am "writing"

[panshiko]

apologies for crimes against creativity or whatever, but this is machine (LLM) assisted. backing up my ~40k-ish and climbing Dragon Age fic.


41721

# EVERYTHING chronological organization

- 9:25 (flashback): [Portrait](#dip1) - Circle of Magi

## Prequel/Panoptic Tower (9:2x)
- [Missionary Girl](#missionary-girl)
- [Scope](#scope)

# DAO/5th Blight

## 9:29

- [a Haunting](#haunt) - Circle of Magi

## Ostagar/the Wilds/Ishal

(9:30)

- [Transitions](#transition) - Ostagar
- [bad PUG](#pug) - Korcari Wilds
- [Ishal Offense](#ishal01) - Ishal Tower/Ostagar (near Kokari Wilds)
- [Washed up](#washed) - Korcari Wilds

## Lothering - Redliffe 1

- [Fear & Lothering](#fearandlothering)
- [Threads](#threads) - Lothering
- [Bloom](#bloom) - to Redcliffe
- [Confession](#confession) - Redcliffe
- [Trust](#trust) - followup w Morrigan
- [Dead Siege of Redcliffe](#siege)
- [Judgement](#judgement) - journey from Redcliffe to Circle of Magi

## Circle of Magi/A Broken Circle (Kinloch Hold)

- [Deconvolution](#deconvolution)
- [Regret](#regret)
- [Revenant](#revenant)
- [Portrait](#dip2)
- [Maleficarum](#maleficarum)
- [Lost in Dreams](#dreams) - The Fade (from the Circle of Magi)
- [Broken Circle Boss](#uldred)

## Redcliffe, again

- [Floating](#boat) - Lake Calenhad/Redcliffe
- [Fate](#fate)

## 9:31-ish

- [Lost Save](#save) - Urn of Sacred Ashes
- [Flemeth](#flemeth) - Kokari wilds

### 9:33-34??

- [Objectification](#rosesthorn) - Orzammar
- [Proof](#proof) - Orzammar Proving
- [Prison Break](#prisonbreak) - Fort Drakon, Denerim

---

# Areli's Prequel/Panoptic Tower

Areli Surana + Emma (human mage, not Amell) + others (polyamorous)

## Missionary Girl

The chantry’s stained glass, a beautiful mosaic of martyrs, pulsed faintly by candlelight; Dramatic lighting for Areli to consider this persistent human. It wasn’t that Kelli had been unkind; in fact, she radiated a bright, missionary warmth.

“You’re not Andrastan,” said the zealot so cheerfully, “but I see and appreciate your reverence. May Andraste bless you.”

She nodded gently to accept the blessing, but wondered why Kelli lingered. She had begun to suspect that her friendliness—possibly flirting—had maybe something to do with--

"Kelli, you're not.. doing this because I’m an elf? are you?,” she felt foolish, exposed, uncertain... until the other apprentice's smile faltered.

In spite of this, she bravely stepped closer to the elf, who stared at the floor, watching the hem of her robes brushing the stone. Areli’s throat tightened. Kelli was also a mage, yes, but a zealot, dripping with piety and shame. She was passionate, beautiful, frightening, pitiable, intriguing, intense. A very weird girl.

“I don’t know what you mean,” said Kelli, preposterously.

*She’s waiting for the right moment to talk to me about Andraste,* Areli thought with dread.

But then Kelli said something that surprised her, “You always carry that same book,” her eyes on the leather-bound tome. “The one with the faded sigil. You read it every time you’re here.”

“Did you know?, you and I,” Kelli paused dramatically, “are the only ones who come here to contemplate the same work. Mine is the Chant of Light, of course. But I wonder... what could possibly hold your attention so steadfastly?”

Areli felt bashful; This chapel was allegedly built a sanctuary, not for an interrogation. For a moment, it occurred to her to lie. She felt she could say anything and it would impress. The title in the faded sigil described Tevinter poetry she'd memorized. She could recite it, and this acolyte would receive the elven apprentice as a fellow pilgrim on a parallel path.

It would be mutual, romantic — two hyper-focused, obedient maidens from different worlds, acknowledging the other in soft respect. She imagined the acolyte’s gaze dissecting her, parsing every flicker of reluctance, every contrary impulse and reaction.

“Don't be shy. What could possibly inspire you to return, again and again, to the same pages?” Kelli repeated this invitation, leaning forward slightly more...Areli smelled lavender, dry starch of parchment, a bit of soot.

Her fingers tightened around the book’s spine. She should have lied, of course.

But she opened the book, revealing a mix of pages, chunks of desperate texts, handwritten letters... a salacious assortment sewn amateurishly into binding that was meant to appear dull. She flipped briskly through these pages, processed her audience's reaction, and snapped it closed again... the plain binding now just so extra defiantly ordinary.

"I'm sorry," Kelli was flustered, "That's not what I expected."

“You wanted to know,” for one heartbeat, Areli returned the intensity of Kelli’s gaze at her. Then Kelli stepped back, her smile brittle, perhaps apologetic.

“I… I should go."

Areli watched her leave, then opened the book again.

## Scope

The old observatory at the top of Kinloch Hold was a forgotten chamber, a dusty and round stone hollow, its windows narrowed to slits. Dust clung thick to the grooves where benches had once been dragged for lessons. At its center loomed a great brass telescope on a cracked dais—a relic and silent witness, perpetually looking up.

Emma sat cross-legged under its lens, her codex with its false hymn-book cover spread open across her knees. A scatter of textbooks and loose papers sprawled around her, some destined to be stitched into the codex later. Her quill scratched steadily as she copied constellations, weaving together her own observations, the actually accurate bits of existing charts, into something her own.

Areli also laid amongst the sprawl of papers, books and scrolls, freckles lit by a narrow strip of light from the mostly-covered windows.

“Tell me something, Em,” she said lazily. “Why is it that we could—” her eyes flicked toward Emma with a wicked grin, “—sneak off for a quick tumble up here, and it’d get us a scolding at worst. But if they caught us asleep or late to morning chant, we’d be scrubbing the dorm floors for a month?”

Emma did not look up from her page. “One’s more predictable than the other,” she murmured, adjusting the careful angle of a tiny star-line.

“Predictable,” Areli scoffed, rolling to her side to watch Emma’s fingers. “One is more sinful, supposedly. Or are we more dangerous asleep than scandalous?”

“Possibly.” Emma raised her brows in mock solemnity.

Areli laughed softly, reached across to doodle in Emma’s margins.

“Still… I’d rather like to nap.”

Emma’s quill paused. She’d been working out the puzzle of how to gift Areli that: a morning with their attendance covered, the smallest rebellion. So innocent, so nearly impossible.

They lapsed into a companionable hush. Eyes half-lidded, Areli slowed her doodling: faceless figures resembling them, entwined beneath a starburst.

“See? Perfect,” she murmured, head sinking onto Emma’s shoulder. The ink on the page wobbled. “Wake me in a century.”

Before Emma could answer, a soft hiss broke from the stairwell. Lily rounded the entrance to the observatory, hurried and flushed.

“They’re on rounds.”

Areli shot upright with a groan. “Lily, you’re a saint and a curse.”

Emma already had the hymn book tucked away, her chart half-finished. She held Areli’s hand to tug her gently toward the exit. Their footsteps echoed down the stairwell, hearts pounding, quietly laughing as they rushed to slip back into the bunk. Above them, their telescope kept its patient gaze toward the sky.

[^](#top)

# DAO (Aliwarden/Emestair)

plus general polyamorous yearning

## haunted harrowing

Emma was tired, and wanted to wake up now. The Fade had other ideas.

She'd walked a nightmare, answered riddles of the lazy bear. She'd already dispatched the rage demon, helped it find its confidence to become a rat, and then killed it. She refused their bargains. She was *done* with the Harrowing.

But the Fade wouldn't release her. The perpetually sickly green landscape shifted into a shallow slope. Familiar and tedious. She'd read about glorious fade visions. But hers were always bile green and yellow skies, muddy and dank brown, broken by gnarled roots torn loose. She stood at the base of a scar in the dreamy terrain, looking up at nothing.

Then, she saw the image of her mother.

Not as she'd been in life—weathered, practical, busy, prayerful. This version knelt at the edge of the slide's path, wrapped in burnt furs. Her face was turned away, but her shoulders shook.

"It wasn't my fault," Emma said, automatically.

The spirit's ruined eyes agreed: "No..."

It wasn't accusing; It was *grieving*: "We should have found a way," it said.

"Shit happened. People died. There was no way," insisted Emma.

Futile, trying to comfort the spirit. Was this part of the test? Would the spirit imposter attempt to posses or bargain with her, now?

"You weren't meant to survive alone," it said.

Emma froze. It looked at her with hollow eyes, skin pulling tight across the skull. The image suggested decomposition, but wasn't quite that—Stretching and shrinking, but rising, evaporating into air.

"But I did. And nothing was meant by anyone," Emma insisted as the spirit dissolved around the edges. "Also, this isn't real," she added, louder.

