Reaching the top of the ramp, I watch in amusement at the one-sided argument unfolding in front of me. Crossing my arms, I watch as the mage and Alistair go at it. Hearing the mage get more frustrated while Alistair just keeps teasing him. The mage finally having it with Alistair's sarcasm, gives in and finds the revered mother. Watching as the mage hastily walks past me, I barely hold in my laughter. Turning back to Alistair, I watch him step closer and turn his attention to me. Oh, what I would give to see. I think to myself as I slightly flush when I feel Alistair's eyes on me. For the lack of eyesight I have, I can still tell this man is Adonis on Earth, Thedas, whatever. His tan skin and light blonde hair, I mean, hello? I don't need eyesight to tell he's cute.

Oh God, my stomach is already doing the tingly shit, I groan internally.

"You know, one good thing about the Blight is how it brings people together," he smirks at me. I look over him quickly and take quick notice of the Grey Warden armor on him as well.

Trailing my eyes back onto his face, I smile shyly back at him, "I know exactly what you're talking about."

"It's like a party, we could all stand in a circle and hold hands. That would give the darkspawn something to think about." Alistair slightly chuckles when I start laughing. When we stop laughing, he looks at me up and down. "Wait, we haven't met, have we? I don't suppose you happen to be another mage?"

I snort and raise my eyebrows, "Will it make your day worse?"

"Hardly. I just like to know my chances of being turned into a toad at any given moment," Alistair chuckles.

"Well, I am a mage, but don't worry I won't turn you into a toad," I laugh.

"Really? You don't look like a mage," Alistair says, but quickly retracts and flushes when I raise my eyebrows. "Uh... that is… I mean… how interesting."

I laugh and cover my mouth, "Thank you, I'm glad you find it interesting."

Alistair then looks at me closer and says, "Wait, I do know who you are. You're Duncan's newest recruit, from the Circle of Magi. I should have recognized you right away. I apologize."

"And you are Alistair, right?" I ask, tilting my head, knowing the answer already.

Alistair gets a goofy look on his face, "Did Duncan mention me? Nothing bad, I hope."

I shake my head and laugh, while Alistair starts his introduction, "As the junior member of the order, I'll be accompanying you when you prepare for the Joining."

I nod and hold my hand out for a handshake, "Nice to meet you. My name is Caerlion."

Alistair shakes my hand, making tingles sprint up my arm,"That's right, that was the name." Alistair then gets a teasing tone and releases my hand, "You know… it just occurred to me that there have never been many women in the Grey Wardens. I wonder why that is?"

I snort loudly, "Want more women in the Wardens, huh?"

"Would that be so terrible? Not that I'm some drooling lecher or anything. Please stop looking at me like that," Alistair says, becoming more quiet as he progresses. He starts to look shy, his face flushing as I try to hold in my laughter. I look away and cover my mouth with my hand, calming myself down. Also, to save him from embarrassment.

Alistair clears his throat and changes the subject quickly, "So, I'm curious. Have you ever actually encountered darkspawn?"

I shake my head, "No, have you?"

After Alistair tells me about his first encounter with a darkspawn, he tells me that we should probably start getting back to Duncan. I nod my head and turn to start walking. When I see that Alistair is right next to me, I realize how tall he is. I can barely see above this man's shoulder, so instead I make direct eye-contact with his Grey Warden pauldron. Staring at him in wonder, I see Alistair look down at me and quirk an eyebrow.

I become flushed and think of something to say, "I'm excited to travel with you."

"You do? Huh. That's a switch. We should probably get going though," Alistair says, turning a little pink. Nothing compared to my beet red face.

Not looking at me, the tanned, dark haired Kennel Master begins to talk to himself, "Hmmm. This isn't good. I'd hate to waste such a promising member of the breed."

As if noticing we are standing next to him, he turns towards us and nods at me, "Are you the new Warden? I could use some help."

"Of course, what's wrong?"

The man gestures towards the dog in the kennel, "This is a mabari. Smart breed, and strong. His owner dies in the last battle, and the poor hound swallowed darkspawn blood. I have medicine that might help, but I need him muzzled first."

Nodding my head, before asking again, "Why do you think I can muzzle him?"

"You're a Grey Warden, or soon will be. All Wardens are immune to the darkspawn taint. The most you have to worry about is some tooth marks," the Kennel Master shrugs.

"How reassuring," I mutter to myself, before speaking up. "Welp, give me the muzzle. I have nothing to lose."

Except my life. I think to myself as he hands me the brown, leather muzzle and unlocks the gate. He turns towards me, "Go in the pen and let him smell you. We'll know right away if he'll respond. Let's hope this works, I would really hate to have to put him down."

