The next day passed slowly. Not the bad kind of slowly, where time snailed by when it ought to have flown, as the last days had been. Rather, the hours meandered along, unbound by the need to go at any other pace. Breakfast was taken leisurely, and chores were completed in much the same way. If this was what a holiday was like, Zevran decided he could see the appeal.

Perhaps one day, when he was living in Minrathous (assuming he lived that long, of course, and that Rhodri had made the offer in honesty), he would have the funds and opportunity to take a vacation. A day or two at the beach, where his only obligations were semi-regular meals and a healthful daily walk along the sand. With company, even, if Rhodri was willing to be seen in public with him. On the balance of probability, it didn't seem far-fetched; he decided to file it away and mention the idea to her at a later date.

Aneirin, as it happened, had arrived at the Dalish camp a day or two before the party, having made a beeline for them after escorting the party to the ruins. This had been noticed by Morrigan the day before, and it had become party-wide knowledge by that point that she could be found in the vicinity of the former Circle apprentice if needed. Going by the threatening look she fixed anyone who approached her, though, she should only be found if said need was dire in the extreme.

For Alistair and Leliana, the return to base camp came as a day off to them, and they spent most of it either in Leliana's tent or loafing about with Jeppe and Wynne (who was yet to hear of Aneirin's whereabouts). What Sten and Shale got up to was anyone's guess; they either bustled to and fro, with no indication as to what had happened prior to the bustling, or they rested. Zevran presumed that this was simply a continuation of what they had done in the rest of the party's absence, and did not speculate further.

Zevran himself spent much of the day following Rhodri about– for the simple reason, of course, that she was used to having him at her side, and it wasn't well to upset the orange-cart at a time like this.

Once they had passed Mithra the guard (who was, it had to be said, watching Zevran with a curious scrutiny as he and the Warden greeted her) and given their regards to Lanaya, their first order of business was a visit to Danyla, who it turned out had still not awakened. The attending healer had found the necessary antivenom the day before and administered it immediately, but postulated that it could take an entire day-night cycle before they would know if it had been given in time to make a difference.

With a bevy of shared sighs and hopeful remarks in their native languages, the two of them left to hand the ironbark over to a positively ecstatic Master Varathorn, who gave thanks and then, in the same breath, sternly advised his assistant that touching this wood would result in lethal consequences. Whether or not this was exaggeration on the Master's part was difficult to say.

Around them, the Dalish camp was buzzing as preparations for the evening's feast entered full swing. Children and the elderly worked together to tidy the camp– and the elders ensured plenty of games and stories throughout so as to maintain morale. The musicians were tuning their instruments, tightening knobs and humming the odd note at each other, or sipping water religiously and speaking in chant rhythms that they read from a book. The cooks were cleaning and chopping vegetables and meats, gutting fish, pummeling dough and boiling tea, churning butter and whipping cream, and adding lashings of honey to the latter of these for any number of Dalish desserts. How they made the masses of food they did in such a short time was anyone's guess, but the tables were already groaning under the weight of the delicacies by mid-morning.

Rhodri had asked Lanaya if there was anything they should bring to the ceremony, and Lanaya had answered that it would be appreciated if Rhodri would supply information of the later lives of the Dalish children who had come into her care in the Circle. This would be used during the prayers and acknowledgement of death, and of the celebration of their short lives.

Rhodri, of course, assured the Keeper that she would be happy to assist, and that was that. They were advised that the summary should be submitted to the story master, Sarel, who was sitting by the fire with a number of documents surrounding him. She and Zevran went to the man and introduced themselves, and after a short time pleasantly chatting and establishing when to hand over the information, excused themselves again so that the Warden could begin writing.

On the way back to the camp, the low of a halla snared Rhodri's attention. She looked around quickly, frowning.

"Did you hear that?" she murmured to Zevran. "That… my goodness, I don't know what you would call it… I suppose it was a," she make a low, rumbling honk which Zevran supposed to be an attempted imitation of the halla– and did it just loudly enough to be heard by a tea-sipping elder, whose sudden onslaught of laughter forced them to spit out the mouthful they had just taken.

To save himself from the same fate as the elder (whose reaction Rhodri was yet to notice), Zevran pinched his thigh hard enough to make his eyes water. He cleared his throat once he trusted himself to make noise without dissolving into giggles.

"That was a halla," he said carefully. "Have you heard of them?"

Rhodri's eyes grew starry. She touched her hands to her face.

"Oh-h-h," she cooed. "That's what they sound like? The children spoke about them often, and I've seen pictures of them in books, but not in real life. They're very beautiful."

Zevran smiled. "They are, aren't they? Come, you should take a look at them. The halla master might even let you into the pen."

"Oh, I–" Rhodri's hands pattered her thighs. "Would they, do you think? Let me look at them?"

"Why not? I imagine had you not intervened, the werewolves might have eaten them all by now." He touched a hand to her back to nudge her into motion again. "We can ask, and if they say no, that is the end of it, no?"

"Yes." She nodded hard. "Oh, my. Oh, how exciting."

He nodded. "You know, the Dalish call the halla their guides. They say that the halla lead dying elves into the Beyond."