It reached for her with translucent fingers. The movement released something into the air—a scent, sudden and overwhelming. Floral.

The scent intensified into something dry and smoking, like incense for the dead. Emma recoiled. The ground beneath them softened, liquefying.

Emma's cold feet sank an inch, two. *Pulling*, hungry, patient. Her mother knelt at its edge, silently weeping.

Of course, another aquaphobia dream. She pressed her sleeve to her face, ignoring the fake Fade water, resisting the smell, attempting to will herself awake.

Her mother's form flickered and collapsed inward, vertebrae by vertebrae, the furs sloughed away, until only the eyes remained—two points of unbearable sorrow suspended in the dark. Then those, too, went out.

Emma woke to Jowan shaking her shoulder, his face pale and worried in the dim light filtering through the apprentice quarters. The floral scent lingered.

"Eme? Emma, wake up—Irving sent me. The First Enchanter wants to see you."

She sat up slowly, muscles aching.

"Good," she said, glad for the wake-up call.

Jowan frowned. "The Harrowing—did something happen?"

"Harrowing is an apt description," she said, "I'm fine," though her hands were shaking, and fingernails caked with dried mud.

[^](#top)

## transition - Ostagar

The mage encampment was a cordoned section of the fortress grounds, tents clustered around cook fires and makeshift worktables. Templars stood at the perimeter in loose pairs, hands near hilts, not quite at ease. Senior enchanters occupied the spaces nearest the command tent. Junior mages at the periphery. Healers near the supply wagons, where Templars watched them most warily.

Emma recognized the Circle's organizational logic immediately. Familiar geometry imposed on hostile ground.

She stopped at the edge of the encampment, staff grounded, and watched mages she recognized move between tents. Faces from Kinloch Hold. Apprentices she'd eaten beside, argued with through pamphlets, deliberately avoided. She didn't try to cross the boundary. That would turn distance into spectacle.

But then--

“Ah,” Wynne said pleasantly. “I don’t believe we’ve met.”

Emma had been turning away. She nearly walked straight into her.

Senior Enchanter Wynne stood with hands folded, expression composed into professional warmth. Her gaze passed over Emma with the careful disinterest one might show a stranger at market.

They had met. Multiple times. Wynne had supervised her practical examinations in the healing ward.

Emma felt the old, familiar sting: recognition without acknowledgment. Reality rewritten gently enough to pass for courtesy.

"Senior Enchanter," Emma said. “I was in your lectures,” She did not add when, or for how long.

Wynne tilted her head, as though searching her memory. “Have you just arrived? The Grey Wardens keep such irregular hours.” Her tone was mild, conversational. “I’m sure we’ll have time to become properly acquainted once things settle.”

"Of course." Emma didn't correct her. The slight was deliberate, professional. She moved on before the conversation could become instruction.

---

As an unwilling conscript, she thought Duncan owed answers, but he dismissed her: "Alistair can help you with those."

A watchman at the fortress entrance had proven more informative than the Warden-Commander. He'd pointed her north, explained which sections of camp belonged to recruits, which to the king's army, which to dignitaries.

"You can't swing a dead cat without hitting somebody important," he'd added cheerfully.

And so Emma now wandered the camp's northern section, trying to orient herself. Soldiers argued over rations and rotations. Armor clattered. The air smelled of iron, sweat, wet dogs and wetter earth.

She was still processing that when raised voices caught her attention. A mage in Circle robes stood bristling on the highway threshold, posture rigid with offense. Emma recognized him vaguely—bureaucratic, punitive, somehow also libertarian. A walking contradiction she was mildly surprised they'd let out at all.

“What is it now?” the mage snapped. “Haven’t the Grey Wardens asked more than enough of the Circle?”

“I simply came to deliver a message from the Revered Mother,” a young man in splintmail said, haltingly. “She desires your presence.”

“What her Reverence desires is of no concern to me! I am busy aiding the Grey Wardens—by the king’s orders, I might add!”

The mage's eyes glanced past the messenger dismissively. Then past Emma, less than dismissively. as if she weren't there at all.

“Should I have asked her to write a note?” the young man asked, with a bratlike mildness.

“Tell her I will not be harassed in this manner!”

“Yes. *I* was harassing you. By delivering a message.”

The mage huffed. “Your glibness does you no credit.”

“Here I thought we were getting along,” the messenger escalated. “I was even going to name one of my children after you. The grumpy one.”

"Enough! I will speak to the woman, if I must. Out of my way, fool!"

To his credit, the messenger seemed to know exactly how to end the conversation. He stepped aside with exaggerated courtesy, then turned—and noticed Emma immediately. His expression cycled rapidly through surprise and something like cheer.

He was slightly tall, broad-shouldered, face young but already weathered. Sun-bleached copper hair had been mostly flattened by the helm tucked under his arm, but a single cowlick stood upright.

He said: "You know... one good thing about the Blight is how it brings people together."

"You're quite odd." She crossed her arms.

“You’re not the first to notice.” He tilted his head. “We haven’t met, have we? I don’t suppose you’re another mage?”

“I am.”

He looked genuinely startled. “Really? You don’t look like a mage.”

She glanced down at her robes. Her staff. The unmistakable silhouette of someone who had spent years in a Circle.

"I mean—you do," he rushed. "Obviously. I just—" He grimaced. "You seem… normal. That came out wrong."

"It did."

He rubbed the back of his neck. "Wait. I do know who you are. I'm sorry... I should have recognized you immediately. You're Duncan's new recruit, from the Circle."

“Why would you recognize me?”

“Duncan sent word,” he said. “He spoke quite highly of you.”

That explained a great deal.

"Let me try again." He straightened slightly, attempting something like formality. "I'm Alistair. The new Grey Warden." The emphasis on 'new' carried obvious pride, like a child showing off a scraped knee. "Though I guess you knew that... As a Junior member of the order. I'll be accompanying you when you prepare for the Joining."

Emma: "The Joining...Which Duncan refused to explain."

“Oh. Right. That.” He waved a hand. “Nothing to worry about. Best not to think about it. It’s… distracting.” He pivoted abruptly. "Did you know there've never been many women in the Grey Wardens? I wonder why that is."

“We’re too smart for you,” she said.

He blinked. “Fair. But then, if you’re here, what does that make you?”

“Incredibly unlucky.”

"Ouch." He clutched his chest in mock injury.

---

The training yard was quieter at dawn, the kind of quiet that wasn't peace so much as exhaustion between shifts. Soldiers moved through the fog in small squads, trading rumours about the darkspawn.

Alistair was alone, checking a shield strap when Emma approached.

"Morning," he said without looking up. "Sleep well?"

"Well enough." She had rested. Sleep had not been part of the arrangement.

Emma stopped beside him and reached into her pack, producing two items and holding them out without ceremony.

"I wanted to give you these before we head out."

He straightened, curious despite himself. An apprentice's amulet. Plain copper, worn smooth at the edges, etched with a modest enchantment for elemental protection. And an ephemeralist's belt, the leather darkened with age, stamped by the Fomari. Its buckle nicked but solid. Tools, not trophies.

"These are Circle issue," he said carefully.

"They were mine. I won't need them."

He turned the amulet over in his palm. His thumb brushed the Circle of Magi sigil, as if checking whether it would burn him.

"You're giving me your gear."

"You'll need them."

No sentiment. No explanation. Just an assessment. And an unspoken, correct assumption that he'd be first in marching order.

"Right," he said after a moment. "Very practical."

He threaded the belt on, tugged it snug, tested the weight. It fit. Of course it did. She wouldn't have offered it otherwise.

"Thank you," he added, quieter. "I mean that."

She nodded once. He noticed she didn't seem to want his gratitude. Just accepted the acknowledgment and moved on.

"Duncan wants us in the Wilds after breakfast," Alistair said, fastening the amulet beneath his mail. "You'll meet the other recruits then. Daveth and Jory. They're… well. You'll see."

Then, casually, as if the thought had just occurred to her—and she weren't repeating a question he'd already refused to answer:

"And the Joining?"

He stilled. Was this a reason she had given him these things?

"Secret ritual," she continued, ticking points off on her fingers. "Darkspawn blood. Former templar oversight." Her gaze lifted to his. "Any Circle-trained mage would call this suspicious."

He exhaled through his nose.

"Then it's good you're not in the Circle anymore," he said, attempting levity and missing by inches. "Look, Duncan wouldn't— he's not like that."

"Like what?"

The question was neutral. Clinical. It wasn't an accusation. That was worse.

He shifted his weight, shield strap creaking. "He's not reckless. He's a good man."

"Good men can still do dangerous things," Emma said. "Especially when they deem it necessary."

Alistair frowned, not offended so much as unsettled. "You think this is blood magic."

"I think it involves blood," she said. "I think it's secret. There's no informed consent."

"And you think I'd be concerned, because I was a templar."

She didn't answer immediately. She watched him answer for her.

