The exterior of the ruins brought several things to mind. Dilapidation was the obvious first, and after a life in and around both the Rialto and Antiva City Alienages, Zevran was no stranger to a little decrepitude.
In Rialto and Antiva City, however, nothing and no-one attempted to claim the remains. The edifices– homes, shops, amenities– overworked as they were, crumbled in the absence of sufficient resources to revive them, and once decay rendered them totally unusable, they were abandoned.
Something entirely different was at play here. The forest had a greed that reminded Zevran of clients who had hired him for the express purpose of expediting access to an inheritance. Unable to wait for the ruins to fully dissolve, the wilderness simply advanced, with its roots and moss and vines, through every opening available (and some seemingly unavailable ones) to resorb the building before it could finish dying.
Perhaps the strangest thing the ruins brought to mind was the notion of intermingled elven and Tevinter designs. Was it even possible for the two to coexist? Zevran had heard plenty of stories of the mighty Tevinter Imperium indiscriminately laying waste to every elven thing it could reach, until nothing remained but rubble and people brought to their knees.
Zevran might have said that the impossible had indeed happened: that here, the two styles had been successfully married in the one building without trouble. But then, of course, the building had fallen to pieces and nobody– aside from the werewolves, he supposed, could have been tempted to live in it. Hardly the kind of marriage one spoke of proudly.
So.
The sheer size of the building was Tevinter alone; the elves were known to be economical with building space, even in Alienages, so as to not needlessly encroach on the surrounding nature. The grand windows and points in the gables were also reflective of the Imperial penchant for forbidding aspects that showed off wealth. What was the reason for that, he wondered. Was it a basic urge, as compelling as the need to breathe and eat and sleep? … Were the Tevinters at risk of dying from insufficient flaunting of their ill-gotten gains?
The dome on the top was elven. The pantheon of statues– each of the elven gods– lining the path inside like a boulevarde: elven. And the building material… that was harder to say, when Zevran thought about it. The Tevinters, he knew, preferred sandstone and marble, owing to their luxurious mottling, and they regularly imported it if it wasn't immediately available. The elves, though, were known to use locally-sourced materials, and the miserable grey rock this huge thing was made of was every-bloody-where in Ferelden. Had the elves and Tevinters designed this together? Taken turns annexing it and adding personal touches in a prolonged back-and-forth game of property ownership?
Interrupting Zevran's musings was a handful of werewolves who appeared from nearby bushes. Rhodri summoned a shield over the party.
The werewolf at the front of the pack snarled and rose to its hind legs, glaring at them with eyes as yellow as harvest moons.
"We are invaded!" it shouted to the others. "Intruders have deceived their way into the forest's heart! Fall back! Protect the Lady!"
Under those orders, the entire group of them turned tail and bolted into the ruin. Zevran couldn't help but feel a little dramatic now that he knew he had called so much of the forest 'the heart' since entering. He decided it best not to mention the mistake to anyone; it was one thing to be open about being ill-suited to the forest, but another entirely to out oneself as ignorant about it.
Rhodri stared after the departing werewolves and hummed. "The Lady," she murmured. "The werewolves didn't mention protecting Witherfang here, and that was the one they were all watching out for. I think this Lady and Witherfang might be one and the same."
"Wasn't Witherfang a he?" Alistair asked, frowning.
"That Swiftrunner character said so last time we met, but it's been a few days. Perhaps she's having lady days for the time being." She sighed, "Oh, dear. I do hope I don't call her the wrong thing when we harvest her heart."
"I… feel she might have bigger problems on her hands at that point," the Templar said carefully.
"I suppose so." Rhodri looked down at Danyla and patted her back absently. "We should get going."
§
The inside of the ruin wasn't so very different from the exterior, except that it was darker and revoltingly unhygienic. How it was this dim despite the size and number of windows baffled Zevran. But then again, given the abundance of mould and various filth and shit on the floor and walls, it was possible that they had actually managed to find a place that even light wasn't willing to enter. Zevran was heavily considering slipping his new gloves off while in the building to pre-empt any impregnating stink, which would have marked the first time he had removed them since receiving them.
His internal debate on the matter had proved a welcome distraction from the foetid stench of the place, the efforts of which were promptly scuttled when Alistair started to gag from behind him. Zevran, for whom the memory of scrubbing Alistair's dried vomit from his boots was still unpleasantly fresh, stepped to Rhodri's other side, out of the firing line.