Rhodri hummed. "Yes, so my students told me. I was so surprised, you know. I hadn't even heard of any other religion than Andrastianism until then. When Vunin– the first one– when she died, I wondered how she would find her way to the next life." She sighed. "Elrian and Aravas were both terrified that she would get stuck somewhere on the way, or lost. All I could say to them was that she was clever, and bound to run into someone who could help."

"Mmm," Zevran tipped his head thoughtfully. "If their Beyond does exist, I am sure there are Halla spirits who graze in the middle road. The journey to the Beyond is not meant to be full of confusion and anguish. The hardest part ends with death, so they say."

She smiled weakly. "Then maybe they all got the guides they needed."

Zevran returned her smile, with a confident nod to boot. "I am sure of it. Ah!" He gestured ahead, where the boundaries of the halla pen stood beside a boulder, and a single, white halla grazed placidly. "There is one now, see?"

Rhodri gasped loudly, and clapped her hand over her mouth. The halla, blessed with sharp hearing to detect all manner of forest intruders, had registered both of these actions, and paused in its grazing to watch her cautiously. Rhodri stood stock-still, watching back with eyes like dinner-plates.

A voice, high and flutelike, sounded from another part of the halla pen that was obscured by trees, and hurried footsteps accompanied it.

"Who comes?"

"Ah!" Rhodri held up her hands and moved carefully toward the source of the voice. "I am the Grey Warden! Forgive me, I hadn't meant to disturb."

A younger woman, who couldn't have been more than thirty-five, sprang into view, her shoulder-length mop of silver hair flopping with each step she took. She glanced at Rhodri, who was still standing there like she was about to be shot, and her eyebrows all but disappeared into her hairline.

"Oh, I– you can lower your hands, Warden, if you wish." She gave her a puzzled smile, and offered Zevran a friendly nod. "I was so absorbed in attending to the halla that your coming surprised me a little, that's all."

Rhodri's hands came down slowly. "Right. I… ah…" she gestured slowly at the lone halla. "Very beautiful."

The halla-keeper smiled and nodded. "She is. I hear you came from the Circle of Magi, Warden. You've never seen a halla, then?"

"That's correct, Madam," Rhodri mumbled. She paused, frowning, and then shook her head. "Well, no, I come from Tevinter, and was taken to the Circle as a child. There were no halla in either of those places."

"No?" The woman chuckled. "I think you might find halla in Tevinter, but not in your cities. You would have to look a long way out, where the clans are travelling." She beckoned Rhodri over. "Come here, then, Warden, if you would like to see one closer up. They don't bite, but they may spit or headbutt."

Rhodri's eyes widened. "O-oh," she stammered. "If they headbutt, wouldn't the horns pierce the skin and splinter bones? I wouldn't want my blood to contaminate them."

"It could happen!" she replied brightly. "That's why you must be gentle with them. They are kind animals, if you're kind to them in turn. Come."

In Zevran's periphery, Rhodri was watching him as though waiting for his permission as well. He shot her a grin.

"Oh, I think we can manage a little kindness, my Warden. Shall we go over together?"

His suggestion was accepted with alacrity, and they were led past the lone halla (the halla-keeper explained that she had isolated that one to hasten the healing of a leg-wound) to the rest of the herd. Hesitant as the halla were to approach–-Zevran was sure that being a human was of no help there–- the keeper coaxed one or two over, and within a few moments of making their acquaintance, Rhodri was crooning assurances to them, in Common and Tevene, that there were no finer or more handsome four-legged creatures anywhere.

And the halla! Zevran had never seen anyone act with such impunity. They chewed holes in her robe ("Ah, you are eating my clothes like the big moth? Bene, bene, I have others in my tent"), and roughly nosed her hand to demand more pats, and she looked positively thrilled about it all. In fact, so loath to leave was the Warden that she was visibly seen plucking up her courage (where had all that bravado suddenly gone?) to ask if she might sit nearby to listen to the halla while writing the eulogies.

The halla-keeper allowed it, to Rhodri's palpable, jittering delight. She and Zevran took up a place near the pen. While Rhodri wrote, Zevran helped himself to a piece of paper and a spare pencil, and took the opportunity to sketch the halla as they grazed. How long had it been since he last drew? He hadn't so much as picked up a pencil since taking the Merchant's contract–

No–

Ah. Well, that long, at least. It was a miracle he still knew how to sketch a circle, really. By the time Rhodri had finished writing some time later, the sun was setting and he had a drawing. Nowhere near his best; the legs of the halla were unsatisfactorily proportioned, and the twists in the antlers could have been smoother. But it captured them in their various states– grazing, nuzzling, monitoring, and sleeping– well enough to convey a general idea of the scene, and that was enough.

With thanks that bordered on profuse on Rhodri's part, the two of them left the halla and their keeper and in the last light filtering through the branches, they made their way to Sarel to deliver the biographies.

§

Zevran had never attended a Dalish funeral. Or any sort of Dalish festivity, when it came down to it. Keeper Uthria had told him of the customary welcoming ceremony, held for any city elf who joined a clan voluntarily. That would come after he had spent a season with them, by which point Uthria assured Zevran that he would be settled and have sufficient knowledge of the clan's customs to take his proper role in the proceedings.