"If that's what you're worried about—I'm here because I didn't want to spend my life chanting and hunting mages. Duncan… gave me a way out. He asked me to be here. And I trust him."

"So you're not opposed to forbidden magic."

He let out a short, surprised laugh. "Is that what this is? An interview? Do you want to ask me about anything else, while you're at it?"

"A risk assessment."

"Charming."

"Necessary."

He considered that, then nodded, reluctantly. "I spent years in that chantry, hopelessly resigned to my fate," he said, more bluntly than before. "They raised me. The grand cleric wouldn't have let me go if Duncan never forced the issue. I'll always be grateful."

"He needed a recruit," she said.

"Sure," he said at once. Too fast. "But he wanted to help. Duncan saw I wasn't happy, and figured my training against mages could double for fighting darkspawn."

He planted his feet like something was about to be taken from him.

"Those things aren't mutually exclusive," she said.

He went quiet. When he spoke again, his voice had lost its defensive edge.

"Look. I know it's scary. I was terrified. Still am, some days. But the Grey Wardens have fought Blights for centuries. They know what they're doing."

"Do they?"

He met her eyes this time.

"I have to believe they do," he said. "Because if they don't, we're all fucked anyway."

## bad PUG

The Wilds swallowed sound sickly. Not silence—worse, a total drone. Insects whining, water slapping mud, reeds whispering. Boots squelched through shallow black muck that released methane bubbles with each step.

Emma scanned automatically: lines of sight, tree density, angles she could fire through. The Circle had trained her in practice halls within the tower's neat spiral geometry. This swamp had too much liquid motion, too much swaying brush. Her stomach churned. The staff at her back felt heavier with each breath.

Ahead, Alistair stomped across a fallen log, steel clanking like he wanted to be heard for miles.

The other Warden recruits lingered with her. Daveth's arrow was half-knocked, as if he meant to draw on the bugs. “Maker’s breath, are we doing this with him in charge?”

Jory whispered, not that quietly, “He said he’s only killed one darkspawn.”

Emma stopped. The others nearly collided with her. Jory clipped her shoulder.

Alistair looked back, startled. Jory and Daveth exchanged glances.

"You go first," she said flatly to Jory, who scrambled over the log after Alistair. She followed. Daveth moved reluctantly, staring at the marsh ahead, tense on his bow.

Emma caught up to Alistair just as he tried conversation.

"In the Circle, did anyone ever tell you you're very—" He hesitated. "I was going to say 'intimidating,' but that sounds—"

"No." In the Circle, she'd been ordinary. Outside it, she was frightening by default. Everyone feared a mage. She'd always known this, but living it was strange, how the two recruits just... obeyed.

Alistair opened his mouth again, but froze. His hand shot up. His eyes were distant. Something moved in the fog. A wet, dragging growl. He pointed: "They're moving parallel to us."

Daveth squeaked, “Following us?”

Alistair: "No. Passing." His certainty was unnerving.

Jory's hand was already on his sword.

"Jory, *don't*," Emma said.

Daveth looked like he wanted to argue.

They waited.

The insect drone dimmed. Reeds bent without wind. Shapes drifted between trees—three darkspawn, moving on warped joints, hunched as if tasting the air. One paused.

Emma's skin crawled.

Alistair's hand tightened on his sword hilt, but he didn't draw. She could smell sweat despite the cold.

The darkspawn kept moving. One by one, they vanished into fog.

Daveth let out a shaky exhale. Jory looked like he might vomit. Emma wasn’t far behind.

---

The injured soldier was worse than she expected. Gut torn, intestines spilling through ruined armor. Already dead, just slow about it.

Where was the thing that inflicted this wound?

Bait. This was bait.

The dying soldier gurgled something—maybe “run.”

“Maker,” Jory whispered, stepping forward.

Emma caught his arm. "There's more."

"What?—"

"There's *definitely* more," Alistair confirmed, shield already half-raised.

Then the darkspawn broke through the tree line. Four of them, one moving faster than the others. Emma cast instantly. Lightning crawled up the hurlock's legs, muscles spasming.

Alistair charged straight through the arc of her spell. Her breath caught—but his armor rang. She felt a ripple of displacement. Her lightning scattered across him. It felt wrong.

His shield slammed into the hurlock’s knee, buckling it. Sword through the throat. Brutal, clean.

A genlock beelined for Daveth. He parried well enough; Emma fried the creature a moment later.

"Jory, LEFT!" Alistair shouted.

Jory spun too late. He screamed as a saw-like blade opened his shoulder. Emma pulled mana through herself like drawing water from a well. The wound clotted and sealed.

"Stay up," she snapped at him. "You're fine."

Jory looked at his shoulder, shocked that he was, in fact, fine. The last genlock charged Emma directly. Alistair interposed himself, it's sword scraping off his shield. He kicked it back.

Emma blew it apart. Sticky black meat rained on them.

Silence. Then the drone resumed, like nothing had happened.

Alistair leaned against a tree, panting. Emma inspected the now-actually-dead soldier, then Jory's shoulder. She applied a poultice to him.

She moved to Alistair next, eyes narrowed. "What's wrong with you?"

Alistair: "Oh... lots of things. Anything in particular?"

"You're bleeding."

"Am I?" He looked down at himself, baffled, tired.

She was already pulling at his mail, checking the dented sections until she found padding underneath, crushed flat. Deep bruising. Internal bleeding.

Her palm pressed the metal plates at his side. He flinched.

Emma: "There."

"Oh. Yes, apparently I am... Huh--I didn't even--"

He felt an odd sensation of blood reabsorbing, swelling receding. Pressure subsided; the internal ache unwound itself.

Alistair: "That's deeply unsettling. You do that very casually."

"I don't have to."

"No, please do, I'm not *really* complaining or anything... Just maybe warn me, next time?"

Emma ignored him, inventorying her satchel. Down two healing potions, one antidote, and far too much lyrium. For an encounter maybe ninety seconds long.

"We need to move," Alistair said, now thinking more clearly. "More could be coming."

A raven shrieked somewhere in the canopy. Emma's gaze snapped up, but the bird was already gone.

"What was that?" Daveth whispered.

"Wildlife," Alistair said, unconvincingly.

Emma studied the trees. Didn't share her doubts.

"We should space out," she said, warily.

---

The bridge appeared like a trap someone forgot to bury: rickety, half-rotted, spanning a ditch of filthy water. Emma hated it on sight.

"Something's wrong," Alistair said quietly.

"What kind of wrong?" Daveth asked.

"The... darkspawn kind?" He thought a moment. "A mage," he said.

"A darkspawn mage?" Jory's voice cracked.

Fire cracked from the far side of the bridge. It flung toward them. Alistair threw himself forward to take the brunt. The spell hit his shield and scattered—heating, blasting with soot, but not burning. The impact knocked him back. He hit the bridge with a steel-and-splinter crash.

Emma surged forward, staff lit. She could see the emissary now—hunched, robed in filthy rags, hands glowing with hateful power.

"JORY, get BACK!" Alistair wheezed, pushing himself up.

Of course Jory did the opposite. He charged past the bridge.

Alistair sprinted after him. The bear trap stopped him, snapping shut on his leading leg with a wet crunch. Alistair screamed. Jory scrambled forward in blind panic. The emissary fired again, enveloping Jory in flame.

Daveth loosed arrows at distant archers.

“Shoot the MAGE!” Emma begged him, as Alistair dragged himself free and hauled Jory back by the collar.

The emissary raised its staff for a killing blow. Emma hit it first: a crackling concussive blast that detonated in its face. The creature staggered, clutching its head, spell collapsing. Daveth finished it with an arrow.

Arrows rained on them, still—Emma stepped forward to blast her own fire, smashing the archers backward for Daveth to pick them off. They shrieked terribly—it was unlike anything human, animal, nor demon.

Alistair hauled Jory off the bridge, both of them collapsing on the bank. Emma yanked an arrow out of her own shoulder as the skin closed around the wound. Then she dropped beside them.

Jory’s burns were bad—skin sloughing, blistering. Alistair’s leg was ruined, bent wrong, swelling fast. The fact he’d carried Jory was absurd.

"The emissary was distracted," Jory protested weakly as she repaired the burns, gritting her teeth at the cost. "I thought—"

“You thought wrong,” Emma snapped at him, then turned to Alistair. She cracked his leg back into place with a brutal movement.

"OW." He yelped, offended. “Why didn’t you warn me?!”

She leaned toward him, voice low. “You should’ve let him run ahead.”

Jory still heard her. He went silent.

Alistair scowled, crossing his arms. "Right. No. Suddenly I understand you much better."

Up in the canopy, a raven’s silhouette watched them for a moment—golden eyes bright—before vanishing into the mist.

## Ishal Offense

Emma’s breaths were shallow as she crested the stairwell, boots splattering blood on the ancient Alamarri flagstone. Ahead of her, the armored warriors made their best efforts to shake off ash and charred meat, a bit like dogs shaking their fur in their rain. If dogs wore chain.