Rhodri, however, turned toward the action with a familiar jar of green ointment to hand. She unscrewed the lid and patted Alistair's cheek.
"Breathe through your mouth a moment, frate," she murmured gently, dipping her finger into the salve and smothering a little under his nose. "This will help."
"Is that… burn salve?" he croaked. His watery eyes crossed as he watched her work.
Rhodri nodded. "Heat balm is the proper name, but yes. We used it in the hospital wing when cleaning infected wounds. The herbs have a fresh sort of smell, and the coolness revitalises the constitution… maybe we'll put a little around the nostrils, too… there. Try breathing through your nose again."
The Templar took an audible sniff and sighed. "Better," he nodded. "Lots better. It still reeks, but I can breathe without wanting to toss my lunch."
"Mmm," Zevran chuckled wryly. "I think that is about as good as we can hope for right now." He took the balm when it was offered and applied a little to his own nose.
Rhodri looked around the vast interior with a frown. "I don't understand how it can smell like someone died in here, and yet there are no bodies to be seen. Am I missing something? … Do stink glyphs exist?"
Zevran took it upon himself to indicate one of the many substantial piles of werewolf droppings littered around the interior. "I am not sure if you could call this a glyph, but for a non-magical object, it is very effective."
Rhodri looked where he was gesturing and froze. Her face took on a distinctly haunted expression.
"... Well," she said with a laboured matter-of-factness, "if any of you have ever wanted to lie to me without consequence, your opportunity's come." Rhodri gestured at the droppings and turned to the party. "Someone, anyone, please tell me that isn't what I think it is."
One of two things was happening to Zevran in the middle of the Tevinter Warden's descent into horror. Either he had indeed lost his mind yesterday and was continuing to float through life without a shred of sanity to his name, or his gut instinct was correct and he could be an irritating little shit to Rhodri sans consequence.
Which of these it was was impossible to say, and Zevran couldn't help feeling the matter was better left unanalysed as he leaned toward Rhodri with a stupid grin and gestured around the large room with a sweeping motion that drew the eye to many similar dung-heaps lying about.
"I'm afraid you mean 'what you think those are,'" he teased, "and I regret to inform you that they absolutely are what you think they are."
From behind, Morrigan groaned impatiently. "Yes, 'tis faeces, Warden. Steel yourself and let us move on!"
Rhodri shook her head hollowly, but fell into a walk all the same.
"I just don't understand," she mumbled. "They live in a forest. The whole world is their toilet, and yet they shit indoors… Maker's tits, they don't even clean it up afterward…"
She glanced down at Danyla, still unconscious and dribbling saliva down Rhodri's front. "I hope shit doesn't stick to your fur, Madam," she said, her voice down to a whisper now. "Otherwise once you're awake and healed, you will be the one laundering this robe."
§
Some people just didn't know how lucky they had it. To think, Alistair had had the nerve to gag in the upper parts of the ruins, which was nothing but windows! Ventilation aplenty! The ruins only went down (had the dwarves had some input into the architecture, too?). Down meant fewer windows, and less sunlight and fresh air, and it was unimaginably bad. As bad as the Circle, but without the terrifying urgency to distract them from the environment, and by the Maker, Zevran wanted to complain to his nearest politician about the injustice of being born with a nose.
Rhodri led them through the rooms and down toward what must have been both the figurative and literal bowels of the place with her nose wrinkled and her eyes in a permanent, contemptuous squint. If she said anything, it was either battle orders for the occasional confrontational beasties that showed up, or low streams of deeply disapproving Tevene.
"No lighting fires in here, anyone," she said to the group solemnly as they cleared the third flight of stairs. "I've read stories about exploding latrines because of an errant spark, and this place is as close as it comes to a toilet without actually bearing the name."
Alistair frowned. "Does that sort of thing really happen? Like, really happen?" He threw his hands outwards. "With a big boom and everything?"
"Oh, my word it does," Zevran chuckled. "When the gong farmers striked in Antiva City a few years ago, nobody was attending to the outhouses for weeks at a time." He snorted in spite of himself. "There was quite the wave of injuries and property damage from secret elfroot smokers slipping into the outhouses and exploding the things when they lit a little flame."
"You can't be serious," Alistair glared at him suspiciously. "A little light blowing up a whole outhouse? That doesn't happen."
He grinned back. "You should have been there, seen it for yourself. Or heard it."
Rhodri snickered. "What a thought. Lying in bed at night, dozing off as you listen to the calming waves and the nocturnal animals, and then bang! Your neighbour's toilet explodes."