But there didn't appear to be any new clan members; all the adults had their vallaslin, and the younger ones he had heard in passing spoke with the gentle lilt that permeated even the Southern Dalish accent. And that, in turn, meant that the particulars of that ceremony would remain unknown to Zevran for the time being.

Lanaya had said to him and Rhodri, when they were speaking with her earlier, that the evening's feast would not be the typical funereal affair, owing to the number of rapid recoveries following the end of the curse. She was a young woman, herself– barely twenty, it appeared– but she carried a gravitas that belied her age as she spoke to them.

"It seems a little strange, I am sure, to have both a sorrowful and joyful night put together," the new Keeper said to them, returning Rhodri's nod when she gave one. "Yes. But life moves in a cycle, does it not? Birth, life, death. They are inevitable, and inevitably reliant on each other. When the cycle moves rapidly, we must simply match it."

Rhodri nodded again. "Death is life, and life is death. We have big parties during funerals in Tevinter, in front of the dead person. People even talk to the corpse, so that they don't feel forgotten."

"Oh my," Lanaya's eyes widened. "Forgive my asking, but I have heard tell of… interesting magics in Tevinter."

"Please, go ahead."

"It is foolish, but… well, if you are quite sure... Do the corpses ever talk back?"

Rhodri chewed her lip a moment. "... Well, they're certainly not supposed to. That's more something I would expect from the Nevarrans."

"... Ah."

When the party had wandered as group to the Dalish camp (sans Morrigan, of course, who was already there with Aneirin), Rhodri paused on the outskirts and turned to Sten.

"I hope you won't need to be warned," she said gravely, "but in case you do: this is partly a funeral ceremony, and you are strictly forbidden from making any comments that criticise the Dalish, their customs, or the deceased for the entire night. Is that clear?"

Sten raised an eyebrow. "I am not to blame for the Dalish elves' lack of–"

"If you cannot trust yourself to speak politely–" she held up a hand as Sten went to speak, "politely by their definition, I would rather you restricted yourself to 'please', 'thank you', and 'my condolences on your sad loss.'"

A tense moment passed before Sten gave one brief, very stiff nod. "As you say."

The party was welcomed by Mithra, who escorted them into the middle of the camp, where a well-fed bonfire cheerfully roared. Logs and stones circled the fire in layers, always with two rocks between each log. The pattern was unfamiliar to Zevran, but at a guess, the stones were reserved for the elders, who would more easily maintain order among the younger ones than if they clustered, as young people were so wont to do.

A short walk from the fire, the tables were laden with food. There were roasted meats from every beast; two piles of golden-brown hearth cakes towered up to eye level at either end of one table (Zevran's personal favourite in the short time he had spent with the clan); string squash, baked to perfection, were spilling out of serving-bowls; huge cauldrons full of wildflower salads sat on the ground for both reasons of accessibility and the likelihood that the tables would collapse under their weight; vegetables, fruit, cooked and seasoned, and raw and cut into neat shapes; and of course, there were the bowls of halla butter and yoghurt spread throughout. Zevran's mouth was watering at the first glance. There were at least two hearth cakes with his name on them, and the shining, golden moment that they came into his possession could not come quickly enough.

The food, however, was to go untouched for at least the first part of the night. The first line of business was apparently the mourning rites. Not such a foreign custom, really, since Antivan funerals entailed mourning first and the wake second, too. Perhaps it was universal; Zevran presumed that the concept of misery followed up by food had a twofold justification that could have applied to just about any culture. The first was to hammer home the themes of deprivation and emptiness by ensuring that the belly remained bereft of food– an exercise in forced empathy, no doubt. And the second, of course, was to cut down on food bills; who, after all, was in the mood to eat after a funeral? Not many. Naturally, the Dalish had already prepared the food, so the latter reason was unlikely to apply to them, but perhaps they hoped to at least save some of the evening feast as leftovers.

And so, with the food unavailable, the Keeper escorted the party over to the seating. Zevran found himself perched at the end of one log, a stone on his left upon which Mithra sat, and Rhodri was on his right. The rest of the party went to the right of Rhodri: Leliana, then Alistair, Wynne, Aneirin– who had appeared at Wynne's side quite unexpectedly at the last minute, when it would have been improper to exclaim surprise– Morrigan, and Sten. Shale, whose size astonished the entire clan, was quickly given a place as the elves rushed to move the two stones at the end of the log, and with that, they were ready.

It was hard to know if the proceedings would be in keeping with the usual mourning ceremonies; there had, after all, been at least twelve deaths. Zevran had caught snippets of eulogies before when passing by funeral services, and they could drag on, seemingly in perpetuity, as the people left behind attempted to summarise an entire life in a handful of minutes– only to tack on more when the time they had allotted themselves had proved insufficient.

