her from her reverie, forcing her to look back at him.

"Thank you," he says, and his palm is solid against her body, the warmth of it seeping through her shirt. "If you'd ever like to talk more about it, any of it, I'm here."

In the light of the fire, his eyes glisten like gems—amber, topaz. Talvinder nods, and she fights the urge to lean into his hand. His thumb is just barely grazing the line of her jaw. Instead, she stands, a yawn forcing its way from her mouth at last.

"I'd like that," she says. The taste of hair and blood is gone, now, and she hardly remembers the nightmare. Perhaps she can salvage some more sleep before the sun rises. Just before she returns to her tent, though, she stops, looks back over her shoulder. "And Alistair?" She needn't have called his name, though: he still looks at her, eyes intent.

"Hmm?"

"Please—call me Tali."

Savreen finds it hard to focus on the road as they travel. Between the incessant way that Alistair pesters Morrigan, Morrigan's instigation of more little spats, Leliana's constant attempts to engage the others in conversation, Sten's resolute silence, and Ranjit's simple presence, her attention is pushed and pulled and demanded in so many different ways. Tali, thankfully, is attentive and eager to help Savreen in any way she can—a strong contrast to their relationship just a few weeks ago. But truthfully, it's Ranjit who bothers Savreen the most. She wants to be able to speak to him, or if she can't do that, to at least be able to ignore his presence, but neither seem possible. And so she stays silent when she awakens from the clutches of nightmares, rolls over and away from Ranjit's silhouette on her tent canvas, illuminated by the watch fire.

But it only works for so long, especially with Tali's near constant glances between the two of them, trying to get Savreen to take watch after Ranjit or Ranjit after Savreen, to throw them together with the enthusiasm of a preteen or a puppy. It would be endearing if Savreen weren't so afraid that she might actually be convinced to give in.

Around the fire one night, when they're about halfway between Lothering and Redcliffe and all but the three of them have gone to bed, Tali clears her throat, eyes darting between Sav and Ranjit. Reflexively, Savreen stiffens ever so slightly, ready to raise her eyebrows and fix Tali with a warning glance, one learned long ago from her mother, but then Tali asks the question Savreen has both been wanting and dreading to ask.

"Perhaps…Ranjit, I don't mean to pry, but perhaps you might tell us more specifically…what happened? How you escaped Highever Keep?" Sav freezes for a heartbeat—but only a heartbeat.

"Tali, I don't think we need to discuss—"

"You deserve to know." Ranjit's voice, soft-spoken as always, nevertheless stops Sav in her tracks. "In truth, I'm sorry I didn't tell you sooner. There seemed to be no good time—though I wonder if there is ever a good time for, well…" Despite herself, Sav feels her pulse begin to race. She knows she wants to hear, needs to hear, what happened after they escaped through the tunnel in the larder. But she finds herself fighting trepidation, unsure if she is really ready to know.

After receiving no interruptions or directives from Talvinder and Savreen, Ranjit clears his throat and shifts his sitting position, moving so that his legs are folded together. With one last glance, he begins.

"You left the great hall only shortly before they breached the doors." The blanket of hair covering Savreen's arms stands on end as she is suddenly catapulted back to the memory of that night. "It was chaos. Arl Howe's men were not seeking to take prisoners."

"We were aware of that much." Savreen shoots Tali a look—she isn't sure if she means it as a reprimand for interrupting Ranjit or something else, and it almost alarms her that she doesn't know what she feels, let alone what her expression may be. There is no controlling that which she cannot understand, and she wrestles with her heart and her face both, trying to force the, into submission. Ranjit, though, continues through the interruption.

