"You know," Rhodri said thoughtfully as the party wound through the deeper forest, "I don't think I have eaten bear 'til now. It reminded me of a few of the browner meats they'd serve in the Circle, but none tasted quite like that."

Zevran and Leliana (and Wynne, who of course had declared she would be coming along) nodded in agreement. Bear meat was tender enough to be cut with a fork, with a curiously strong, somewhat fruity flavour; one of the clan had said during the meal that bear meat tasted like whatever the animal had last eaten. The first thing Zevran did, upon hearing that fact, was to thank the Maker that that bear's final meal hadn't been a darkspawn hock.

"I think I had it a few times," Alistair chewed his lip. "The Fereldan nobles like bear quite a lot. I think one Teryn even had a sort of bear farm. Must've made a fortune off that."

"I can imagine." Rhodri looked over her shoulder at Morrigan, who in keeping with her usual demeanour of the last weeks, was yet to say a word. "What of you, Morrigan? Did you eat bear meat very much?"

Her eyebrows rose as Morrigan tsked irritably.

"Why do you ask me such questions?" she snapped. "I do not probe you for pointless information, do I?"

"Hey—" Alistair snarled warningly, only falling still when Rhodri turned around and touched his arm.

"It's all right," she soothed, and glanced at Morrigan worriedly. "I'm sorry, my friend, I didn't mean to annoy. I'm just curious." She smiled encouragingly, and gave an inviting wave of the hands, "And certainly, you're welcome to probe me any time you like! Day or night, probe away, deep as you like!"

Zevran-- barely-- held in a snort as Morrigan's face hardened. The beginnings of a blush were threatening in the corners of her cheeks where makeup had not touched. She closed her eyes and shook her head.

"Warden," she said tiredly. "That did not sound the way you hoped it might. Leave the topic."

Rhodri's smile faltered. "I–? I don't… that is to say, yes, of course. You'll let me know if you need anything, though, won't you?"

"I need nothing."

"I know, but in case you do later–"

"Enough, Warden."

"Right, right, of course. Forgive me." Rhodri faced front again, frowning pensively.

In the corner of Zevran's eye, Leliana was watching him watch Rhodri. Not having it in him to feign ignorance until she tried to extract a confession out of him, he turned and smiled at her.

"I hear that frog is popular in Orlais, Leliana," he purred, adding, "speaking of odd meats."

If being directly addressed had taken her aback, she didn't show it. "It must be," she replied with a smile. "It is eaten even when other meats are more fashionable."

Zevran snickered; Rhodri hummed. "That's why other countries call the Orlesians 'frogs,' because it's their national meat."

"Mmm," Leliana chuckled wickedly. "Just like we call the Antivans 'chickens,' and the Rivainis 'fish.' Ooh, and of course, like we call the Tevinters 'baboons,' hmm?"

Rhodri grinned. "Mmm. I've been called that now and then, especially by frogs."

"They call you baboons?" Alistair cackled. "I think that's probably 'cause of your blue bums, not because you eat the meat. Too much lyrium."

Wynne's disapproving 'Oh, really, Alistair' was drowned out by Rhodri's very loud, very Tevinter-sounding 'Ah!'

"No, he's right!" she declared dramatically. "In a pants-down line-up, you'll see glowing blue cheeks from start to finish! We have to wear blackout underwear so we don't blind whoever's standing behind us. But on the bright side- so to speak, of course- we do have a torch wherever we go." She gave a grin that showed most of her teeth.

It was tempting to point out that a lyrium posterior would hardly be in Rhodri's best interest, her affliction considered. After everything that had happened the night before, though, Zevran was not the man to make any conversation with regard to such parts of her. He swallowed a sigh whose cause he couldn't quite pinpoint.

Alistair snorted and shoved Rhodri. "Next time we go in a cave, then, we'll send you in arse first."

"Hah," she dug her shoulder into his upper arm. "A fine way to showcase Tevinter modesty. My father would be proud."

There was no reason, none at all, to let his mind drift to the artificial calm and privacy of the thought of being wrapped up under Rhodri's robe. Zevran turned his focus onto the light tingle in his fingertips, and the give of the grass underfoot, and, because he was the weakest being in existence, pulled his cloak a little tighter around him.