The Dalish, however, appeared not to be under any illusions of that difficulty. If anything, it was simply accepted that making tributes to the dead would take as long as needed. Sarel, the storyteller and man in charge of the eulogies, spoke lovingly of each individual, of their foibles and joys, their loves and devotions, and often of the prematurity of their end. Every now and again, Rhodri would glance over at Zevran from the corner of her eye, as if inspecting him for signs of grief. If he so much as blinked, she looked away again.

It was easy to see who of the deceased meant more to whom; some howled into their hands when Sarel reached certain names, and some soothed those criers, barely composed as they were. Some were obviously parents or other beloved relatives, tear-streaked and clinging to their partners or clutching nearby children to them as though the jaws of death lingered nearby, threatening to snap them up if their grip loosened even a little.

Once the storyteller pulled out a familiar-looking handful of papers, Zevran braced himself, and couldn't quite work out why. Sarel read the information about the three Dalish children Rhodri had supplied, and at the mention of the first name, Wynne sobbed, quietly and bitterly. From the corner of Zevran's eye, Aneirin and Alistair were attending to her with back pats and, in Alistair's case, a kiss to the temple.

Closer by– directly beside Zevran, even, Rhodri's entire body was trembling violently enough to make Zevran's own leg shake. Her breathing had become shallow and rapid, and if it stayed that way, she would pass out and fall off the log before the first eulogy was over.

He had had a plan not to look at Rhodri during the incident. She was, and may the Maker bless her for it, a terribly proud creature who had made it clear many a time that being observed or comforted during a painful moment was extremely unwelcome. Not least because it was evidently her policy not to experience painful moments in front of her party.

Perhaps this was a holdover from teaching days in the Circle. Certainly, it didn't do to lose one's head in front of children, who were less apt to comfort themselves or fully understand the circumstances. But the party were not children, and surely there had to be a point where these harsh rules could be put aside to let a little comfort in. Wynne was getting it, after all; why shouldn't Rhodri?

Zevran stole another glance at Wynne, who had the arms of Alistair and Aneirin looped around her, and even Leliana was reaching over and rubbing what little of her back wasn't covered by men's arms. Well, he thought to himself. That said enough, didn't it?

What to do, though? He had comforted a great number of people; marks were seldom entirely happy people, and when sufficiently coaxed and plied with sweetness, their guard often came down, and the distress flowed like a spring shortly after. But that was the difficulty, wasn't it? Which gestures were gentle, well-meaning things, and which ones were to be coupled with wine and tight clothing?

Zevran decided on a simple pat of the hand. It was subtle, straightforward, and had options for extension of the action if required. If, for example, Rhodri discovered that she needed to hold onto his hand and squeeze the living daylights out of it, that was doable.

Or, and this was rather more likely, if she didn't want any attention of the sort even at this degree of anguish, the brief touch would be over before she could request its cessation. Perhaps she wouldn't even take it as coddling, or whatever sinful thing she considered sympathy to be, but rather as a gesture of commiseration. That, surely, had to be more forgivable in her books.

His mind made up, he organised his body and lifted his hand off his lap, preparing it for the journey over to Rhodri's left fist which, along with her right one, rested on her knees in a white-knuckled clench. By the time his hand was moving, approaching the airspace above her knee belonging to her, Leliana had reached over and taken Rhodri's right fist in both her hands. She brought it up to her hands and kissed Rhodri's knuckles, watching her with her brand of cloying but undeniably genuine sympathy.

Zevran froze, pulling his fingers back for purposes of plausible deniability. Rhodri had, quite noticeably, stopped shaking, and now sat stiff and straight as a board. The breaths, too, had slowed to near-nothing. She stared down at their hands with eyes narrowed to pinpricks, and addressed the kindhearted Sister in a low whisper.

"What," she breathed, "are you doing?"

Leliana, who appeared to have mistaken Rhodri's reaction for confusion rather than affront, gave her the sort of pitying look one might have given a person who had never heard a kind word in their life.

"I am comforting you," she whispered back earnestly, and Maker bless her, she had the gall to look shocked when Rhodri then extricated herself from Leliana's grip and placed the Sister's hands back into her own lap.

Zevran, who had only now had the good sense to completely move his own hand away, felt a pair of eyes on him in his periphery, and a brief glance revealed that they belonged to Mithra, who had no doubt seen the entire thing. He met her gaze reflexively– being caught out tended to humble people who stared and dissuade them from further attempts– and to his surprise, Mithra's expression softened. She even smiled at him, though that, too, was laced with the typical pity, and then turned back to Sarel's orations. It was all too baffling for words, really. Insistent pity versus insistent rejection. How odd.

And how silly of him, of course, that he even thought to get caught up in it. Had he not decided long ago to observe Rhodri's simple wish not to be smothered with outpourings of sympathy? Not to involve himself in absurd emotional matters that he, a Crow-made husk of a man, had no business in or ability to understand anyway?

He had decided that. For his own good. And no doubt for Rhodri's, as well. She did better without people fussing over her, and if it was good for her, it was good for him.

Zevran shelved the small voice in his head that assured him it was not, and faced forward until the ceremony was over.