The other two warriors dragged their feet in flank behind Alistair, their armors and weapons also soiled, but his shield had clearly taken the brunt of this tower crawl. Layers of bloody soot and tainted blood, oozing thick like tar, streaked its once shining insignia beyond recognition.

The two Wardens and the men with them were about to turn a corner– literally. Soft vibrations from Emma’s healing magic lingered in the air, faintly echoing Alistair’s vascular flutter. Without thinking, she stopped behind his defensive stance.

The archer, a wiry man named Leif, pivoted the corner and immediately fumbled his knock. Emma watched one of their good arrows get lost in the dark.

She thought of Jory’s face—still too young, far too trusting. Daveth, who’d known better but grinned anyway, with nothing left to lose. Both dead now. The Joining took them hours ago, though it felt like days.

To her relief, Alistair held back, letting Rorik—the stouter of the two soldiers—launch first at the darkspawn ahead. Un-relief– the carnivorous noises of the provoked spawn sounded like a very large patrol.

Emma volleyed a crackling orb of entropic energy into the unfolding skirmish, the spell detonating in a burst of sickly violet light. Five shrieking genlocks scattered to ash. The risky explosion singed Rorik’s pauldron, but he rallied with a grunt.

Complacent with their momentary victory, Rorik surged forward—too far—and took a darkspawn bolt to the ribs from the line of crossbowman. He doubled over with a wet gasp. Healing magic cost more than what it would take to kill those things. If they could only reach them.

Leif loosed another arrow with shaky hands. It soared through the plume of dust and smoke choking the narrow corridor, disappearing uselessly into the dark.

“Hold!” Emma barked, but the soldiers were already leaning forward, eager to charge.

Alistair shifted laterally, his shield angling to block their advance while still covering the ranged threats ahead. The soldiers scrambled back to utilize the ballistae, instead.

She realized, dimly, that she’d moved without thinking—two steps back and left, aligning her sight-line through the narrowest span of corridor where all five of them remained visible, optimizing coverage as if she were in the Circle’s dueling hall. Her awareness of the men’s movements became geometric: angles, intersections, trajectories.

He watched her hands flicker; Alistair didn’t need to look to understand. The Circle taught mages to command space. The Chantry taught its Templars to deny it. His training drilled this, and its counter, into him. They were a rare pair, with both angles a part of the same front. They stood some chance, he thought, watching her shoulders rolling along this living diagram– itself shifting.

“Leif, left flank!” as they reloaded. “Alistair, hold center—”

He finished a hurlock from the center, already pivoting his shield as another lumbered into view. Emma’s staff pulsed with gathering energy, frost crystallizing along its length. She calculated angles, mana reserves, the distance between Alistair and the hurlock, the soldiers’ positions relative. The hurlock charged.

Alistair braced, shield raised, preparing to absorb the charge. But something was off, one tick. Emma saw his weight shift forward, saw him commit to a defensive stance that would leave him vulnerable to the follow-through—

Wait. Wait.

“GET DOWN!”

He dropped into a crouch instantly, training overriding everything. Emma’s spell crackled overhead, a lance of winter that caught the hurlock mid-stride and froze it solid. Alistair surged upward, slamming into the crystallized monster, shattering it like glass. For a heartbeat, they stared at each other—her body still ringing on the dissipating threat, him still braced for impact that never came.

“Could’ve warned me sooner,” he muttered, but there was something in his voice that wasn’t quite complaint.

“Could’ve trusted my timing,” she shot back.

---

The stairwell coiled around them; They were climbing toward the light, or what passed for it—the upper chambers where the beacon waited. The stones sweated, mingling with blighted ooze and combat viscera.

So they climbed. Then he felt it—the real ambush, from below. The floor trembled with the massing horde. The darkspawn had been tunneling, ascending unseen. The whole tower was becoming a trap.

"We have to go up." Toward the beacon. Same as ever. "But there's too many! Maker's breath, what are these darkspawn doing ahead of the rest of the horde? There wasn't supposed to be any resistance here."

“They're in the wrong place. *We're* supposed to defend from the top, down,” said Emma.

“Right, because clearly this is all just a misunderstanding. We’ll laugh about this later," he replied, annoyed.

But their upward offense went well, considering. Their rhythm was devastating: electricity and steel, defense and strike. It still seemed possible they would reach the beacon, call the reinforcements, and win the battle.

The stairwell emptied into the upper hall, a ruin of splintered beams and broken statuary. The darkspawn had stopped coming. The silence, nothing patrolling, seemed worse. Alistair froze mid-step; She stopped in his shadow. The floor heaved, sifting a soft, oily rain from the ceiling.

“That’s not good," he said.

Emma stepped back.

An ogre met them, defending the beacon: twelve feet of muscle, horns alone more than their reach, dark veins pulsing under ash-grey hide. Their entrance had interrupted its meal—something gnawed past recognition. It looked at them, chewing resentfully.

Alistair: "I think it knows we're here."

The ogre dropped the corpse, beat its massive chest and roared, spitting at them. The sound slushed through all layers, vibrating into the marrow. Everything Emma had been tracking—supplies, maneuvers, spell rotations—dropped right out of her head, replaced by the high ringing of panic.

But she stood unmoved, hesitating.

Alistair quickly employed the same strategy against this giant that he'd used against man-sized darkspawn. He drew its attention, taunting it away from the others.

Emma's staff snapped up instinctively, light coiling around her fingers. Off-beat rumbles from the battle told her: *no point in running.* Holding the top was their best shot. And yet—Rorik and Leif were shaking at the flanks.

"Go!" she screamed at them, as much as herself.

The ogre swung its club-arm in a wide arc. Alistair moved to block, bracing into the blow. The impact slammed him back several feet, boots carving grooves through grit. He was faster, but this thing was three times his size, with more times his reach. It was a grotesque siege engine. How many of those blocks did he have in him?

Emma anchored her staff with one hand, the other thrust forward, frost and lightning spiraling together. A shock of winter snapping into bursts of glittering vapor, carrying her charge. The ogre’s hide steamed. The frost staggered it, and their tank dodged the next swing.

He pivoted shield-first, the impact a dull clang, like metal on tree bark. The ogre countered low, its massive hand closing around him—plate creaking as it plucked him off the ground like a toy.

Alistair rammed his sword upward into its wrist. The blade sank to the hilt, black blood spilling over his arm. He wrenched it free as the ogre howled and hurled him against the wall with agonizing force. Monster, men, and stone—a stacked pylon, all screaming.

The mana ripped right out of her. She had never healed so instantly, so thoughtlessly, at this distance. She drank lyrium like water to compensate. Stone cracked and resettled. Blight soaked into new layers. More debris rained from above.

She did not know of the other soldiers, anymore. As she'd warned him, she had to choose. The domed ceiling pulsed magic back at her, healing bruises she didn't know she had. It felt like hers, but also strange. Alistair was cursing.

The ogre charged again. The tower trembled. Emma thrust her staff down, pulling from veins in the walls—the blue lines under the stone flared alive. The air sharpened with power. Runes erupted under the ogre's feet. It stumbled, slowed, but brute-forced through, claws scratching, stone vibrating. For the first time in her life, Emma found herself at the top of a structure, uncertain it could hold.

She raised her staff with both hands and screamed for fire. The ogre's hide ignited, molten cracks racing across it. The blast caught them both in its radius—Alistair following the ogre, negating the brunt of her blast that licked him, armor still flaring with heat.

“How many of those do you have left?” He called. Most of the ground was now ablaze.

“Not many.”

"Right." He slid between the ogre's legs, disappearing into smoke. It stumbled around, almost aimlessly. Turning its back toward her, she realized Alistair was climbing it, pulling himself up by his sword embedded in its back, bracing to plunge it deeper. Great globs of ichor hit the floor—he had wounded it dearly. It thrashed, trying to throw him off.

She risked another cast— a simple arcane bolt—snapping its head back cracking the ogre’s jaw sideways. Teeth flew. That got its attention. The ogre turned on her. She had seconds.

It charged, faster than it had any right. She dove. It missed, but she hit the stone, dizzied by the crack of her skull. She curled in on herself while the blighted creature rattled her, smacking the floor with massive hands. Her staff was lost, fingers burning, struggling to shape another spell.

She forced herself to breathe, exerting the pressure outward into a ripple of magic, sealing wounds, knitting herself back together, unsticking armor from unburnt flesh. There had never been so much lyrium running through her, but it was gone in an instant.

The ogre lunged again, grabbing at her, its elbow knocking Alistair back mid-swing. He was getting slower, she thought, as it lifted her from the ground. The sound of her own ribs popping, the lag of agonizing pain—dimly clued her into her own loss of time.

What had she kept thinking, what got her through the Wilds, through this unlikely upward offense? *Darkspawn die, just like any other creature.* Emma was also dying now, just like any other creature.