"You laugh, but it has happened many a time." Zevran chortled. "I can see I shall have to find a witness to corroborate my evidence."
She smiled. "No need. I trust you."
Zevran attempted a laugh, but it came out as a breathless, near-giddy 'hah.' And why was that? Why was he breathless when she was acting the way she always had? Nothing had changed since she gave him those gloves, for better or for worse. It didn't make sense.
In fact, when he thought on it a little more, Rhodri really hadn't shown any sign of their talk having impacted her. Not a hint of any suppression of her own wants. No fingers brushing over his own by accident, no lingering gaze for even a moment. In her defence, Zevran hadn't done those things either, but it had taken work to quash the urges. And there, she was making it look effortless! He was so sure he had caught her out that night. Her face had gone so red, and then Leliana's remarks about how she had taken that hideously embarrassing dream of his…
Perhaps she didn't appear to be struggling, quite simply because she wasn't struggling. She could take him or leave him.
As she should, really. How very sensible. He was, as he had always been, a friend she had treated courteously. Kept him at arm's length a little more than the others, wrapped him in cotton wool, simply because he was who he was (though she had said as much kindly, rather than with disgust). Zevran ought to take a leaf out of her book.
And so he would, too. As though there was anything else to do. After all, he was a product of the Crows, not one of these bleeding-heart creatures like Alistair or Leliana. Let them drink their fill of her with all those embraces and nudges and tender fingers applying ointments and spells. Zevran had precisely what he needed, and what he needed was nothing.
§
The sorts of things living in the lower floors were adapted to the environment. So Zevran presumed, anyway. Spiders were the most common creatures they encountered, and Maker knew they didn't have a sense of smell. They must have been content to sit there in their house-sized webs for hours at a time, waiting for unwitting prey to stumble their way. It worked well enough; those webs weren't short on neat, dark gossamer bundles as big as the dog's head, hanging there like hams in a shop window. The whole thing made Zevran queasy when he thought too much about it.
Morrigan seemed the most at home out of any of them. She hummed with interest every now and again, especially with the spiders, and would mumble to herself about harvesting various parts of their anatomy, time permitting. But there was a (somewhat) unexpected contestant in Leliana, who would occasionally break the silence with the sort of remarks one would expect from a professional storyteller. Perhaps she was nervous.
"They say the Veil is thin here in the Brecilian," Leliana said at one point, entirely unprompted. There was no call for the commentary; they had simply passed along one of the corridors and were taking yet another flight of stairs down. "Things, spirits, pass through the weakened barrier and inhabit everything. Perhaps that explains the undead in here, or what inhabited that tree."
"You fool woman," Morrigan sniped wearily. "I said that upon meeting the tree."
"You only wondered what sort of spirit was living in it!" Leliana protested. "You did not say anything about the Veil."
"I said nothing about the Veil because nothing need be said about it," she snapped. "'Tis perfectly obvious that the Veil is thin here. Do you suppose trees and undead attack everywhere?"
"Well, no, but–"
"Truly, 'tis a wonder the Warden thought to bring you out of Lothering, least of all this far–"
"Hey–" Alistair snarled.
"Ah, Morrigan," Rhodri held up a hand firmly, cutting them both off. "Be a little gentle, if you please, remembering that Leliana is not a mage."
"Warden," Morrigan insisted, pointing at Leliana. "Having magic would not save her in the least. She makes insipid comments–"
"No, she doesn't–"
"And the way she stares at that simpleton Templar–"
"Please don't call Alistair a simpleton–"
"It is nauseating," the witch continued. "Anyone would think she had never seen a man before."
Rhodri snorted. "Now you're being absurd. They have men in Orlais."
Leliana shared a glance with Alistair, and then with Zevran, and then turned back to Rhodri.
"They… had men in the Chantry, too, Rhodri," Leliana pointed out carefully, looking a little more emboldened as Zevran and Alistair (and Wynne, presumably, though Zevran didn't care to look at her) nodded along.
Her eyes widened. "My stars, did they really? Men in the Southern Chantries? My goodness. What a time to be alive."
"They've… always been in the Chantry," Leliana confirmed, not quite able to suppress her astonishment at this level of ignorance.
Rhodri, however, seemed not to notice this surprise, evidently too absorbed in her own shock. She uttered a soft 'goodness me' under her breath, and led them over to a large, wooden door. The door, though slightly ajar, didn't cooperate and fully open upon Rhodri giving it a kick.