§

Once the funeral part had (presumably) finished, the people dispersed somewhat. Most of them made a beeline for the food tables, which Zevran considered to be a very sensible move indeed. The smell of roasted meat and hearth cakes had wafted over to him throughout the ceremony, and there had been times he was of half a mind to slink away and in stealth take one, just one, of the hearth cakes to tide him over until the end.

By the grace of the Maker, Zevran's self-control had held out for the entire proceeding, and it almost felt like he had been rewarded for it when Lanaya, in a show of the usual Dalish hospitality, invited the Warden's party to go to the buffet and serve themselves first. It wouldn't have been so awful if that courtesy hadn't been extended; there wasn't much of a queue– it was only half a clan now, after all. Even so, it was a good fifteen or so people fewer to wait behind, and that was victory enough.

It was when Zevran had put the second hearth cake onto his plate (topped with freshly-whipped cream and honey, no less) that he noticed a small stream of people making their way toward the healer, a wide-eyed Athras and his daughter leading them. No doubt it was related to Danyla, who by this point would be approaching one of the extremes in the life-death spectrum. The expressions of her husband and daughter didn't indicate which direction she was moving in: grief and relief, Zevran found, often looked the same from the outside. He didn't dare speculate.

And indeed, he didn't need to speculate; barely a few moments had passed before Athras' daughter bounded back into view of everyone and announced in something bordering on a shriek that her mother was awake and moving. Cheers arose and a great number hurried over to the woman herself. Rhodri, who up to now had barely put anything on her plate, was beaming and rocking on her feet, and taking a goodly helping of meat as she did. Zevran sighed for reasons only the Maker and his lungs knew, and took another two (two!) hearth cakes.

§

Those hearth cakes tasted even better than Zevran had remembered. Not dry, lightly sweet, and just the right amount of chewiness. And mercy, they were positively indulgent topped with freshly whipped cream and honey. It was all Zevran could do not to moan richly with each mouthful. Four hearth cakes for dinner! Like a scene out of someone else's life.

The dancing came on once the musicians had eaten and cleaned off their hands to take up their instruments. They started with slow, light music, and pairs and trios, most of whom had only just finished eating themselves, took each other in hand and led each other in gentle dance reminiscent of the way the water-birds glided on the lakes. The steps were long and languid, with wide turns and easy swings that approached hypnotic when Zevran watched on for too long.

It was around then that Athras appeared, all smiles and tears and gentle taps on the shoulder, and asked that Rhodri and the party accompany him to Danyla's bedside. Rhodri's haste to oblige was such that she stumbled onto her feet, and by the time they were at Danyla's side, she had almost wrung a hole in her robes.

Danyla, whose skin and eyes had finally lost their mottled look, smiled up at them– weakly, but with the unmistakable purpose of someone who had clawed their way back from death and wasn't of a mind to go back there any time soon.

"Well," she said to them, "I can finally thank my rescuers."

"There is no need for any thanks," Rhodri shook her head quickly, and squatted down so that they were eye level. "You must rest and regain your strength."

Danyla chuckled. "Surely we can agree on something to repay you." She gestured at Rhodri. "You were the one who carried me, were you not?"

"I was, yes."

"Well, at least let me wash your clothes for you." Danyla laughed loudly now as Rhodri's face took on the colour of a hot coal. "Oh, I heard you, all right. 'If shit sticks to your fur, Madam, you will be the one laundering this robe when you're awake."

"I–! Oh, that won't be nec– necessary," Rhodri gabbled, waving her hands fast enough to blur as Athras and his daughter both coughing out astonished little cackles. "I– oh mercy, that was– no, I'll… no, those robes are washed. Thank you. Sorry, I–" She shot up to her feet and clasped her hands together. "Forgive me, that was improper of me to say."

"Ah, but did shit stick to my fur?" Danyla pressed, her eyes twinkling now.

Rhodri gulped. Loudly. "Oh– ah… well, a little, but–"

The rest of the stammered explanation was drowned out by raucous laughter from the Dalish family, Athras' significantly quieter than the two women, but he was no less red-faced from the effort. Zevran smirked and nudged Danyla, who was improving by the second, and spoke in a loud enough murmur for all present to hear.

"Keep teasing our poor Warden like this," he nodded at Rhodri, who was hiding her face in her hands, "and you may have to make room on your sickbed for her." His remark was, predictably enough, met with amusement from everyone but said Warden, whose soul appeared to be in the process of leaving her body, and Danyla was a consummate good sport as she took Rhodri's hand and squeezed it.

"All right," she smiled warmly. "I'll behave and thank you all properly. I was never good at this sort of thing, you know. Athras is the more mature one of us." Danyla pointed at her husband, who smiled and confirmed the statement with a nod.

"Should've left to me, 'Nyla, I think," he said mildly.

It took a few more cycles of irreverent remarks, paroxysms of snorting laughter, and promises of renewed seriousness before the encounter reached its natural conclusion, but these things took as long as they took. The party looked a little fuller and healthier by the time they had returned to the fire– and the music had since picked up. Many danced in pairs, but others formed larger circles of four or more. Energetic and passionate, they were replete with jumps and spins and criss-crossing of the feet and twists at the ankles that looked effortless but would undoubtedly have injured anyone attempting to replicate it without the requisite years of practice.