§

The deep interior of the Brecilian Forest– Zevran had been calling it that since they were a day's journey in, but surely they had to be in it by now, and it stank. Nobody else seemed to think so, but Zevran had a nose and a brain, and regardless of popular opinion, the unfortunate truth was that the forest absolutely reeked. Sickly-sweet pine needles, wet dirt, and bear shit. Where were the spices? Where was the salty air that blew in off the sea like spindrift? Even this far into the forest, there were small, makeshift bridges going across some of the wider streams, so evidently someone was living here. Had they never heard of incense? The place was nothing but wood! How , in the name of all good things, had they never thought of incense?

He tutted under his breath and shook his head. To his right, Rhodri chuckled. "Are you cursing the pine trees again, Serah?"

"Unsuccessfully," he sighed. "They are still not dying."

Leliana giggled, and Alistair, in an astonishing act of– what was it? Comradeship? Social pleasantness? … Civility?- spoke to him. Without the context of enragement or irritation. Was it even possible?

"No-o-o-nsense!" the Templar trumpeted. "It's fresh air! Get a little more in you! Won't find air this clean out by the sea, not with all that salt gusting around!"

Rhodri audibly gasped at that– and Zevran wasn't above admitting he had done the same. It was possible that Alistair had meant to be comradely, or even pleasant, but rude remarks about the sea and its bounty were nothing less than an attack on a Northerner's personal dignity.

"Well I never," Rhodri sniffed. "Did you hear that, Zev?"

"I wish I hadn't," he murmured hollowly.

"I distinctly heard the sound," she declared before Alistair could finish laughing, "of a brother who doesn't want to come on holiday to Minrathous and eat all the cheese his heart desires!"

That shut the bastard up.

"Ah-ah-ah!" Alistair darted over to Rhodri's unoccupied side and slung an arm around her shoulder. "Let's not be too hasty here! I… ah… who needs fresh air anyway, right? Overrated!"

Leliana chuckled. "I think you are missing the point, cher."

Rhodri rubbed her brow. "At this rate, I'll be feeding twenty people the platters of Tantervalean sweetgrass cheese that you won't be eating, Alistair."

"Twenty!"

"Cheer up, Al," she said with a grin, gesturing at a nearby tree that appeared to have snapped in two in the middle of a bog. "You've got plenty of pine bark in your fresh-air forests to chew on instead. Think of all the roughage you'll have in your diet with that!"

Alistair frowned. "That's not a pine. They've got the green needles."

"Ah, whoops," she chuckled. "Haven't covered pines in our lessons yet, have we Zev?" She looked back at the tree and squinted a little. "You know, that bark is quite blue. I don't suppose it could be the ironbark Master Varathorn– getbehindmeGETBEHINDME!"

A tree had come to life. Of course it bloody had. Life wasn't strange enough as it was, and the forest was in dire need of freakish entities such as sentient, wildly aggressive trees like the enormous sylvan that was now walking (charging, in fact) toward them. It even looked like a person. The bloody thing had arms and legs, hands, a head– Maker help him, it had a rib cage.

The party's scuffle with the arboreal murderer was mercifully brief. One spell from each mage floored it before Alistair could finish his quip about swapping his sword out for an axe, which was best for all concerned, really.

They gathered around the… corpse? Was it a corpse? It had died, but dead trees usually became wood. Did it even count as a tree if it was behaving like an animal? Questions for the Dalish Zevran wished he had known to ask. Whatever the thing had become, there they stood, staring at it with silent bafflement.

"Well, Zev," Rhodri said to him after a moment, "You might refrain from cursing trees when they're in earshot. At least until you're absolutely sure it's more likely to kill than offend." She snickered at her own dreadful joke (though admittedly, so did Zevran and Alistair) and sighed. "Ah, well. Since we're here, let's see about that ironbark…"

§

This forest was jam-packed with wolves. There were grey wolves. There were black wolves. There were Blight wolves– those were ones that had been infected with the Taint and rather than die of Blight sickness, had become something else entirely. Wolves, wolves, bloody wolves. And absolutely none of them even closely resembled the wolf they were after. Not a single white wolf in sight– not even a very light grey one to make them do a double-take.