"Stuck, huh?" Alistair stepped forward and pointed at the anaesthetised werewolf hanging off Rhodri's front. "Here, let's get Danyla off you. You shove the door down low, and I'll get it up top…"
It was an amusing sight, watching the two Wardens crouch and arch strategically to avoid each other while repurposing themselves as battering rams. By the third go, the door broke in half, and stepping inside brought a bottle-thick tree root into view that had come up through the tiles and dedicated its life, it seemed, to being a doorstop.
The room they stepped into was colossal. High, vaulted ceilings stretched on forever, their sole supports now being the network of room-sized tree trunks that had found their way in from outside and spread their roots through everything. Even the wide columns, which lay in pieces on the ground, looked positively spindly beside them, and the piles of bones– no doubt belonging to people once–- were so small they might as well have been ant legs.
Alistair nodded approvingly as they stepped over said bone piles– and the rest of the same filth strewn everywhere.
"You know what?" he said, seemingly to no-one in particular. "I shouldn't like this place, but have you noticed it stinks less in here?"
Zevran sniffed deeply and nodded. "It's true. Ancient wet dog, I can smell that. But the worst of the latrine smell is gone here."
"Mmm…" Rhodri frowned. "The lighting and ventilation is no better down here than it was on the first floor. And it's certainly no cleaner…"
And that was the trouble with mystery, wasn't it? There was always something that came and gave it away, and rarely was it in the form of a friend whose clever prank had successfully confused them. They had barely gone more than twenty paces into the huge room when a dragon all but fell down from the ceiling onto the floor, and without missing a beat, breathed a substantial amount of fire in their direction.
Said fire, happily, was absorbed by a shield summoned by Rhodri, but even so. Was there any real need for this sort of a turn in the adventure? The spiders and various waves of undead had been more than enough, as far as Zevran was concerned.
"You know," she shouted over her shoulder as they attacked the beast, "I'd really rather we didn't kill it. Can we lock it in the upper rooms so it can blast the stink out– oh, bugger, we can't because we broke the bloody door!"
And that was the end of that. The dragon died at their only mildly reluctant hands after a brief but heated battle (so to speak), and the party elected to help itself to the bounty said dragon possessed on the way back– to be evenly split with the Dalish of course, Rhodri added quickly.
Further down brought more undead (why were there always undead?); underground caves with nary a hint of sunlight; and the occasional rumbling growl that echoed through the corridors loud enough to make the skin vibrate. That had to be caused by one of two things, Zevran supposed. Either they had magic for amplifying sound that would change open-air concerts forever were the knowledge to be made public, or Witherfang was, in fact, a wolf that was roughly the size of a dragon, if not two or three. Good sense and frazzled optimism allowed him to focus only on the former of those options.
Even lower in the ruins, and the werewolves started to come out. Packs of five or six, and the occasional bonus wolf that appeared out of nowhere. Had some of them learned magic? Perhaps taken a Crow hostage and forced them to teach these beasts the art of stealth? It was hard to say. The only certainty Zevran counted on was the feeling of relief when the werewolves died, and praise the Maker, they did plenty of that.
Lower still, and they were met with a set of werewolves that didn't spring to action, if only because the foremost of them called for it.
"Stop, my brothers and sisters!" it held up a paw to them, and then pointed at Rhodri. "We do not wish any more of our people hurt. I ask you this now, outsider: are you willing to parley?"
Rhodri scoffed. "How gracious of you to offer," she said, her voice dripping with contempt. "As though I did not offer the chance to parley long ago. You make us clamber through this oversized chamber pot and then pass it off as your idea? The gall of you."
The werewolf snarled. "It is not my idea. I am sent on behalf of the Lady. She believes you may not be aware of everything you should be, and she is willing to parley, provided your willingness to parley in peace is true."
"Hm," she turned to the party. "I have little faith in their words, but what do the rest of you think? Would you be willing to speak with them down here?"
All but Morrigan expressed the wish to at least attempt a dialogue with the Lady, whoever she might be. Rhodri took the loss with good sportsmanship, and looked back at the werewolves.
"My party has spoken," she said to it curtly. "Bring your Lady to us, then."
"We will not," the leader growled. "We will bring you to the Lady. She is in safety where she is, and we will not risk her coming to harm at your hands."
Rhodri drew in a long breath and let it out, and after receiving a gentle, prompting nudge from Alistair, she nodded.
"Take us, then," she said, "and if you touch a hair on any of my people's heads, I will flay your hides from your back with my bare hands."