To the surprise of the entire party, the witch was the first to join in. In the glow of the firelight and ignoring the eyes of everyone on her, Morrigan danced alone. She swept and spun with the drumbeats and orbited expertly around the small clusters of people, as light and replete with sudden vigour as a loose flower swept up in the wind. Even Alistair and Wynne, who could each boast a storied rivalry with the woman, had been left speechless.

Off to Zevran's far-right, Aneirin sat with his gaze glued to the witch. The saucy look he had usually been observed giving her was gone now, and his face was replete with softness. He was almost watching her like he loved her, Zevran mused, and then he wondered why or how such a thought would occur to him.

He shrugged at his own question, and his own stupidly fanciful notions, and went to get another hearth cake.

§

By the next morning, the party was approaching readiness for departure. The tents were packed, and the campsite was almost fully cleaned up. Alistair and Wynne were both well and truly back on their feet, thanks to a mixture of healing magic and brilliant concoctions à la Morrigan.

In fact, the only thing hindering departure was that Morrigan had gone somewhere with Aneirin without saying when she would return. Only Wynne was game enough to speculate on what they had gone off to do– which was to say that she found several clever ways of grumbling about the woman besmirching her former apprentice with her wily ways. As though that man had never undressed Morrigan with his eyes.

So bored of the diatribe was Zevran that he announced he would refill his waterskin, and crunched through the leaves all the way down to the lake. The water was cold as ice, and he had a demon's own job trying to refill the damned skin without coming into contact with any fluid himself. Oh, to be in a country where winter was nothing more than a myth!

The job done, Zevran dried his hands on his breeches (the air was too cold to simply shake the water off) and trudged his way back along the trail. When he was halfway back, he heard his name called, and paused. Mithra, who was carrying a large barrel on one shoulder, was coming from the nearby crossroads, down from the Dalish camp. She waved at him with her free hand, and Zevran smiled and waited for her to come to him.

"Good morning," he said with a smile. "We were going to visit you all soon, I think. Our camp is packed, you see."

"Ah," Mithra nodded. "Then you're leaving?" She frowned at her own question and shook her head. "Ah. Of course you are, yes."

Zevran smiled; it was hardly the first time a young lady had become flustered while talking to him. "We will shortly, I believe. We are waiting for one of our party to return first, though."

"Ah," Mithra said again. "Well, I'm glad that I caught you. I was… hoping to, truthfully."

"Oh?" He raised his eyebrows and chuckled. "How kind. It is always a pleasure to see you."

Mithra appeared to gloss over his remark, a resolute look coming to her. She pointed down at his hands,"You wear Dalish gloves. I noticed from the start."

He nodded and held them up with a fond smile. "A gift from the Warden," he replied. "My mother was Dalish, and I had a pair of gloves belonging to her before they were stolen. Rhodri bought me a new pair– from your Master Varathorn, I believe."

Mithra's eyes widened. "Your mother was Dalish? You said nothing. Was she expelled from her clan?"

"I do not believe so, but I never knew her," he shrugged. "She died during my birth."

"Ah."

The sympathy was always the same, wasn't it? Kindly, uneasy, always laced with relief that it had happened to him and not them. He dismissed the gesture with a smile and another shrug. "It is the way of things."

"You seemed unhappy last night in the Warden's company," Mithra said cautiously. "You watched her. I saw the way you wanted to reach out to her, but then you pulled away. It is in your nature to be kind, but you suppressed yourself. You fear her."

He chuckled and shook his head. "Oh, no, no. Not fear. A small misunderstanding, was all it was. Nothing at all, really."

She raised an eyebrow. "It seemed like something bigger was at play. The Wardens may be kind enough, and have noble goals, but underneath it all, they are still shemlen." She tipped her head from side to side. "Perhaps you would find yourself happier here, among your mother's kin. You could stay with us, if you wished. We need only speak to the First."

It was a curious thing to be the object of hostile glares one week, and after a handful of fleeting encounters– if they could even be called that– to be offered membership among those same glarers. Accepting the offer was impossible, given the way the Crows were apt to hunt people down. Even in the thick of the forest, they were not safe.

But Rhodri sat at the other side of the camp, over by the campfire where she constructed two stacks of sandwiches. One of those, Zevran knew, was for him, as it had been every day since she had first coaxed half her breakfast into him, and the impossibility of accepting Mithra's offer felt like relief.

"... Zevran?"

He hadn't been staring again. Especially not at–

Oh, for fuck's sake, he was.

He bit back an impatient sigh and looked at Mithra. She glanced at Rhodri, and then at him again.

"Is she forcing you to stay?"

Zevran laughed, almost a little too heartily, and shook his head. "Not at all. I am very glad to be by her side." He winked at Mithra, and her face fell. She edged closer to him, holding the barrel a little tighter.

"Forgive my forwardness," she said carefully, "but I think that will not last." Mithra caught his raised eyebrow and raised her free hand in half-hearted conciliation.

"Perhaps she makes you happy now," she said. "It starts like that. The differences are small things that mean nothing. And you hold yourself back, deny your own nature, for her comfort. You do it like a reflex."