She heard Alistair taunting it, beyond comprehending words. Its grip loosened. She gasped. Air in her lungs snapped her lost time back onto her in painful frenzy. She hit the floor with more splash than thud. She clawed at her satchel, hoping her last lyrium potion was less crushed than herself. It was not. Her fingers curled around shards, absorbing residue through her skin, from mist in the air, as she'd done from the tower's veins.

Blood rushed back to her head, but she could barely see. It hadn't merely been her injuries; smoke was choking her out. She was dimly aware of a boot skidding past, metal sparking on stone. Backwards. She focused on sounds. Alistair, screaming, backed against a wall, pleading for help. She heard her name.

Crawling as the tower rumbled, somehow she'd found her staff with her knees, and twisted it toward the clamor. Frost crept up the entirety of the ogre, freezing it in place. Alistair dropped like a sack of steel. His cries silenced. She called for him unsteadily, then scooted herself under the frozen ogre, terrified.

Then—an agonized pitch, gasping: "Here—I'm here—shit—"

She pushed her hands forward into darkness, fingers grasping around a helm knocked askew, then a pile of metal and bone in a sticky puddle, breathing pitifully under the sound of ice breaking above them.

"Get up." She poured into him what she had, because... she was too slow to make their last stand, she realized grimly, fear tying her stomach into knots. No more potions. It, or them, would die within a minute. He sat up, wheezing. She quickly dropped the helm back over his face. He grabbed her, rolling them out of the way of a swinging club.

Head pounding, knocked onto her side, she looked up over Alistair's pauldron: They'd escaped a killing blow that had embedded the club into stone. The ogre pulled at it uselessly, distracted—Alistair's sword still in it, dripping, smoldering, hissing.

"Stay back." His voice was soft, hoarse, as he strapped the shield to his gauntlet. "Get the beacon, if you can." He stood, swordless.

The ogre turned, preparing to charge, but Alistair was already launching. Emma felt around—the air, the sticky puddles on the ground, looking for anything but blood—as Alistair feinted, dodged, swung himself around its shoulders by the hilt lodged in its back.

She pulled herself up against the wall, dragging her staff upright with her, as he brought the blunt of his shield onto its head. It stumbled, scooping gore from its face, as Alistair bashed again and again. Finally it smacked him off, disoriented, staggering toward her, then fell forward, reaching, screeching ruefully, half its face missing.

Emma didn't think. She lunged and drove the end of her staff through the hole in its head, silencing it. Then slowly slid back to the floor.

"We missed the signal," the other Warden mumbled weakly, pushing himself up, limping toward her. "Can you—?" He pushed the end of a torch before her, but she was falling apart, shaking, having so little to draw on she'd coveted the blood soaking her knees. A breeze blew through crumbling stone, carrying a deathly smell.

"Emma." She looked up and nodded, gripping the end of her staff still wedged at an angle inside the ogre's skull. Just a spark felt like everything. It was a good position—but how long could they keep a barricade and hold it like this? The pile of wood caught the blaze, lighting the valley of Ostagar below. The tower shook.

"We have to--" Emma tried to stand, slipping on ichor.

His urgency lost, he looked around, noting at last the corpses of the two soldiers who'd come with them.

"I'm sorry," she said, as he pulled his sword out from under the ogre's carcass.

"No, don't—" He wiped a layer of gore from his face. "Don't be sorry, really. We tried. Thanks for… um, this." Then he pulled at the staff—blunt wood now fully wedged into skull—and drew it out with a sickening creak.

"Alistair," she started, "if we barricade the landing, we can—"

"No." He cut her off. He shook his head, gaze unfocused. He pointed down.

She frowned. “Why? The stairwell’s narrow. We'll choke them.”

“You can hear it, below. In the tunnels. They’ll be moving up. Just like we did." He swallowed. "The swarm cut us off from the valley flank...from the battle. We’re isolated.”

“We have the height—”

"There's... there's a lot of them. A lot."

She looked to the stairwell again. “You don’t know that.”

He almost smiled at that—tired, bitter. He felt it in his blood. It would happen to her, too. If she survived. But she couldn't know, not yet. He had to persuade her.

“I wish I didn’t. I know how how it sounds... preposterous. Please, please believe me.”

The tower gave another low groan, rattling her gently. She crossed her arms. “If I did,” giving him the benefit of the doubt, "holding is our only option."

His eyes went to the window slit—a jagged wound in the wall, wind tearing through it. Beyond, the cliff dropped into fog and stone.

“No,” he said again. “It's really not. We can jump."

She went still. “Jump? Onto the rocks? No.”

“It’s not a good plan, but it’s the only one I got.”

“You think: we're not holding a fortress we *just* captured. But we *will* survive the drop.”

He hesitated. “No. And no. But what if... We could just jump, anyway."

"Why?"

"Because it’s the only direction left,” he urged her. It almost made sense, although the risk analysis did not.

"Please, Emma. I’d rather take this chance. But... if you'd rather hold... it's your call. I'll do it."

"You’re really sure about this?" she asked, as if she were actually considering it. He reached into his belt pouch, pulling a small cracked vial—lyrium dust, glittering faintly blue.

“I'm so serious. Here, Emma, I... I just looted this. Maybe you can soften our landing?”

“That’s powder. Disgusting.”

"Oh well, in that case, just forget it," he said flippantly, tapping his boot on the floor. He was taut, like a hound catching scent. If they were facing an enemy, she would have easily stepped behind him.

"Emma, they're coming—"

"I hear you—"

"No, now. I can feel them. Scouts, like-- a dozen, two dozen-- fast-moving. And below..." There was that pitch in his voice, again. She stared at him, then at the window, then back.

"I... I can't soften that drop."

"But you can try. Please. We need to go now."

The tower shuddered, its weight shifting below. He was already at the window, one boot on the sill, beckoning with that vial.

"Fine." She snatched it from him, uncorked, and snorted the powder in one bitter inhale. Her face twisted immediately. "Oh—that's vile—"

She turned, staff in hand, mana crawling down her neck, her arms, in blue threads. The darkspawn burst through the doorway. Scouts, lean and fast, arrows already knocked. As the first one loosed, she bolted after Alistair, at their point of egress. She saw fletching blur past. Felt an impact in her shoulder.

Another arrow punched through her side. She staggered, gasping, and Alistair was already throwing himself between her and the doorway. Arrows clattered off his shield—he grabbed her with his free arm, hauling her against his chest, her blood spilling over his gauntlet.

"Hold on—" She did. He jumped.

Time slowed. The cliff face blurred past, through the fog and the distant roar of battle below. Alistair felt darkspawn surrounding the tower, climbing the walls like ants covering something sweet and sticky on the ground. He tucked his head down, curling around her, shield angled to protect her—Knowing she was one head-bonk away from them losing their slim chance for her to magic them out of this. Somehow.

She felt herself clamped firmly to his breastplate, running slick with her blood. Frost flared wildly from her fingertips as she summoned sheets of ice to drag down their speed. Layers shattered, blasting them with cold. The ice falling around them created a numbing and violent isolation from the battle roaring in the valley below.

They were falling within in a giant snowball. The world became only cold and impact and cold and impact— She couldn't keep casting and holding onto him, both. Her grip slipped. The mana drained.

The last thing Alistair remembered: hitting something dark and yielding, Emma wrenched away from him by the impact—

And feathers?

## washed up

Emma turned against the strange bedroll, overheated despite the cool air that spoke of summer's end—lost, it seemed, during the battle for Ostagar. Her breath punctuated by cries and whispers as she drifted into fever. Above her, Flemeth's hand hovered, palm aglow with green fire.

Outside, Alistair sat hunched against the hut's wall. His fingers worked anxiously at his ring, muscle memory of chanter's beads. He thought of her in the Tower of Ishal, eyes far away as fire spread from her hands. *Maker, don't let her die in there. Not her too.*

"She walks the Fade even now," was what Morrigan told him.

As Emma walked the fade, cliffs were breaking loose from mountains, cascading tides of mud. Muddy waters spiraled and pulled her undertow. Her lungs convulsed against the murk, but her head and limbs were just heavy.

She endured nightmares of these waters her entire residence at Kinloch Hold. Through the surface she glimpsed the Circle Tower, then Ishal's spires against the sky, lit by lightning. In silhouette, dark wings unfurled feathers over the horizon, thunder rolling in their wake.

The light above dimmed. From somewhere distant, she was treated to a memory of Areli's laugh, quick and soft, the way it came through her nose when she was trying not to be noticed. Her curls of red hair across an open book, their hands pressed together on a single page.

*All I ever wanted was to sleep in with you—*

Slender brown fingers tied knots one by one, deft and certain. Another's hands, paler, broader, rougher, untied them. The woman sang, her melody rattled in Emma's chest. She reached for it desperately, but it writhed away from her, plunging into darkness. She grasped after it numbly, fingers upon fingers digging in a frenzy, shredding nails and skin to bloody bone.

Something vast inside the earth called to her, called to all of them, screaming and yearning in terrible accord, layered up upon itself in density, then erupted through the soil. The horde spilled over Ostagar like liquid tar, and the great fortress looked suddenly, impossibly small.