The werewolf dismissed her words with a reluctant grunt. "You have no need to throw threats around. We do not wish to anger you further."
Morrigan laughed richly. "At last, a little sense around here."
"Follow me," it beckoned them toward a door. "And trust that if you break your promise and harm her, I will return from the Fade itself to see you pay."
Rhodri waved the warning away. "I never break a promise. Now, move it."
§
For all the talk about being escorted to this revered Lady, the walk down to what appeared to be the lowest and final room of the ruins was a short one. One corridor and one flight of stairs. They could have gotten there themselves in less time than it took to bandy words with the hairy security staff. Always the way, really.
A host of wolves lined the way into the middle of the room, forming a miasmic, toothy guard of (dis)honour that snapped and swiped at the air as they passed. Wet hound odour and death threats galore: just the welcome a person dreams of. Even dog-loving Alistair grimaced.
From somewhere off to the right, a woman appeared, as if out of nowhere. A… green woman, in fact, likely a spirit (unless, Zevran supposed, the Forest naturally spawned colonies of green people. Or the consequences of infrequent washing were being made plain). She had black eyes, and was entirely naked with the exception of a handful of roots and a head of long, black hair to cover strategic parts. Alistair stammered incoherently at the sight of her and dropped his gaze to the floor, which delighted Leliana to no end.
"I bid you welcome, mortals," she said to them in a velvety voice. "I am the Lady of the Forest."
Rhodri, who had been watching her with a raised eyebrow, took the salutation with a nod. "Greetings, Madam," she said. "I must say, you look awfully clean for someone who lives in a toilet."
Zevran and Morrigan snorted, only to be interrupted as a shield erupted into place to keep one of the werewolves– a rather familiar-looking one, actually, from lunging forward to crush her head between its jaws.
"You will not speak to the Lady in this manner!" it snapped at her.
The Lady's root-covered fingers draped themselves over the beast's shoulder; it fell still immediately.
"Hush, Swiftrunner," she said gently. "Your urge for battle has brought nothing but death to those you are trying to save. Is that what you want?"
Swiftrunner looked up at her sorrowfully and shook his head. "No, my Lady," it murmured. "Anything but that."
"Then we must set aside our rage and speak to the outsider." She turned back to Rhodri. "I apologise on Swiftrunner's behalf. His nature is a curse forced upon him, and he struggles with it. I am told you come looking for a cure, and there is one, but there are things you do not know about Zathrian."
"Of course there are," Rhodri said irritably. "I barely know the man."
"Indeed," the Lady said with a nod. "For centuries, we have sent word to Zathrian's landships as they passed this way, asking him to come to us and end the curse, but he ignored us every time."
Rhodri frowned. "He would not let the curse kill his own people. He seeks to end it."
"Zathrian made the curse, mortal."
Surprise registered on everyone's face but Morrigan's. Even Zevran, who wasn't shocked, per se– a little taken aback, certainly– had the good grace to raise both eyebrows.
"Can you substantiate this claim, Madam?" Rhodri asked after a moment. "I find it a little odd that a Dalish Keeper would allow a curse to persist that has cost him a good third of his clan."
"The proof you seek stands before you," the Lady gestured at the werewolves. "These are the descendants of a human tribe who lived close to the forest centuries ago. When the Dalish came, they tried to drive them away. Zathrian was a young man then, with a son and a daughter. The humans captured them while out hunting."
Swiftrunner let out a low, rumbling murmur and nodded, evoking a mixture of horror and disgust from the party when he elaborated on what became of Zathrian's children at the hands of the humans. As soon as he reached the word 'torture,' Zevran, who was all too familiar with what happened to elves in the hands of unscrupulous humans, was doing his utmost to block the rest out.
A white-faced Rhodri kissed her teeth and let out a sigh. "Oh, those poor children," she uttered softly. "And this curse Zathrian is purported to have invented, where does that come into the story?"
"He did invent it," Swiftrunner growled at his own feet. "He came to this ruin and summoned a terrible spirit, bound it to the body of a great wolf. So Witherfang came to be. And then he sent it to hunt the humans. He killed many, but a few survived their injuries and caught the curse through his blood. They became mindless, pitiful animals, driven into the forest." He looked over at the Lady, his face softening. "And then you found me, my Lady, and gave me peace."
The Lady gave the party what struck Zevran as a rather simpering smile. He had seen that look on patronising, do-gooder humans who would waltz into Alienages with the hope of spreading 'good habits' to the residents, and it made Zevran's skin crawl.