Mithra shook her head, "But she will never do it for you. She is not evil. I do not think most shemlen are, but they are too weak to deny themselves for us when it counts. But the small things grow, and it always comes to a point where the shemlen are forced to choose between their own comfort and our personhood. And you know they will choose comfort, because they always do, and then they cry at us for daring to be upset about it." She watched him sadly, "We did not break away from them for no reason, Zevran."

"I really do not see the point of going to the human market for nectarines, Taliesen," Zevran shook his head. "I told you we can buy an entire bag's worth from Marla for half the money."

"And I told you,"Taliesen replied crisply, "that you can only get the Queen Andrea kind from one vendor in the entire city, and they're the best kind!"

Rinna snickered. "Never heard anyone squabble like the two of you. You're worse than an old couple." Her laugh grew louder, warm and vibrant and utterly enrapturing as Zevran and Taliesen playfully shoved her from both sides.

Taliesen had the most begrudging grin on him. "If you two knew what the Queen Andrea nectarines tasted like, you'd be shoving me out of the way to join the line for the vendor."

"Knew I shouldn't have let you go on that estate job by yourself, Tal," Rinna grumbled through a smile. "Never occurred to you to snatch a couple of these 'world-class' nectarines for your hungry lovers, so we could taste the goods too?"

"Oh, I did think of it. I took three when I was leaving the place." Taliesen shrugged. "I just happened to eat all of them before I got back– hey!" He grumbled a string of profanity, rubbing the spot on his head that Rinna had just reached up and swatted.

"That was from both of us," she announced, turning to Zevran and winking at him. He shared her smug grin and treated Taliesen to it as well.

"Ugh. Spare me, you two, would you? Now, look, there's the vendor," Taliesen gestured ahead through the bustle to a vendor on a very well-placed corner position. Close to the main road into the market, but not so far away that people coming from the backroads would be put off by the distance.

"I've heard she's very strict," he said to them. "She can afford to be choosy about who she sells to, and she knows it. You go up, ask for a bag, pay, and go. No arguments, no questions. Got it?"

Rinna and Zevran snorted in unison, and upon being prompted by means of a poke to the shoulders ('hey!'), they nodded and joined the single-file queue. Long though it was, the line moved quickly. A good enough pace, Zevran decided, that one could enjoy the view of the sea when there was a gap in the surrounding buildings, and to get a decent look through the windows of said buildings when the sea was no longer available.

Taliesen was the first of them to order, when their turn came. He placed his money on the counter, and the sour-faced merchant snapped it up. She briefly inspected the coins before pocketing them and shoving six perfectly round, gleaming nectarines the colour of smelted ore over the counter into Taliesen's outstretched thanked the woman more sincerely than Zevran had ever heard him thank anyone, and hurried away. He was already biting into one of the nectarines before he had finished moving to his little waiting spot off to the left of the booth.

Zevran was right: for the six hundred andris he knew Taliesen had on him– the spoils from their last mission together had paid handsomely– a person could have bought twice that from Marla. But Taliesen had always nursed a quiet adoration of the finer things in life, and if it had to be the Queen Andrea nectarines, that was the end of the argument.

Rinna was next with her own income, watching the vendor with the caution of someone trapped in a pit with an enraged bull. She mimicked Taliesen's motions to the letter and hastily joined him when she had received her own six-nectarine hoard. Zevran stepped forward, employing all the charm he had in him as he placed his six hundred on the counter. The money was snapped up, inspected, and five nectarines were thrust into his hands.

Zevran paused. Receiving less for the same money was not uncommon among elven customers buying from humans, though it tended to be done a little less blatantly. Even so, gently pointing out the discrepancy– as an error, of course– was typically enough to embarrass the seller into correcting the deficit.

"Ah, pardon me," he said carefully. The woman, who was already taking the money from the next person, paused with coins in hand, and looked over at him murderously. Zevran pointed his nose at his fruit. "I paid six hundred andris, but I seem to only have received five nectarines. I understand the price is one hundred each?"

The woman shook her head. "One-twenty," she barked back in a sharp, nasal Tevinter voice, and turned back to the human customer beside him.

Zevran glanced at Taliesen and Rinna for confirmation, only to find Taliesen was shaking his head wildly and beckoning to Zevran. Rinna looked between them uneasily, fidgeting with a leaf on one of the nectarines.

He looked at the vendor again and indulged the tonguelet of spite curling his mouth up at the corners, "Truly? But my friends, the two humans–" he gestured at Taliesen and a guilty-looking Rinna, who fidgeted with the hair covering her ears– "they paid only one hundred for their six."

The woman, who appeared to be getting a small flush to her cheeks, counted out six hundred andris, slammed them on the counter and snatched the nectarines out of Zevran's hands.

"No fruit for you!" she shouted, and from behind him, Zevran could hear the queue startle. The seller pointed at him, and then Taliesen and Rinna, both of whom were clutching their purchases to their chests and staring with wide eyes. "You two as well! You go, and don't come back!"

With a half-hearted laugh, Zevran scooped his coins off the counter and sidled away. Taliesen already had his head in the hand that wasn't clutching his remaining nectarines.