She did not want to be taken alive by the darkspawn. She was ready to be drowned by this lake, instead, waiting...how long does it take to die? She felt herself drifting toward that distant shore.

Then she woke quietly, strangely calm. When she opened her eyes, Morrigan's golden gaze met hers.

"Ah, your eyes finally open," Morrigan said. "Mother shall be pleased."

Emma’s throat burned when she tried to speak. “Where…?”

"Back in the Wilds, of course." Morrigan set aside a blood-stained cloth. "I am Morrigan, lest you have forgotten. You are welcome, by the way, as I have bandaged your wounds. How does your memory fare? Do you remember mother's rescue?"

“She rescued me?” Emma shifted, immediately regretted it. The hut tilted. “From the tower?”

"My mother managed to save you and your friend, though 'twas a close call. What is important is that you both live. The man meant to respond to your signal quit the field. The darkspawn won your battle. Those he abandoned were massacred."

The words stacked, one after another, with no pause between them. Emma stared at the low rafters.

"Your friend..." Morrigan continued, watching her. "He is not taking it well."

“My friend?” Emma quickly inquired. “You mean Alistair?”

Morrigan smiled, slightly. "The suspicious, dim-witted one who was with you before?"

Emma turned her head toward the small window. Firelight flickered outside. A shape moved beyond it, indistinct, armored. She couldn’t tell who it was.

“That doesn’t narrow it down.”

“Yes. Alistair.” Morrigan’s voice softened by the smallest degree. “He is outside by the fire. Mother asked to see you when you awoke.”

Emma closed her eyes for a moment. When she opened them again, she focused on Morrigan instead.

“Were my injuries severe?”

“Yes. But I expect you shall be fine. The darkspawn did nothing Mother could not heal.”

“What about Alistair?”

“He is… as you are.” Morrigan paused. “I suppose it would be unkind to say he is being childish.”

Emma swung her legs over the side of the bedroll, testing her weight. Everything ached, but held. She stood, steadying herself against the wall.

"Are we safe here? Where are the darkspawn?"

“We are safe, for the moment. Mother’s magic keeps the darkspawn away.” Morrigan gathered her things, preparing to hand them over. “Once you leave, ’tis uncertain what will happen. The horde has moved on. You might avoid it.”

“How did she manage to rescue us?”

“She turned into a giant bird and plucked the two of you from atop the tower, one in each talon.” Morrigan did not smile. “If you do not believe that tale, then I suggest you ask Mother herself.”

She struggled to remember their battle at Ishal. But she knew their offense direction had been upward, and doubted they had been rescued from its top.

Emma looked out the window again. Alistair's figure by the fire circled, restless.

“Mother is outside, come now, end your questioning.” Morrigan said.

---

Cold air bit immediately when Emma stepped out of the hut. The clearing was quiet except for the fire and the soft clink of armor. Flemeth stood near the flames, her posture effortless, casual. Alistair paced like a caged creature.

"See?" Flemeth said as Emma approached. "Here is your fellow Grey Warden. You worry too much, young man."

He spun. His face went through several contradictory expressions at once—relief, disbelief, etcetera. "Emma!... you're alive," his voice was fraught. "I thought you were dead for sure."

"Me too. but I'm fine," Emma said. The words felt provisional.

"This doesn't seem real." He took a half-step toward her, then stopped. "If it weren't for Morrigan's mother, we'd be dead."

"Do not talk about me as if I am not present, lad," The elder witch said, dryly.

Alistair flushed. “I didn’t mean— I mean— what do we call you? You never told us your name.”

"The Chasind folk call me Flemeth. I suppose it will do."

"*The* Flemeth? From the legends?" Alistair's eyes narrowed. "Daveth was right—you're the Witch of the Wilds."

“And what does that mean?” Flemeth asked. “I know a bit of magic. It has served you both well, has it not?”

“Why did you save us?” Emma asked.

“Well, we cannot have all the Grey Wardens dying at once, can we?” Flemeth gestured between them. “It has always been the Grey Wardens’ duty to unite the lands against the Blight. Or did that change when I wasn’t looking?”

“It changed when most of them were slaughtered,” Emma said.

Flemeth: “If you think small numbers make you helpless, you are already defeated.”

"Yes," Emma reminded her: "We *were* defeated. At Ostagar."

“We *were* fighting them,” Alistair faced Flemeth, voice rising. “The king had nearly defeated them. Why would Loghain do this?!”

“Men’s hearts hold shadows darker than any tainted creature,” Flemeth said. “Perhaps he does not see the evil behind the Blight is the true threat.”

“The Archdemon,” Alistair said.

Emma: “Alistair is the real Grey Warden here. Not me.”

He turned on her. “I’ve lost everyone. All Grey Wardens in Ferelden are gone except for us. For the love of the Maker, don’t back out on me now!”

Emma stepped back from him: “So I should take on a suicide mission?”

“Oh?” Flemeth laughed softly. “It must be suicide, now? My.”

“I *won’t* let Duncan's death be in vain," Alistair insisted forcefully, then softer: "Please, Emma... I can’t do this alone.”

“Will you help us fight this Blight?” Emma asked Flemeth; She couldn't look away from him.

"Me?" Flemeth spread her hands. "I am just an old woman who lives in the Wilds. I know nothing of Blights and darkspawn."

She noted the lie and said nothing.

“Whatever Loghain thinks,” Alistair said, pressing on, “he’s wrong. He betrayed his own king. We have to warn people.”

“And who will believe you?” Flemeth asked.

"I suppose..." Alistair paused. "Arl Eamon wasn't at Ostagar. He still has all his men. And he was Cailan's uncle. I know him. He's a good man, respected in the Landsmeet. Of course! We could go to Redcliffe and appeal to him for help!"

Emma: "You think the Arl would believe us? Over the teyrn?"

"If Arl Eamon knew what he did at Ostagar, he would be the first to call for his execution!"

"Sure," Emma said. "Like Loghain was an honorable man."

"The Arl would never do what Teyrn Loghain did." Alistair's certainty in the Arl pained her. "but...I don't know if his help would be enough."

"We need the rest of the Grey Wardens," Emma said.

Alistair: "I don't know how to contact them. We need to do something now."

"You have more at your disposal than you think." Flemeth's voice cut through their spiral.

Alistair stopped mid-pace. "Of course! The treaties! Grey Wardens can demand aid from dwarves, elves, mages--!"

"I may be old," Flemeth said, "but this sounds like an army to me."

"So can we do this?" Alistair asked finally. "Build an army?"

"I doubt it will be that simple," Emma said.

“And when is it ever?” Flemeth replied.

“I’d be happy with staying alive,” Emma said.

"That would be nice," said Alistair.

“Well, do not expect me to do everything,” Flemeth said. “There is one more thing I can offer you.”

“The stew is bubbling,” Morrigan said, emerging from the hut. “Shall we have guests?”

“The Grey Wardens are leaving,” Flemeth said. “And you will be joining them.”

Morrigan froze. "Such a shame—what?"

"You heard me, girl. The last time I looked, you had ears!"

Emma glanced at Alistair. His expression suggested he was reconsidering the benefits of being dead.

"Thanks," Emma said carefully, "but if Morrigan doesn't *want* to join us..."

Flemeth: "Her magic will be useful. Even better, she knows the Wilds and how to get past the horde."

"Have I no say in this?" Morrigan's voice was tight.

"You have been itching to get out of the wilds for years. Here is your chance." Flemeth's tone left no room for argument. "As for you, Wardens, consider this repayment for your lives."

Emma considered it. “We’ll take her.”

“Won’t this add to our problems?” Alistair asked. “Out there, she’s an apostate.”

“If you do not wish help from illegal mages,” Flemeth said, “perhaps I should have left you on that tower.”

“Point taken.”

"Mother, this is not how I wanted this." Morrigan's composure cracked slightly. "I am not even ready—"

"You must be ready. Alone, these two must unite Ferelden against the darkspawn. Without you, they will surely fail, and all will perish under the Blight. Even I."

Morrigan went still. Something passed between mother and daughter—recognition, perhaps, or resignation. "I... understand."

"And you, Wardens." Flemeth looked at them both. "Do you understand? I give you that which I value above all in this world. I do this because you *must* succeed."

Emma met her eyes. Another lie?

Emma: "I understand."

"Allow me to get my things, if you please." Morrigan disappeared back into the hut.

They stood in uncomfortable silence until she returned, pack slung over her shoulder. "I am at your disposal, Grey Wardens. I suggest a village north of the Wilds as our first destination. Or, if you prefer, I shall simply be your silent guide."

"I prefer you to speak your mind," Emma said.

Alistair evaluated their new addition. "Can you cook?" he asked.

Morrigan put a hand on her hip, eyes narrowed. "I... can cook, yes."

Emma: "Then you can replace Alistair."

"Right." Alistair's voice was flat. "My cooking will kill us. That's all I meant."

Emma glanced between them, Morrigan looking faintly disgusted.