According to the Lady, Swiftrunner found her, and she was something of a balm for his 'bestial nature', as she called it. Taught him, and then the others he spread the good word to, better behaviour, showed him a newer, happier way to be. As far as Zevran was concerned, the only thing she had neglected to tell them was the manner of snake oil or hen's teeth she was having them sell to unsuspecting forest visitors, or what the startup fee was for joining her scheme.
That information never came, but it was incredibly vindicating to see Rhodri cringe a little at that.
"... Right," She finally said after a moment. "How, ah… kind of you, Madam. In any case, you said there is a cure. Please, if you would tell me about that, I would appreciate it." She touched a hand onto the sleeping Danyla's side indicatively. "This lady needs urgent attention. She is unwell."
The Lady shot her another simpering look, this time laced with sympathy, but there was a hardness underneath it that Zevran didn't care for.
"Zathrian is the one who can end the curse, mortal," she said gently. "You need Witherfang, and I can summon him. I have that power. And I also have the power to ensure that Witherfang is never found." She smiled with unconcealed flintiness now. "Tell Zathrian to come here and end the curse, otherwise I will make sure he never finds Witherfang, and his people will never recover."
The eyes of the room went onto Morrigan, whose bored groan had sufficient oomph to force her head back.
"The spirit has promised us to summon another spirit?" She threw a hand at the Lady, tsking loudly. "You must think us complete fools. 'Tis perfectly obvious that you are Witherfang!"
The Lady stared at her. "You seem very sure of that, mortal."
Rhodri gave an awkward, hunched little shrug. "Well, to be fair, Madam, we're all quite confident you are. We'd presumed as much for quite some time." She turned to the rest of the party. "You all knew, didn't you?"
The party nodded, with various murmurs ranging from "Certainly," to "Well, I had a hunch." Rhodri shrugged at the Lady again. "So with that in mind, it would be very helpful if you could be a little more forthcoming with advice on how to end the curse."
The Lady looked particularly unimpressed now. "Then I will make myself plain, mortal. A cure is possible with effort from Witherfang and Zathrian both, and I will not assume Witherfang's form until Zathrian is brought here. Those are the conditions for your cure."
"I see," Rhodri murmured. "And I don't suppose you would be willing to accompany us back to the Dalish camp for these negotia–" she stopped midway as widespread outrage flared among the werewolves and held up her hands exasperatedly, "All right, all right, he comes to you! Bene! Maker, but you people like to make things difficult!"
Zevran couldn't help but be a little taken aback by the uncharacteristic lack of sympathy the Warden afforded the werewolves. The situation was, by all accounts, a terrible set of crimes done on both sides, but there had been no such displays of frustration toward the Dalish. From a cursory glance, even the others appeared to have noticed the bias, watching on with varying degrees of bemusement.
If the Lady was bothered, however, she didn't show it. Her face remained as passive as ever.
"There is a passage outside this chamber," she pointed off to the right, "which will take you straight to the surface. You may use this to exit. Bring Zathrian as soon as you can."
"How kind of you," Rhodri scoffed, "to extend the illusion of courtesy." She gestured at the indicated exit, addressing the party with a weary sigh. "Come, then. Let's get Zathrian. Perhaps once a cure is supplied, the residents of this squalid pit might magically become housebroken."
Alistair clucked his tongue as they fell into a walk. "Rhod. That's not very nice."
"No," Rhodri agreed simply, and jerked her thumb over her shoulder, where the werewolves remained. "And neither are they."
§
"I don't understand how Zathrian could do that," Alistair mumbled as they climbed the passageway out. "Just decide that sending a third of his clan to their death is worth it, you know?"
Leliana sighed and glanced over at Danyla. "I hope this poor lady cannot hear any of this while she sleeps."
Rhodri, whose jaw looked clenched enough to crack teeth, grunted and shook her head, but said nothing more.
At the top of the passage, Zathrian stood with his head turned to the approaching party, unmoved by the surprised noises issuing from Alistair, Leliana, and Wynne.
"You!" Rhodri shouted furiously, pointing at him and flipping her hand up to beckon him with the same finger. Zevran had to hold in a snort as Zathrian's expression, already looking somewhat miffed at the sight of the werewolf strapped to her body, now advanced into deep displeasure.
Morrigan chuckled as Zathrian approached. "'Tis no surprise to see him here. He wishes to see if we did his work for him. Is that not why you have come, Sorcerer?"