In fact, when it came down to it, they hadn't seen hide nor hair of the werewolves, either, and as much as Zevran had decided a meeting with them was likely inevitable, he couldn't help preferring the idea of the encounter occuring later. Much, much later, if possible.

The sun was almost finished setting. The crisp cold was piercing, and the forest was glowing in the last light like fortune. Nobody said a word, and if Zevran wasn't mistaken, the party was even walking quietly to avoid interrupting the scene.

Past the two makeshift bridges up ahead was a little clearing on a hill. There was enough room for a few tents, a campfire, and a little node off to one side where Morrigan would no doubt establish herself. Rhodri was going between looking at the site and at the bit of the forest that was smouldering the most at that moment. She looked over her shoulder at the party, indicated the clearing with a question mark on her face, and got nods from everyone. That settled it.

Well, no, it didn't settle it, in fact, because seemingly as soon as the party had decided where they would be setting up camp for the night, they were ambushed by–

"Are those werewolves?" Alistair squinted at the approaching figures with a frown as he whipped his sword out. "They're– Maker, they're walking on their hind legs!"

Zevran shouldn't have bloody thought of the werewolves. It was his fault. It always happened that way: as soon as he thought of the unwanted thing, it invariably came for them. Why couldn't he have not-wanted something useful like a large sum of money, or a bowl of fish chowder?

All this genius came to him from behind Rhodri's back, to where he had been steered in the usual fashion. He shook his head and readied his knives.

And then, nothing.

He peered out from around Rhodri's shoulder, and the werewolves– three of them, with decidedly people-like chests, if somewhat hairier– stood there, glaring at the party, though it might have been the shield Rhodri had summoned that separated them that was the actual cause for that sour look. No, that was unfair of Zevran: perhaps they weren't glaring. That might have been the normal expression for a werewolf. Perhaps they would treat the party to a smile and reveal sets of dazzling white teeth that never looked so friendly or inviting.

The middle werewolf growled a little; Zevran decided that they had been glaring after all, and all hopes of deep-forest hospitality vanished. Its jaw unlatched, and the entire party made a medley of surprised noises as the creature addressed them in a rumbling snarl.

"The watch-wolves have spoken truly, brother and sister," it said. "The Dalish send humans, of all things. I suppose you are here to cull us for our attack on the camp? Put us in our place?" The creature snorted. "What bitter irony."

Zevran considered tilting his head a little to show off his pointed ear, only to decide against it at the last minute. He stayed as he was.

"Hm," Rhodri said scornfully. "You speak. Irony, you say, that a human comes in pursuit of a cure. Why is that? Let me guess: the white wolf whose heart I'm after is actually a human in a hairy cloak?"

The werewolf snapped and lunged, only to bounce off the shield and stagger backwards a few steps. Zevran couldn't help but snort, and to his relief, Alistair and Morrigan did as well.

"You will not speak of the white wolf in this manner!" the werewolf shouted when it had steadied itself.

"You murdered half a clan," Rhodri spat. "My sympathy for your tender sensibilities is in rather short supply." She lifted one hand and summoned a small, white-hot flame. "You will tell me where Witherfang is, or you'll die now!"

Something wasn't right. The Keeper had made that odd little pause, hadn't he, when recounting the werewolves' attack. Why was that? The werewolves weren't denying they had done it, but why had they done it?

Without thinking, Zevran put a hand on Rhodri's arm– and then, when his chest suddenly felt a little too light from the warmth radiating through her robes, he whipped the hand away again. The flame died out. Rhodri turned and lowered her head near Zevran's, her expression softening.

"Mm?" she asked gently. "I'm listening. Tell me, Zev."

"Ah…" Zevran cleared his throat and willed his stomach to stay put. "Perhaps we need not leap to the exciting part immediately, no?" The entire party fixed him with a wide-eyed look, though Rhodri, to her credit, was polite enough to shutter it almost immediately.

He shrugged with one hand. "I, for one, would be very interested to know why they attacked the clan."

"Of course." Rhodri nodded hard and pointed at the werewolves. "You will give him what he wants," she said stonily, and when no more reply than a growl came, her voice rose to a shout. "Answer the question, damn you! How dare you make him wait!"

Zevran's knees were not about to give out under him from hearing that. They were not.

The werewolf scoffed. "You and your barking do not intimidate us, human."