She closed her eyes briefly. Fire. Smoke. The tower. Alistair’s face when he’d thought she was dead. Then she opened them again.

## Conscripts (Korcari Wilds to Lothering)

Morrigan guided them, stepping lightly, unbothered by the sucking mud, her cloak never quite touching the ground. The Wilds thinned reluctantly. Trees spaced themselves out. The air lightened by degrees, as if the blighted world had decided to tolerate them a few hours longer. Maybe a day.

“Well,” Alistair said, apropos of nothing, “that was… quite the introduction to the Grey Wardens."

Emma didn't respond, but he was bored, and felt chatty: "The Joining, I mean. And then Ostagar. Not exactly what you signed up for.”

“I didn’t sign up for anything,” Emma said, curtly.

He winced. “Right. Duncan conscripted you. I… forgot. How do you forget that?”

“Likely while trying not to die in a tower full of darkspawn.”

“Yes...That's a very plausible theory.”

They walked in silence for a few more steps. Morrigan spoke of a path narrowing, but it was not a path the Wardens understood. Brushes tangled them, slowing them down. Somewhere, something splashed.

Emma looked after the splashing warily, speaking without looking at him.

“How did you become a Grey Warden?”

“Same way you did. You drink some blood, you choke on it, you pass out. You haven’t forgotten already, have you?”

“That wasn’t what I asked.”

That made him pause. “You get this look when you’re irritated,” he said, attempting levity like one attempts a careful dismount. “Like you’re calculating exactly which spell would cause the most damage without technically killing me.”

“I’m still deciding.”

He wasn't entirely sure she was joking. But he grinned, a little too fast. “Right. Well. I was in the Chantry before. Trained for years to become a templar. That’s where I learned most of my skills.”

“You don’t *seem* very religious,” she said; As if she'd said worse to people she liked more.

“Oh, I know,” he said readily. “I was banished to the kitchens to scour pots more times than I can count. And that’s a lot. I can count pretty high.”

“The Grand Cleric didn’t want to let me go,” he went on. “Duncan had to conscript me, actually.”

She looked at him then. “He conscripted you? I thought—”

“That I wanted it?” He nodded. “I did. Desperately. But she wouldn’t release me. When Duncan invoked the Right of Conscription, I thought she’d have us both arrested.”

His voice dipped, not dramatic, just quieter. “I was so lucky.”

“Lucky?”

“When he came looking for recruits,” Alistair said, “I remember praying to the Maker that he’d pick me. I would’ve done anything to get out of there. And he chose me. Out of all the templar initiates. Some of them were brilliant fighters. Real prodigies.”

“Do you think it was pity?” Emma asked, carefully.

He frowned, considering. “I don’t know. Maybe. I’d like to think he saw something in me. That it wasn’t just…” He trailed off, then tried again. “I’ll always be thankful to Duncan for recruiting me. If it hadn’t been for him, I would never—”

He paused; It was a heavy pause. Empty. And tried to continue:

“I wouldn’t have…” He stopped entirely.

They stood there. Morrigan did not turn around.

Emma watched him. His shoulders had gone rigid, like he was bracing for impact that wasn’t coming.

She reached out-- But her fingers met cold armor. Of course. She pulled her hand back before he could notice.

What were you supposed to do? Pat iron? Knock politely?

Alistair inhaled sharply and straightened, already retreating. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t be— It’s fine. He died a hero. They all did. That’s what matters.” He stomped forward, armor clanking, conversation sealed off, barred from the inside.

“Come on. Let’s go. I think I’m done talking.”

Emma followed.

---

“You’ve been quiet.” Emma sat down nearby. Close enough to register as intentional. She set a cup of tea near him.

"Do you want to talk?" she paused, adjusted. "About Duncan?"

He didn't look at her. "You don't have to do that. I know you didn't know him as long as I did."

"No. I didn't."

She didn't withdraw. Didn't argue. Just sat there, waiting. The silence stretched, tense.

Alistair glanced at her sidelong, checking whether she was still there. She was.

"But I know what he meant to you," she added, finally.

His shoulders dropped slightly. He picked up his cup, wrapped both hands around it. It was warm. He focused on that.

"That's..." He finally looked at her, surprised. "You didn't like him much, did you?"

"I... don't know. As you said, I didn't know him."

"But you didn't want to be conscripted."

"No." Emma sat back, casually sipping her own cup. He could smell it. Hers was *very* strong.

"I... should have handled it better." The words came out rehearsed, like he’d been arguing with himself all afternoon and finally lost. "Duncan warned me right from the beginning that this could happen. Any of us could die in battle. I shouldn't have lost it, not when so much is riding on us, not with the Blight and... everything."

“You lost a lot. Grief happens.”

Here she was, with the tea, speaking in terms of cause and effect. Or inevitability. And she wasn’t wrong.

“It just feels like I’m wasting energy,” he said. “Like every moment I spend—” His voice broke, sharp and sudden. He stared into the fire, learning forward, furious at himself for it. “He deserved better. A proper funeral. But there’s nothing left to bury.”

"There can be a memorial, someday. If we survive."

He latched onto that immediately. “I’d like that.” He fidgeted with the cup, took a sip he didn’t need. “He didn’t have any family to speak of.”

“He had you.”

It hit him harder than she intended. His voice went very small.

"Part of me wishes I was with him. In the battle. I feel like I abandoned him."

"You'd just be dead."

He almost laughed. Almost. “I know.” Exhaustion smoothed the edge in his voice. “That’s the stupid part, isn’t it? That wouldn’t make him happier. It wouldn’t help anyone.”

"Have you--" He hesitated, then pushed through. "--had someone close to you die? Not that I mean to pry, I'm just..."

He turned toward her fully. The firelight caught the red rims of his eyes. Emma met his gaze without softening hers. Her eyes were dark and steady beneath strong brows. They usually gave him very little, beyond the persistent impression of being evaluated.

"Yes," she told him. "Multiple people."

Alistair was starting to question that impression.

“Do you still think about them?”

A sharp exhale. "Every day."

"Does it get easier?"

"I'll let you know if it does."

He gave a small, crooked smile. “Well. That’s honest, at least.”

They sat in silence. Not comfortable, exactly, but not unbearable either. Across the camp, Morrigan snapped at Muffin over something trivial. The normalcy of it felt cruel, but necessary in equal measure.

"Thank you," Alistair said quietly. "For not... for not telling me to get over it. Or that it's a waste of time."

Emma nodded, raising her cup of aggressively functional tea in salute.

Fear & Lothering (9:30)

## Math on the Road

They'd stopped because Morrigan claimed she smelled traders.

Emma had insisted they must barter, soon—perhaps buy first, while they still could. The money itself felt valueless in her hands.

The air hung thick with tallow and horse-sweat. Canvas stalls clung to the roadside like barnacles—turnips and bulbs, a rare salted meat, spartan baskets of dried herbs. Morrigan prowled ahead, coins beneath her notice, while Emma stood before a hunched merchant.

"You mutter numbers beneath your breath like curses," Morrigan observed, before wrinkling her nose at a wicker basket.

Emma squinted at the copper in her palm. "How many silvers in a sovereign?"

"Forty-eight," Alistair said. "Or fifty. Depending on whose sovereign it is."

"That's... not helpful."

"'Tis useful enough," Morrigan said, not bothering to hide her amusement. "'Tis proof of how arbitrary these tokens prove themselves. You Circle mages lock away power itself, only to tremble before stamped tin."

Alistair stepped closer to the peddler, ignoring her. "How about we give you three bottles of tincture for that sack of salt and the tea? Fair trade."

The peddler's eyes narrowed. "You're with the Wardens, then?"

"Just travelers," Emma said quickly. "Tired ones."

"Four bottles."

Alistair glanced at Emma. "Bit steep, maybe."

"Three and a half." She upended the purse. Coins scattered across the board like dice.

"Ah, behold—the Circle's finest arithmetic," Morrigan said dryly.

"Done," the peddler said, sweeping up the coins. "And no spit in the bottles, neither."

Alistair handed Emma the bundle. The cloth was warm, faintly damp from the road.

"Pleasure doing business," the peddler said, already turning away. "Watch the roads. The bandits are bold."

As they were leaving, Emma looked down at her hands.

"I kept ledgers," she said, apologetic. "I knew the price of frostweed in four provinces."

"You were rich in theory, then," Morrigan said.

"Have you seen that place?" Alistair said. "It's not just theory."

Morrigan scoffed. "And now, our enchanter is destitute in practice. A familiar Circle problem." She paused, then added with deliberate cruelty: "How do your ledgers avail us now?"

Emma sighed and tossed her a coin. Morrigan caught it without looking. The wind rippled through the tall grass, and the faint stench of decay drifted with it—sickly-sweet, like turned milk.

"What we owe," Emma said quietly, "might add up beyond counting."

The three of them walked on. The sound of the market faded into the fields. Morrigan trailed a little behind, twirling the coin between her fingers.

"The willows die faster this week," she observed. "Even the crows fly elsewhere."