"Andraste's hole, Zevran," he moaned as the three of them slunk off toward their apartment. "Did you haveto pick a bone with her over that? Over one fucking nectarine? She's never going to serve us again now! If it meant that much to you, I'd have given you one of mine." He shook his head. "Shit. Shit! Why are you always like this?"

Zevran smirked and said nothing, letting the brief jangle of six hundred andris in his pocket do the talking for him. In the corner of his eye, Rinna held out three nectarines to him; he pretended not to see them.

He shrugged one shoulder. "I know well enough that I am an elf among humans." Zevran chuckled, "And yet, we are quite happy."

"Quite happy," she echoed. "Is being with them better than being around people you don't need to explain yourself to?"

Zevran looked down at his gloves and thought of the mother he hadn't met, who had no doubt been asked something like what he was being asked now, and he thought of Rhodri, who had brought a little of her back to him. He glanced up at Mithra again.

"Is it better?" she urged again.

He chewed his lip. "I hope," he said softly, "I need not choose only one." Zevran inclined his head to her. "Thank you for your hospitality, Mithra. I should go."

Mithra sighed and shook her head, looking outright disappointed. He chuckled.

"Oh, I know. Some people, no? I must really be my mother's son." Zevran laughed again, his lightening heart leaping a little at the truth in his own remark, and with a friendly wave, he wound his way back to the campfire and stood in front of the log where Rhodri sat making the tea.

"Pardon me, Grey Warden," he gestured with a flourish at the empty space beside her, "but this seat here, is it available?"

Rhodri set down the cups in her hand and looked up at him blankly. "My stars, Zevran. What a question to ask! As though you don't always– oh," her eyes widened. "Oh! Hah!"

Feeling oddly victorious, Zevran folded his arms and smirked down at her as a grin of her own spread her mouth wide open.

"Well now," she returned, smooth as a kiss, "that depends. Are you asking that as Zevran, or as some slick stranger?"

He waggled his eyebrows a little. "If you need to ask, I am undoubtedly the slick stranger."

Rhodri shrugged and picked up the cups off the ground again. "I can't help you there, then. This place is reserved for my friend Zevran." She raised her eyebrows warningly as she added, "And so are these sandwiches, before you get any ideas! I can make you other food, but you'll have to choose somewhere else to sit. As my Kirkwaller mother likes to say: 'Sorry, mate.'"

Zevran snorted, and there was absolutely no hint of warmth creeping into his ears, and his chest was not floating, and he wouldn't dwell on such absurd notions a second longer.

He fixed Rhodri with a winsome look. "I do not suppose there is any chance I could ask the question again as myself, is there?"

"Ah," Rhodri beamed and patted the space beside her. "Good to have you back, Zev. Sit, pretiotus, and eat these before you get any thinner." She addressed him seriously now as she held the sandwiches out, "It's good that it's you again, because I found some of that strawberry jam you like in the bottom of the food bag and made all your sandwiches with that."

For all their failures in the kitchen (and those were indisputably great in number), it had to be said that the Fereldans were unmatched in the field of preserves. Where Antivan chefs sweetened the boiling fruit with table sugar, their Southern counterparts insisted that crushed apples condensed the fruit flavour to the point of near-juiciness. So said the roadside vendor they had bought their jar from, anyway– and Zevran, who had fallen madly in love with it from the first sample, saw no reason to disagree.

"Ooh," he dropped down beside her and accepted the sandwiches with an appreciative hum. "I thought that had run out a long time ago. How good you are to me!"

Zevran ate slowly, letting the jam melt on his tongue before he swallowed his mouthful down. As always, Rhodri ate with him. She could have chosen to eat elsewhere, beside anyone else– and she had been invited to at times, but she invariably declined to move, asking them to come to her.

And it was understandable, really. She was a creature of habit. The environments changed as they travelled, but the company did not. Zevran was on her left morning, noon, and night, and for reasons unknown to all but her, she never sought to send him away. In fact, given that she noticed– and made a point of supplying him with, even– such pointless things as his favourite jam, Zevran could have almost been forgiven for thinking his presence was the preferred option.

How terrifyingly, wonderfully strange.

In the corner of Zevran's eye, Mithra was approaching the crossroads, rolling the barrel in front of her as she went. He watched her push it up the road to the Dalish camp with a private smile and didn't bother to scold himself for basking in the aching relief that he was where he was, and of the simple pleasure of one's favourite jam being noticed.

§

The party left the Dalish camp with the promise of troops dedicated to the Darkspawn effort. But it didn't do, Rhodri decided, to have the Dalish following them to Denerim and, at a later point, Orzammar. No, it had been agreed that they would meet six months from now, in some Fereldan town everybody seemed to know except Zevran. Even Wynne, who had spent all but nine of her forty-nine years inside Kinloch Hold, had heard of it.

Did these places really exist? Did Ferelden really exist?

Zevran pondered this as he watched his breath fog in the chilly air. Unnatural, it was, for the weather to be cold enough to see one's own exhaled matter. If Ferelden did really exist, it bloody well shouldn't, and the weather was reason enough.