"I'm not to blame for your lack of a healthy fear response," Rhodri retorted coldly. "In the Free Marches, my people wear wolf hides in the winter. I'm not so far removed from them that I won't repurpose you in the same way if you keep delaying. Answer the fucking question!"

"I am not about to enlighten you!" it snapped back. "You know nothing of us, and even less of who you serve. I suppose it was the old one, Zathrian, who sent you after us?"

"Zathrian did ask us to seek out a cure," Zevran cut in with a calm nod. "You talk of him as though you know him."

The werewolf growled and shook its head. "We have never met. If we did, he would not have survived the experience, I swear it."

He hummed. "Not fond of him, I take it?"

"We have every reason not to be. And you," the wolf's hackles raised, "are also unwelcome here. You should run from the forest while you can."

"Ah, but we do need that cure," Zevran gave a small, bargaining shrug. "It is a little difficult to turn back without it. If you know the white wolf, perhaps we could parley with them? Surely there is a peaceful way to resolve all this."

"I know why you seek him, and it is not to parley!" it shouted. "We are done talking! Go back to the Dalish, and tell them we will gladly watch them suffer the same curse as we have for too long!"

"We cannot retreat," Zevran reiterated gently. "Not without some hope of a cure. Perhaps we could work together to find one? No need for bloodshed here. We could even cure you, too, if you wish it."

"You seek the heart of the one who protects us!" the werewolf bellowed. "We will not deliver you to him! I do not wish to fight you, but you force my hand!" It turned to the other wolves. "Come, brothers and sisters! Swiftrunner calls you to b–"

The werewolf's speech gave way to collective yelps and snapping bones as an invisible and almost silent force (summoned by Rhodri, of course) collided with the creatures and sent them– and an emerging few werewolves more they collected on the way– through the air and into the exposed side of an eroded hill. Awfully close to where they had intended to camp, Zevran noted, which went against the Crow principle of not killing where one slept. Perhaps the principle had been impressed because of the stench that came with new death, or the hygiene of it, or simply because even the Crows had standards about that sort of thing.

As it happened, the werewolves had not died from the attack, but from the way they were crawling, reasonable motion– and certainly fighting– no longer appeared to be an option for them. A handful more werewolves went to the hairy jumble of limbs sticking to the side of the hill, and without thinking, Zevran stopped Rhodri when she raised her hand to cast again.

"My Warden," he said urgently. Rhodri nodded and tilted her head down near his, not taking her eyes off the werewolves.

"Sic, Zev?"

"Perhaps we might allow them to surrender?" He indicated the werewolves. "They are clearly not able to win against us, even in these numbers."

"Eh?" Alistair goggled at him. "You're joking! They would've torn our throats out if it wasn't for that shield!"

Rhodri frowned. "Is it because they haven't answered your question yet?"

Zevran wobbled his head a little. "In a sense, yes. I have a feeling Zathrian may have left out some select details about this curse business. Something in the way he spoke, no? Too many pauses."

"The curiosity is not unwarranted," Wynne ventured now, "though the werewolves did not seem too willing to part with any information." She looked around grimly. "The Brecilian is already a dangerous place. Many enter and are never seen again… no, I do not care for the idea of releasing the beasts, only for them to return with an army."

Zevran turned to Rhodri. "Perhaps we could simply ask? Give them another chance to respond. If they refuse, I will not press the matter further, and the party can dispose of them as it likes." He held up his hands in a peacekeeping gesture.

The Wardens shared a glance, and Rhodri looked back at Zevran. She nodded.

"All right," she said kindly. "We'll go a little closer and ask. Stay behind me, please, Zev."

They drew nearer to where the uninjured werewolves were easing the mangled ones out of the dirt.

"Werewolves," she called to them. "You have one more chance to cooperate before we attack with the intent to kill. Tell us why you ambushed the–"

Rhodri was cut off by a rather frantic shout from Alistair (similar noises of concern issued from Leliana and Wynne shortly after, and Morrigan was quick to curse as well), and she and Zevran turned in time to see a rapidly encroaching wall of mist enshroud the rest of the party from behind.

She held her left arm out to Zevran. "Hold onto my robe or my arm, please, Zev," she said quickly. "Don't let go."