"They broke down the doors of the great hall. They outnumbered us already, and with exhaustion added in, we were overwhelmed." He pauses and looks down at his hands. They're folded, Savreen notices, in a way that almost mirrors the curve of his legs, and she finds herself focusing on the symmetry of it as everything starts to slip away. "Our only hope was to give you time to get to the tunnel and get out. We fought to the last man." She cannot help but imagine it, the way the hall would have filled with Howe's soldiers, the way Ranjit and the others, desperate, would have fallen one by one, maimed, gutted, pierced, slashed. Her stomach, normally so strong, turns, and she can feel the remnants of roast rabbit and waybread churn uneasily.

"I didn't see the arrow coming until it was too late, but by Waheguru's grace, it was deflected by the pendant I wore—wear." Savreen's eyes snap upwards, away from the symmetry of Ranjit's interlaced fingers and legs. She wonders if she is imagining it or if he emphasized that last word—that he wears the ring still—on purpose. The way he meets her gaze for a brief moment before dropping his eyes tells her everything she needs to know.

"What happened next?" Tali asks, leaning forward slightly, listening with what appears to be bated breath. Tears glisten in the corners of her eyes, but Savreen notices that she is doing admirably to retain her composure—something with which her younger cousin has always struggled, for good or ill. Through habit, Savreen reaches out and takes Tali's hand, setting it in her own lap and rubbing the backs of Tali's knuckles. She's made this exact motion too many times to count, through many losses and bouts of tears of all levels of severity. But never before has it felt so necessary for Savreen herself, never before has it been her own lifeline as much as a means to comfort Tali. Clearing his throat, Ranjit continues.

"I fell," he says simply. "I thought for a moment that the arrow had found its mark, that I was numb to the pain only by some miracle. It was sticking up through my armor, caught there, and I waited—waited to die. But I didn't. You…you can imagine my surprise." The humor that crosses his face is slightly uncharacteristic, but it does succeed in making Tali laugh, that single, awkward bark she always makes when she isn't sure she should continue laughing, despite not being able to help it. "I was the last one standing, though, and by the time I realized that I wasn't dead or dying, I knew that I had to pretend to be. So…so I did." Ranjit shifts as though his foot has fallen asleep, and Savreen finds herself wondering how he could possibly have remained still long enough to escape detection.

"Howe's men piled us all together, in a heap. I breathed as little as I could until they—until they covered me. I don't know who it was they put atop me, but she was—" he looks up to the night sky, and Savreen knows (of course she knows) that his eyes have always glittered as though endless stars wheeled within them, but now they glitter with tears, and she cannot convince herself otherwise. "She was so light." He lapses into labored breaths, and Savreen tries her hardest to lock herself away, to burrow deep inside, to ignore, to shove back the lump in her throat. She doesn't let herself imagine Ranjit, on that heap of corpses, the arrow a hairsbreadth to the side, lodged firmly in the cold flesh of his chest. She doesn't. She puts it from her mind. She fails.

"I listened to them talk, throughout the night. They said you had escaped, but they had—the brother Teyrns—"

"You don't need to remember if it's too much." Savreen looks up at Tali as she speaks, and is shocked to find her cousin—her baby cousin—an adult, shadows carved into her face by firelight. Nothing seems real, and all that is left is the way Tali's skin feels beneath the pad of Savreen's thumb as she swipes it in circles. She feels untethered, she feels small. Her own breathing sounds miles away in her head, and she is not sure if she is actually breathing for a moment. Surely she must be?

"Thank you, m—Talvinder." Ranjit breathes once, twice, three times, each shaky and heavy. But he breathes, and Savreen latches onto that, too, imagining that she is gripping it as tightly as Tali's hand. She can remember what that breath felt like on the back of her neck, under her ear, in the hollow of her throat, if she tries just hard enough.

It makes her feel real again.

Ranjit continues.