Walking into the pen, I see in the very corner a beautiful red brindle dog (kinda looks like a bean) hunched over in a defensive stance growling. Smelling the air, the dog looks at me and relaxes from his tense posture. Slowly walking over, I put the muzzle on the dog, only hearing a few non-threatening growls. After I put the muzzle on him, he begins to whimper and lies down on the dirt floor. Slowly backing out of the pen, I close the gate behind me as I step out.

"Well done! Now I can treat the dog properly- poor boy," the man shakes his head sadly and then perks up considerably after some thought. "Come to think of it, are you heading into the Wilds any time soon?"

I shrug at the Kennel Master (even though I already know the answer), "Maybe, why?"

"There's a particular herb I could use to improve the dog's chances. It's a flower that grows in the swamps here, if I remember," the man scratches the back of his head with his plainly armored gloved hand. "If you happen across it, I could use it. It's very distinctive: all white with a blood-red center."

I nod towards him, "Of course I can."

The man nods gratefully and sighs in relief, "Good. In the meantime, I'll begin treating our poor friend."

Alistair and I walk away from the man and start heading towards the ramp. I nudge Alistair when we get far enough away from the man. When my elbow makes contact with his armored arm, I can feel the coolness of the silver metal push through the thinness of the yellow mage robes I was wearing (not like I had many options, I had to alternate between the purple-blue and this yellow robe while traveling.). Alistair looks down at me with furrowed eyebrows.

"Will you help me find the flower if we go into the Wilds?" I ask quietly, nervously looking around hoping nobody is listening in, even though they are most likely enraptured with their own doings.

Alistair snorts and jokingly raises an eyebrow, "What? Can't see now?"

I roll my eyes and push his arm, "I can see, you dingus. I just have horrible eyesight, I can't see five feet in front of me."

"What?" Alistair blurts out, "Can't magic, I don't know, fix your eyesight?"

I blankly look at him, and nearly trip over my feet doing so, "Uh… I don't know? I tried, but I ended up giving myself a bloody nose. So, I, like, gave up and decided it's better to wander around aimlessly."

"Oh…" Alistair quietly says and clears his throat. It was the truth, I did try and gave myself a bloody nose. In fact it was the first thing I tried when I got back from the Harrowing, but haven't tried it since. We make it up to the top of the stone ramp and I look around, wondering what I should do first. I decide to walk towards the prisoner in the cage and test my persuasion skills- or lack thereof.

I'm going to tell you now, it was an absolute disaster. I barely managed to convince the guard to give me the meal to give to the prisoner, so I could get the- disgusting- key that the prisoner had swallowed and "recently came back into his possession," in his own words. But I managed to do it, I used very smart words to trick the man's mind into giving me his food. I am very surprised that it worked, and from the looks of it so was Alistair. It couldn't have been my fumbling around with trying to be persuasive and not laugh at every other word.

After going through with that mess, I finally made the rest of my rounds talking to the other recruits and everyone else I needed to. Looking around while pursing my lips, I squinted my eyes and looked at the blurred surroundings. I sighed out of my nose, which has been pretty congested since I've been here.

"Ok," I nod and turn towards Alistair, who was already looking at me, "I'm ready to go to Duncan now."

Alistair nodded and motioned towards the roaring bonfire that was dancing underneath the glaring sun. Breathing in and muttering to myself, "Why is there a fire in the middle of the day?"

Alistair, apparently hearing me, laughed quietly and began walking towards the fire. Watching him walk forward, I look at the three figures in the distance. Once again the feeling of guilt and unrest bubbles in my stomach. I shake my head and walk forward, even though I want to crawl in the smallest place and hide, I push the unease into the all too familiar box that has seemed to become an even better friend these days.

I make it beside Jory and Daveth, the other two recruits, and watch as Duncan looks at Alistair turning to face us. When Duncan turns his attention towards us, I see him look towards me and nods in greeting, "You found Alistair, did you? Good. I'll assume you are ready to begin preparations."

Duncan then crosses his arms and looks at Alistair, "Assuming, of course, that you're quite finished riling up mages, Alistair?"

Alistair shrugs and lets out an awkward laugh, obviously trying to diffuse Duncan's annoyance, "What can I say? The revered mother ambushed me. The way she wields guilt they should stick her in the army."

"She forced you to sass the mage, did she?" obviously not amused with Alistair's attempt at deflection, Duncan continues, "We cannot afford to antagonize anyone, Alistair. We don't need to give anyone more ammunition against us."

Alistair sighs understanding the severity, and looks down, nodding slowly, "You're right, Duncan. I apologize. I will collect who we are missing."

Wait, what? I think to myself as Alistair walks away to get the, apparently, missing recruits. Looking at Duncan with furrowed eyebrows, all I get back is a tilted head in response.