Zathrian gritted his teeth. "Do not call me that, witch–"
"You will mind your tone when you speak to Morrigan," Rhodri barked. "I will not tolerate further offence!"
The Keeper gave a soft, contemptuous little laugh, and held up his hands. "As you wish. I suppose I should take the werewolf hanging off your body to mean that you did not acquire the heart?"
"'The werewolf'," she growled, "is Danyla. And I am quite sure you already know I cannot harvest the heart without your assistance."
"Ah, so you spoke to the spirit, then?"
"I hope the werewolves were lying to me when they told me that you," she poked him in the chest with a finger, "cursed the perpetrators, and then refused calls for help when it spread to innocents." She raised her eyebrows meaningfully. "Because that would mean that it is your fault that the Dalish camp was attacked, and that you willingly sacrificed, what, a third of your clan to save face and keep this ridiculous vendetta going?"
Zathrian's face flushed straight to purple, and he shoved her away from him. "How dare you," he spat. "I have sworn to protect my people, and so I shall–"
"What is left of them," Rhodri said coldly, drawing herself up to her full height and looking down at him. "You deceived me. How dare you put my people at risk! How dare you put your surviving clan members at risk of the Blight by willingly offering up the last two Grey Wardens in Ferelden to this absurd–"
"Enough!" Zathrian hissed, cutting her off. "How would you punish me for doing what I must, then, Warden? Would you have me go and speak to these beasts like some sort of shemlen diplomat? They are the same savages their long-dead forefathers were. They deserve to be wiped out, and not defended."
"These werewolves tried many times before to meet peacefully, Keeper," Leliana pleaded. "What would you have done if you were in their position?"
The air fell still as Zathrian looked over at the Chantry Sister, his eyes narrowed to pinpricks.
"What would I have done?" he echoed softly. "You have no idea, shemlen, do you, how it feels to hold your own daughter's lifeless body in your arms."
"Well, no–"
"How it feels," Zathrian's voice started to shake, "to take the length of a song to recognise the mangled body in front of you as your son's? Do you know?"
"No, I–"
"Then do not attempt to force me into their position," he snarled. "I know what they did."
"Zathrian," Wynne spoke up gently now, "you are not the only person who has lost children. Inflicting the curse on the ones who did it is understandable, but surely you know that the moment it spread to innocents and you did nothing, you lost all credibility. And now it has spread to your clan. Who is being punished now?"
"And you wish for me to go down there and absolve these loathsome creatures of their sins?" Zathrian threw a finger in the direction of the passage. "Is that would you would ask of me?"
Rhodri let out a long, loud groan. "Oh, you complete and utter thorn in my arse! I want you to make the cure, like you should have done centuries ago. Punish the werewolves for attacking your clan if you must!" She shugged with enough exaggeration to make Zevran snort inwardly. "I don't give a damn! They're a thorn in my arse, too! But I'll be watching to make sure you do the same thing to yourself eight times over first."
Zathrian, who had been listening to all this with a distinctly unimpressed squint, gave Rhodri an eyeroll that no doubt thrilled Morrigan, turned on his heel, and stalked away toward the passage.
Zevran couldn't help but notice that his Tevene was improving upon hearing Rhodri's stream of insulting remarks as she followed after Zathrian. Once upon a time, it had only been words that sounded exactly like their Antivan counterparts. Now, though, he was able to put it together in his head– albeit after she had said it: 'Had your mother only complained of a headache for one night. We might've been spared a headache living among us for hundreds of years, then.' It was hastily reconstructed, and nowhere near as succinctly put. Was it a common phrase in Tevene? It sounded common.
He grinned to himself, not caring who saw him, and all but skipped away to reclaim his spot on her left.
§
Oh, weren't these squabbles all the bloody same? Someone wrongs someone else. The someone elses wrong them back. Then the someones wrong the someone elses yet again. And then the someone elses bring in a third party to wrong the someones one final time and in doing so, end it.
Usually by death, in Zevran's experience of being said third party. How galling, then, that Zathrian wasn't even offering to pay him and the rest of the Warden's party for their services.
Zevran probably should have paid more attention to the proceedings. Zathrian addressed the spirit through gritted teeth, evidently unmoved to either attraction or bemusement at her barely-encumbered state. Had he forgotten what time of the year it was? It wasn't so warm down here that one could simply divest themselves of all their gear without regretting it shortly after.
And yes, the werewolves were snapping at him. Notably, however, not crushing his shiny bald head in their jaws– one could only presume that was at the behest of the Lady of the Forest.