Oh, and that was the trouble, wasn't it? If given a choice between holding her arm or her robe, of course he would rather take her arm. And it was probably safer and better for all sorts of reasons to hold onto a limb than the clothes covering it– monitoring body temperature, injuries, ensuring that they wouldn't become separated in the (however unlikely) event that her robes dissolved.

But it was undeniable that some selfish thing in him thirsted for the closeness, and she had already said that closeness was impossible. She had said no, and that was all there was to it.

Zevran took her by the robe, and let himself be led into the mist, back toward the others. By the time he and Rhodri and the rest of the party had found each other and formed a protective circle, lest the mist-maker come after them, the fog had started to lift and the werewolves were nowhere to be found.

"They're… completely gone," Rhodri said quietly, looking around in all directions. "I don't believe it. I didn't hear a thing!"

Alistair groaned. "We should've taken them out while we had the chance! 'Give them another chance to respond,' what a stupid idea that was!"

Zevran channelled his irritation into a light chuckle. "I must say, had I known we would get a fog wave for our trouble, I would have preferred we simply disposed of them."

The forest was getting terribly dark now. Night was coming quicker and earlier as the weeks passed, and amid the clusters of evergreens blocking out the moonlight and the swallowing blackness the disappearing fog had left in its wake, there was hardly a thing to be seen.

Rhodri shrugged. "It is what it is. We've taken gambles before this, but this time it hasn't paid off. We'll just have to be careful for now." She gave the party a confident smile. "Not to worry. I'll make shields for the whole camp and take both watch shifts tonight in case they decide to loop back."

"My Warden, I could take the first watch shift," Zevran offered quickly. "I can alert you if there is any problem. After all, I was the one who suggested this gamble."

She chuckled and shook her head. "That's not how it works, Zev. Besides, I'll be doing some spellwork that needs renewing from time to time. Thank you, though."

Morrigan, who was already pulling her tent canvas out of her bag, tsked at the party impatiently. "Do the rest of you plan to help set up the camp? Or shall we all stand about exchanging pleasantries until the werewolves return?"

Rhodri gave Morrigan a fond smile that the recipient took with a vigorous 'ugh.'

"Excellent point, Morrigan," she said with another laugh. "We really should be exchanging pleasantries while we set up, shouldn't we?"

Morrigan gave another disgusted 'ugh,' and amid the wash of guilt over his contribution to Rhodri's self-imposed workload, Zevran pondered what tasty thing he could ferry out to her later on in the dead of night. Not an apology, or a kind gesture– not that there was anything wrong with treating his protector well or doing what he could to pardon himself. No, if she ate well, she would perform at her best– and if the werewolves did return, that is precisely how the party would need her performing. And certainly, she wouldn't be eating them alone. He, too, was craving…

…

Ah, Antivan-style bear stew empanadas. Which he had developed a sudden urge for. Lovely.

§

Antiva City went to bed in the last hours before sunrise. She loved a party, a late dinner, unexpected visitors; any excuse to steal back waking hours not absorbed by work. By the stroke of four, the so-called 'inhospitable hours' started, and the people slept.

So it was said, anyway. Zevran wondered what, then, society thought the early-rising fishers and farmers who fed 'the people' were. What society thought hewas.

He knew what they thought he was well enough, and it didn't bother him. At daybreak, when he sat alone on the beach in the balmy dark and stoked a fire in the sand to roast his little fish, he was as free as any of them, and that was enough.

"Where's my fish, hmm?"

Zevran turned to the direction of the familiar voice, a smile already on his face.

"Lovely Rinna," he crooned, "surely you know I am cooking this one just for you!"

She snorted and sat cross-legged beside him, one of her folded knees resting squarely on top of his. "I'll believe that when I've got the finished product in my hot little hands."

He chuckled, indulging Rinna as she drew him into a risky public kiss. "You'll be waiting a while. I only just got the fire started."

Rinna leaned back on her hands and smiled at him from the corner of her eye, almost dreamy. "No hurry," she sighed cheerfully. "Taliesen won't be up before noon, and we're seeing Claudio at dusk. As far as I'm concerned, we've got all the time in the world."

Zevran was weak. Too weak to squash down their suspended disbelief and keep them level-headed, and he was too weak to immerse himself fully and embrace the danger that came with it. However he approached it, he had lost before he had even started.