Hearing footsteps approaching from behind me, I turn and look at the figures. Two of them are shorter than me and one is barely taller than me. As I'm looking at them, I notice that the shortest out of the trio is a female with auburn hair that is braided back, a red tattoo decorating her face, and extremely pale skin. Turning my gaze to the second shortest, who is a male, I notice that he is a couple shades darker than the female, but still pale nonetheless. He has pale blonde hair and a beard of the same color. Finally the man who is just taller than me has long black hair, sickly beige colored skin, and black tattoos on his face. When the black haired man comes to stand beside me, I see black colored veins painting underneath the skin of his neck and face. As I stare at his profile, he turns his head and I lock eyes with his dark colored eyes. I quickly turn away and feel the heat rushing to my cheeks and ears.

Oh no. I think sadly as I realize he has the Blight. Hearing Alistair begin to speak, I decide to listen in on what he is saying.

"This is Adalwin and Brali from Orzammar," He gestures to the two dwarves standing to the left of the elven man beside me, then Alistair gestures towards the Blight infested man, "and this is Revas from Clan Maherial in the Brecilian forest."

"Hello," the blonde dwarf, Adalwin, gruffly says beside me, I smile at Adalwin and look at Brali.

Brali, obviously not used to any attention, merely nods and looks down at her feet; her faded red tattoo on her face. Revas, deciding it's his turn to speak up, weakly says, "Hello."

I noted that Revas had a Scottish accent when he mumbled the greeting and began to mentally prepare to introduce myself. The red haired man, who has a receding hairline, beside me speaks up and politely introduces himself, "Good day, I'm Ser Jory and I hail from Redcliffe. How do you-"

The other black haired man beside him butts in and laughs at the look on Jory's face, "The name's Daveth, Duncan here recruited me from Denerim."

"And I'm Caerlion, from… the Circle of Magi," I slowly say and look at my feet- which were covered by brown, leather boots- so I don't mess up my words, or say the wrong thing.

Nailed it.

Duncan clears his throat, which brings all of the attention back towards him, "Now then, since you are all here, we can begin." The four beside me all start to brace themselves, mentally preparing themselves for the journey ahead. Duncan continues, "You seven will be heading into the Korcari Wilds to perform two tasks. The first is to obtain six vials of darkspawn blood, one for each recruit."

Brali finally speaks up, her voice sweet, but with a rough edge, her American (Dwarven?) accent dancing through the biting wind, "What do we need darkspawn blood for?"

"For the Joining itself. I'll explain more once you've returned," Duncan answers and waits for any further questions, when Adalwin jumps in, probably just wanting to get this over with.

"And what's the second task?"

"There was once a Grey Warden archive in the Wilds, abandoned long ago when we could no longer afford to maintain such remote outposts." Duncan explains, continuing when he sees that we don't have any questions so far, "It has recently come to our attention that some scrolls have been left behind, magically sealed to protect them. Alistair, I want you to retrieve these scrolls if you can."

Alistair nods, and Duncan looks at us to see if we understand. Revas, quickly says in hopes of getting started, "Find the archive and five vials of blood. Understood."

Duncan looks at Alistair, "These scrolls contain treaties promising support. Treaties that may prove valuable in the days to come. Watch over your charges, Alistair. Return quickly, and safely."

Alistair nods, "We will."

Duncan then says, "Then may the Maker watch over your path. I will see you when you return."

Alistair motions for everyone to follow him and starts walking towards the gate. I, however, stay where I am and watch as the rest walk away. Turning to Duncan quickly, I blurt out, "Duncan, what are we going to do about the battle? Who else do I have to tell?"

"Nothing and no one," he says affirmatively.

"But Duncan, it's-"

"No, it is not."

"I think I nee-"

"No."

"You will-"

"Caerlion! No," Duncan firmly says, again, and ends the conversation walking away. I feel a large, cool hand on my shoulder. Blinking away the frustration and looking over my shoulder, I see Alistair looking at me. Looking past Alistair, I see the five other recruits staring at me, no doubt in confusion and impatience.

"Caerlion, we need to go now. It is not safe after dark," Alistair says to me. I give him a nod and a tight smile. I turn to face him and try to seem relaxed, when I just feel tense and anxious all over.

"Well, lead the way! Sorry if I freeze up, I don't really like fighting," I say, silently praying that Alistair won't ask me if I'm alright.

Alistair, thankfully, takes the bait and shakes his head, "Don't be sorry, it happens to everyone. Did I tell you about the first time I fought a darkspawn?"

He did, but I'm thankful for the distraction and I shake my head with a small smile, real this time. I willingly hear the story again as we start walking to join the group. The small distraction helped me soothe the jumbled thoughts in my head.