"They started burning bodies almost immediately. They brought the brother Teyrns back to the hall with them, as well as the Teyrnas." Savreen remembers the smoke, curling up to choke the stars. She remembers feeling as though a piece of her soul was going with it, riding the draft with the ash. She knows now that she was right. "They used the wood of the doors. They broke apart the tables of the langar. They broke into the Gurdwara and they—" for the first time, he sobs. Just once, but it's a heaving, wretched noise, as though something is tearing. "They broke into the Gurdwara," he repeats the words, but says no more on the subject. "The fires—I think they wanted to burn the keep, more than the bodies inside. Or perhaps it was a happy coincidence that the keep caught fire so quickly. Howe's soldiers gave up drawing bodies from the pile to burn when it became dangerous to stay in the hall. They left to save themselves, and I was able to climb up and out. The fires burned so hot, they caught on my dastar before I could get outside." Savreen watches Ranjit as he sighs, rubbing a hand across his face. He's since replaced his turban, and she tries to imagine for a moment the heat and the terror of fire so close to her own head, but instead, Savreen finds herself glad that this new turban is blue instead of red, like he used to wear.

"At first I thought to make it to Ostagar," he says, the sudden jump of his words yanking Savreen roughly forward in the timeline of her mind. "Howe's men were everywhere in the village, though, by the time I arrived. I couldn't make it to my aunt's house. Instead, I…borrowed a horse from one of Howe's soldiers. But my injuries were worse than I realized. Around the plains, I had to slow down. By the time I arrived in Lothering, the bulk of General Mac Tir's forces were passing through, back north to the capital, without the King. They said the battle had been a massacre, everyone dead." He pauses, and the anguish of the memory is plain on his face. "I gave the horse to a family trying to flee the village. Their own horse was commandeered by the General's men. And I decided that I would wait, pray and meditate on the gurus' words for guidance. I—I didn't know what else to do."

"And then we arrived," Tali interjects. Ranjit looks up at her, and finally he smiles, clear and bright and full of relief and joy.

"And then you arrived." He looks at Tali, and then his eyes meet Savreen's, and he doesn't drop her gaze. "It was as though my prayers were answered." Something prickles down Savreen's spine, but she refuses to look away. Strangely, though, so does Ranjit. Only Tali's voice breaks the binding of their eyes, and Savreen looks to her as she speaks.

"I cannot—I can't tell you how glad I am that you made it back to us, Ranjit." Another smile.

"And to think, you wound up the Warden instead of me, Talvinder." In response, Tali half smiles, half grimaces, patting Savreen's hand before withdrawing her own and rising to her feet to stretch.

"I wouldn't wish it on you, Ranjit, no matter how much we dreamed of it when we were younger." Suddenly, she yawns, and Savreen notices that it has, in fact, grown quite late, and remembers that it was she who volunteered to take the first watch. Ranjit stands as Tali does, as though following some unnamed cue.

"I'm sorry to turn in," Tali says, still fighting back another yawn. "I am glad, though, that we…well. 'Glad' isn't the right word. It was good, I suppose, to finally hear what happened, Ranjit. Thank you." Savreen watches as her cousin turns, a little awkward and unsteady, throws one final glance back as she tries to figure out if there's something else she should say, and then decides no, no there isn't. Tali clicks her tongue and Abarie follows her, clambering into her tent, and then Savreen is alone with Ranjit as he stands there in front of her.

Again, she is alone with him.

"My lady Savreen," Ranjit starts, and she sighs, disappointed. "I would take my leave now."

"You have never needed my permission, Ser Gilmore, least of all now." She remains sitting, focused suddenly on adding another stick to the fire, stoking it with the branch in her hand, examining the bed of coals they have built up since making camp that evening.

"My lady—"

"How many times have I told you to call me Savreen?" She will not look at him. "How many times must I tell you?" He pauses before answering, and when he does, she could swear there's a smile in his voice. But she remains resolute, eyes down.

"At least once more, my lady."

"Then good night, Ser Gilmore."

"By your leave." He bows, he actually bows, and then he turns toward his tent, and Savreen is left alone to take watch until Alistair awakens.

She doesn't hear him whisper her nickname as he lies down on his bedroll. She doesn't see the smile on his lips. She doesn't know.