But Rinna's warm, soft leg was resting against his, and her chest was rising and falling with her breaths, and she smelled like cedarwood and freshly-oiled leather, and all that had to count for something, even removed from any context relating to the future.

He acknowledged her comment with a smile that he couldn't help but mean, and held the fish over the flames.

Zevran hummed to get Rhodri's attention as he approached her with a pan in his hand. That had been all it took to get her looking over at him, which in turn revealed that she had been keeping half an eye on him the entire time he had been awake and cooking the empanadas.

Rhodri grinned as Zevran sat down beside her. "I could smell good things from all the way over here. You've been busy, haven't you?"

"I have!" He took the pan and set it down on the grass in front of them. "I was seized with the urge to cook, and there was nothing to do but fulfil it."

Her eyes widened as they fell on the empanadas. "Oh, my," she breathed. "You have inpaniare in Antiva?"

Zevran chuckled. "Not with bear meat, but empanadas are a well-loved dish back at home." He pointed his nose at the pan. "I do hope you will try some? I would not trust Fereldans to give me proper feedback on them." He shook his head and put on a harassed, melodramatic tone, "'Ah, the meat is not grey!' 'Ah, this spice, Zevran, what do you call it? Salt? Too hot!' 'Ah, not enough cheese!"

"Hah," Rhodri snorted and took one. "I'd like to be able to stand up for Alistair in that regard, but he has said all of those things verbatim at some point or another."

She took a bite of the empanada and froze. Chewed once. Twice. Three times; swallowed. Her eyes were white on all sides, but her pupils were wide enough to crowd out her irises altogether as she fixed her gaze on it. Almost but not enough to make him regret making food of that quality, though perhaps enough to make him wish he had looked the other way when she was making her amorous eyes at something of his own making.

"Oh no," she uttered weakly. "Oh, I'm in trouble now. What on earth did you do to make such ordinary ingredients this good?"

Zevran smirked, took an empanada for himself and nibbled the corner off it. "Hm. Not bad, though I say so myself." He nodded at the pan again. "You should eat some more, my dear Warden. Aren't you hungry?"

Rhodri's belly interrupted her 'that's not for you to worry about' with a decidedly loud rumble; she scowled down at her torso.

"That answers that," Zevran declared smoothly. "Do please help me finish these."

She squinted at him. "I think you should be eating the rest on your own. Now that it's getting colder, you'll need to eat more to keep the flesh on you."

"Maybe so! But my stomach can only hold what it has room for, and what of the empanadas I cannot eat?" He caught her eye and gave her a sad little look. "You do not want them to sit here alone in this pan on a cold night, surely. Not you, Rhodri."

Rhodri's mouth fell open. "Are… are you trying to make me feel sympathy for inanimate objects?"

He grinned. "Is it working?"

"... Yes."

"Excellent." He made a cutting motion over the pan. "Leave these four for me, and you can eat the rest. Ah, Rhodri, you wound me with your looks! All right, I will have five. Does that please you?"

Rhodri ate the rest of her empanada and folded her arms, watching him beadily. She chewed her mouthful and swallowed it. "Six."

"Six?"

"Six," she nodded.

"... Five-and-a-half?"

"Six."

Zevran sighed and nodded. "I will be so full you will need to roll me back to my tent, my dear Warden."

Rhodri snorted. "I'm sure we can arrange something. Eat, please, and be thankful my father isn't here right now. You'd never hear the end of it." Her face took on a dramatically pained look as she spoke in a thick Tevinter accent, "Ah, Domine, tell me this portion is for a fly! You are so thin, so thi-hi-hiiin! Do not stand too close to the fireplace, I fear I may confuse you for the fire poker!"

Zevran cackled, chewing hard on his lips in a failed attempt to button it in. "Does your father speak that way to everyone?"

"Mmm… he probably wouldn't say it to a stranger, but I think he'd consider anyone else fair game. You, certainly. He worries for anyone who isn't well-built, you see." Rhodri chuckled and rubbed her chin. "He might have passed that on to me, now that I think about it."

He chanced a smile. "I did get that impression."

She smiled back. "Then you had better get on and eat well now, before we get back to Minrathous and I'm forced to take you to emergency banquets."