On second thought, he definitely should have paid attention, if only to have an idea as to why a brief scuffle between Zathrian and everyone else in the lair had suddenly ensued. It had only taken a handful of moves from the mages (and the spirit, Zevran presumed) before the fellow was subdued. Well, lying on the filthy floor, wheezing heavily. Close enough.
The Keeper held up a trembling hand and shook his head.
"No," he croaked, "no more. I… I cannot… cannot defeat you…"
Rhodri tsked quietly. "Well, obviously."
That Swiftrunner fellow looked positively overjoyed. He sprang around on his back legs like someone was dangling an entire roasted pig above his head.
"Finish it!" he shouted. "Kill him now!"
Leliana, being the peacekeeping sort that she was, stood between him and Zathrian, only to have Alistair and Rhodri each grab at one of her arms and pull her back from the firing line.
"No– get off me, you two–" she looked at the spirit entreatingly. "Lady, please, stop him!"
The Lady, no doubt pleased to have another opportunity to silence the 'bestial nature' of the werewolves and impress some precept of enlightened peace on them, obliged the Good Sister.
"No, Swiftrunner," she held out a hand (was it a hand? Or a root network? It was hard to know what to call it.) "We will not kill him. If there is no room in our hearts for mercy, how may we expect there to be room in his?"
"I cannot do as you ask, Spirit," Zathrian said (do what, Zevran wondered in the middle of kicking himself for once again not paying attention when he should have). "I am too old to know mercy. All I see are the faces of my children, of my people… I– I cannot do it."
(Do what?)
Rhodri shook her head. "You wouldn't truly let this go on at the cost of your clan, Zathrian. Surely not."
"Have I lived for too long?" he wheezed, possibly to himself. "Perhaps I have. This hatred in me is like an ancient, gnarled root." Zathrian gestured at the Lady of the Forest, who had been kind enough to keep the werewolves quiet during his musings. "What of you, then, Spirit? You are bound to the curse just as I am. Do you not fear your end?"
(Bound to the–?)
The Lady of the Forest squatted down beside the Keeper. "You are my maker, Zathrian. You created me from the roots and the soil and gave me consciousness where there was none. I have seen and known so much, but more than anything, I desire an end to it all."
Naturally, it was only when Zevran started to listen properly that the conversation took a turn for the banal. There were goodbyes aplenty, bows, meaningful eye contact… oh, it was sad in its own right, Zevran supposed, but truly, wasn't this all the trappings of a peaceful departure? Certainly done more voluntarily and calmly than the deaths he had been tasked with bringing about– though he did maintain that as far as unwanted deaths went, he didn't know anyone who did them more gently and painlessly than himself.
And Zathrian and the Lady of the Forest died. They went as easily and unpretentiously as the ebbing tide, and in so doing, caused a cluster of humans– and one elf– to moult a hundredweight of hair as they turned into… well, themselves, really. With the exception of the unnaturally bright yellow eyes their transition had overlooked, they could have been mistaken for any other grossly unwashed, unkempt individuals one found around the Denerim Market Square.
On the plus side, of course, striking eyes could earn one a fortune at the brothel. And Zevran probably would have mentioned it, but the humans scarpered (with thanks, Alistair was pleased to note) almost instantly.
Danyla, unlike her human counterparts, remained unconscious post-transformation despite various magical interventions. Morrigan, who had tried a few spells of her own, frowned and used a thumb to hitch Danyla's eye open. The white– or rather, the would-be white had taken on a mottled, bluish hue. Zevran, who recognised the sign immediately, let out a hum that coincided with Morrigan's own murmur.
"A Vimmark adder bite?" he glanced at Morrigan with interest. "I did not know they came this far south."
Morrigan shrugged. "'Tis cold enough for them here. And they have more food." She walked around Rhodri, who was lifting the still-attached Danyla's arms and inspecting them. She pointed at a mark on Danyla's left inner-thigh, a small pair of violet puncture wounds. "There."
Rhodri glanced at the bite mark, and then between them. "Do either of you have something for it? Perhaps something to draw the venom out?"
"I do not," Morrigan said.
All eyes went on Zevran, who shook his head. "I am afraid not. It is not a favoured poison among the Crows. It would seem the venom has spread quite far, but she is still breathing without trouble. If we hurry back to the camp, her clan may well have something that will help her in time."
"Right," Rhodri nodded, giving a gentle pat to Danyla's back. "Let's move, then. We have some running ahead of us."