"There is no such thing," he shook his head and took another bite of empanada. "Surely not."

"Would you like to find out the hard way?"

Zevran snickered. "My goodness, the life of the wealthy is another world entirely."

She grinned. "I will say that money is an excellent cure for thinness."

"Mmm, I am sure it is an excellent cure for most every issue, no?"

Rhodri went quiet, frowning as she took another empanada. She drew in a deep breath through her nose and let it out, and before Zevran could backtrack (after all, did money undo what had happened at the Circle? Why did he say such thoughtless things?) Rhodri spoke again.

"It could well be," she murmured absently, biting into her empanada. The frown melted away again, and she chuckled like nothing had happened. "Maker, Zev, these are bloody good."

§

When, in the name of sanity, were they going to get into the middle of this bloody forest?

Or were they already there? It had become hard to say. The party hadn't encountered the werewolves again since the encounter three days prior. What it had continually met with was that bloody mist. As if out of nowhere, it would appear ahead of them, as if in a wall, and the party would be forced to turn back and try another route.

"What if we just tried… going through the fog?" Alistair said to Rhodri. "Maybe it's just there to deter people. If that mist was what helped to get the werewolves away from us, whatever we're looking for might be just beyond this."

"Or," Morrigan spoke up from behind, "Something lies waiting for us to do something so foolhardy, and attack us when our vision is at its worst. This is clearly the work of spirits within the forest."

Rhodri sighed. "I wonder how many more routes we can exhaust before we're left with no other option than to try. Sometimes it almost feels like the forest is rearranging itself when we're not looking…"

"Take another track, Waren," Morrigan insisted. "'Tis possible we will find the cause of the mist along the way."

Rhodri looked at the rest of the party. "I am inclined to trust Morrigan's expertise. Is anyone in disagreement?"

Silence. She nodded. "On we go, then."

And on they did go. And on. And on. It seemed to be the only thing anyone ever did in this neverending crop of trees and beasts and freezing, spirit-induced fog weather. Winding paths fed into even windier paths, occasionally via a clearing where bones were strewn. A real Brecilian welcome, Zevran thought miserably. Why couldn't the Dalish have set up camp outside of Rialto?

By the second day, they happened upon their fifth clearing, which was kept as neat as a pin. Not a bone or corpse in sight. Nothing but a roaring campfire off to one side–

A roaring campfire off to one side?

"Stay behind me," Rhodri's shield was up before the one presumed to own the fire, a redheaded elven man who wouldn't have been much older than Zevran, stepped out from behind a boulder. He was, to Zevran's astonishment, in the same leather armour the Dalish favoured, but his face had not been tattooed with their vallaslin.

The fellow held up his hands and called out to them in a gentle, clear voice, "Friends, turn back please. These woods are a danger to–"

He was cut off by a gasp from Wynne that had the whole party turning to look at her. She pushed past Rhodri and Zevran, and her eyes were filling with tears.

"Aneirin?" she asked. "Is that you?"

The man frowned. "I am Aneirin, yes. Who–? No, wait." His mouth fell open "I remember your face. You were more impulsive, stern… Wynne?"

More stern? Zevran could have snorted– and in fact, he very nearly did. But he didn't, of course, because emotional reunions tended not to take mirth from onlookers well, and there was only so much of those noises Zevran could pass off as a cough or a sneeze.

The Senior Enchanter kept moving until she was standing in front of Aneirin, watching him like he was her long-lost child (ooh, and wouldn't that have been a juicy story! A mage's illicit son, taken away and raised by Brecilian fog beasties!).

"I thought they had killed you," she whispered.

Aneirin nodded. "They very nearly did," he said gravely. "The Templars ran me through out here, while I was searching for the Dalish, and left me for dead."

Wynne clapped a hand over her mouth and either coughed or sobbed into it a little– Zevran suspected it was the latter of these. Leliana and Alistair passed him and Rhodri to hover around Wynne, dispensing awkward little back pats and sympathetic coos.

"I brought this on you," Wynne choked. "This is all my fault, Aneirin. How did you even–?"

Aneirin smiled sadly and shook his head. "Do not be so fretful, Wynne. Come, sit with me awhile and I'll tell you what happened." He looked past her to the others. "You're all welcome to join. Please, I'll make some tea for all of us."