"How cheery," Alistair muttered.

"If we trade the salt," Emma said, "we can hold onto the lyrium. Tea's lighter to carry."

"See? That's a plan. Simple."

"Simple, he says." Morrigan's voice was flat, amused. "'Tis never a simple plan, to depend on the whims of merchants and men."

Emma tucked the remaining coins away, a faint shadow between her brows.

"I still don't trust the sum," she admitted.

"Wisdom, at last," Morrigan said. "This world rarely adds up."

"It's fine, really," Alistair said, "You know, I think the merchant liked you. He didn't even try to shortchange us at the end."

"He pitied me."

"Pity's cheaper than salt. Take the win." He grinned. "That's worth more than counting."

"Fair."

"Welcome to the outside world," Alistair said. "We have lots on offer. Like moldy tea."

They walked in silence again, the road dipping through low fields. Morrigan had gone ahead now, a silhouette against the failing light, distant as a crow on a fencepost. She called back sharply—something about pitching camp before dark.

"How long," Emma asked, "to learn to live like this?"

Alistair glanced at her, then at the sun on the horizon. A dying brilliance of the day, just before twilight. "I'll let you know when I do."

## space

Alistair talked when there was space to fill. He always had.

It wasn't that he needed an audience. Most of the time, he assumed he didn't have one. Words drifted into air and evaporated. No follow-up. Gone the moment he stopped making noise.

They were walking on the Imperial Highway, a road of polished stone, tread over so many times the edges had worn down. She didn't look at him when she spoke. She rarely did, not unless something required it.

"So," she said, after he'd been rambling about nothing for a while, "you said Arl Eamon raised you."

"Did I say that? I meant dogs. Giant ones. Slobbering. From the Anderfels."

She waited.

"A whole pack," he went on, warming to it. "Flying dogs, obviously. Very strict parents. Big on the Chant. You wouldn't believe the curfew."

"That must have been difficult for them," Emma said, completely flat.

He looked at her then. She wasn't smiling.

"Well," he said, "they did their best."

"And then they sold you to the Chantry."

There it was. The follow-up. A thing that never happened.

"Oh, there you go," he said lightly. "Listening again. You'd think you'd have gotten bored by now."

He waited for her to say something. She just kept walking. Her staff tapped stone in steady rhythm.

"I didn't start there," he said finally. "The Chantry, I mean. Let me think. How do I explain this..."

He scratched at the back of his neck.

"I'm a bastard. And before you say anything clever, I mean the fatherless kind. My mother was a serving girl at Redcliffe. She died when I was very young. Arl Eamon wasn't my father, but he took me in anyway. Roof over my head. Food. That sort of thing."

He said it smoothly, carefully light.

"He was good to me. And he didn't have to be. I respect him. I don't blame him for sending me to the Chantry once I was old enough."

"He wasn't your father," she repeated. "Do you know who was?"

"I know who I was *told* was my father." He glanced at her briefly. She wasn't looking back. "He died before my mother did. Anyway. It isn't important."

He said it the same way he always did.

They were heading to Redcliffe. And he’d never worried about this before.

Would she remember he'd said that, too?

Emma nodded once. Alistair kept talking.

"Eamon married an Orlesian woman eventually. Caused a bit of a stir, what with the war and all. He loved her, though. That part was obvious." He smiled, thin. "She didn't love the rumors about me quite as much."

"What rumors?"

"The new arlessa resented the rumors which pegged me as his bastard." He shrugged. "They weren't true, but that hardly matters. She resented my being there. I don't blame her, really. If I were in her place..."

"Anyhow, so off I went to the nearest monastery at age ten. Just as well. The arlessa had made sure the castle wasn't a home to me by that point."

"That's an awful thing to do to a child."

He looked up. She was watching him. It made him feel a bit tilted, like staring into bottomlessness.

"She felt threatened," he said. "I can see that now."

He paused, then added, quieter, "I had an amulet. Andraste's symbol. The only thing I had from my mother. When they told me I was headed to the monastery, I tore it off and threw it at the wall. Shattered it...stupid thing to do.”

“Did the arl visit you?”

“Sometimes,” Alistair said. “At first. I hated the monastery. Blamed him for everything. I was… difficult.” He waved a hand, trying for dismissive. He knew his voice didn't quite sell it. “Eventually he stopped coming.”

Emma said nothing. He was making excuses. She could hear it in his words, said so reasonably. And of course, he filled the space she left him.

“I was raised by dogs,” he said. “Or I may as well have been. Maybe all young bastards act like that. I wouldn’t know.”

"They do," said Emma. She'd know. Most mage children are like bastards, more or less.

“The arl is a good man, and well-loved. He was King Cailan’s uncle. If he knew...he has good reason for wanting Loghain brought to account.”

Alistair stared at her. She wasn't looking at him anymore. But something in her posture suggested she was still listening. Still paying attention. It was unsettling, he decided.

“Anyway,” he said. “That’s really all there is to the story.”

# Bounty

The road south was a refugee artery now—bloated with carts, mules, and people who had nowhere left to run. Most had come from the north, limping and starved, their homes burned by darkspawn scouts.

The smell hit first. Smoke, wet metal, rations gone bad. The sort of air that clung to soldiers after a battle—except there hadn't been one here. Not yet. When word spread that Grey Wardens had been seen passing near the village, that was the final spark.

"I count two dozen," Morrigan reported from above, circling. No formation, barely any leaders. "Desperation breeds idiocy."

If they'd had Sten, Emma would have sent him. Let a murderer meet a mob—it balanced out, in her mind. A clean ledger, or as close as it gets. He'd draw their fear and their fury both, and maybe live long enough to absolve something of himself in the process.

Alistair hated the idea. "Let's not feed him more people."

Morrigan had only shrugged. "'Twould save us the trouble."

Shouts echoed across the empty fields as refugees—gaunt, desperate, some still clutching empty ration pouches—gathered at the crossroads. Able-bodied men waited at the road's edges like crows, all ribs and fever eyes. Half of them had pitchforks. The other half looked like they'd kill for one.

Leliana's hand lingered near her bowstring. "They had children with them."

"They have rocks with them," Alistair muttered. "Let me try to talk them down first. They deserve that much."

He adjusted the heavy armor, trying to stand straighter. Shiny, conspicuous, and loud enough to make every starving soul turn their head. It had the look of the armor she'd seen at Ostagar. Later, she'd learn it actually was—thank Bodahn for that—but now it just looked like a bad idea.

The others knew better than to step forward—two mages and a mabari made poor ambassadors in a world hunting both. Emma could try, but she was the one who'd ordered two men's throats slit in the inn last night. So Alistair it was.

He rolled his shoulders, greaves clanking. The armor looked ridiculous on him—too big, too bright, like a costume. Muffin growled low. Even the dog knew this would end badly.

Emma watched from behind the half-collapsed fence. Leliana had set up further back, her bowstring whispering under her fingers. They barely knew her. The Chant was still on her lips from the last time she'd prayed over a body. She could collect the bounty herself—Emma, with one shot. Alistair might stand a chance, were they not still ragged from their journey out of the Wilds.

Emma considered the situation—outnumbered, Alistair half-injured, pulling his punches. That's why she'd quietly moved into position, watching Muffin who watched him. The dog was her early warning system. The mabari would move before the arrows flew.

Morrigan circled above, a black blur against grey sky, scouting and sulking.

The villagers were shouting now. The words blurred together—something about Wardens, about bounty, about betrayal. Someone spat.

Alistair raised his hands, voice steady.

"Let us escort you south. We're not your enemy."

Which was true, technically. They didn't care.

"We starve while you play soldier!"

The first rock hit his pauldron with a clang like a tinny bell. Muffin's growl deepened. Leliana exhaled slowly. Two refugees charged; Alistair raised his shield but tried again:

"Please—we're not here to kill people. Just the darkspawn."

One woman cried out, "The monster is you! The price is on your heads!"

Another rock whistled past his temple and struck the mud behind him. Leliana loosed—her arrow pinned a man's sleeve to a wagon wheel. A warning. The next one wouldn't be.

Morrigan descended like a shadow, positioning herself at Alistair's flank.

Emma cracked her staff against the ground. The Fade responded—air shimmering, dust lifting in rings around her with arcane force. Half the crowd faltered. Half charged.

When it was done, two lay dead, four wounded, and the rest had fled toward the marsh by Dane's Refuge. Emma didn't feel guilty. She thought, *that'll come later,* when they buried the bodies and Alistair looked at her like she was Duncan's ghost.

But it didn't.

Alistair felt guilty enough for all of them.

"They were just—Maker, they were just scared."

Leliana murmured a prayer under her breath. "The Revered Mother here will not forgive this."

"The Revered Mother will forgive *nothing*," Morrigan said flatly, eyes tracing the horizon for more trouble.

### The Revered Mother's Quarters, Lothering Chantry

The holy house stank. Behind every prayer and polished icon, Morrigan smelled fear—a spoilt-sour, mewling smell. These sad subjects of their absent God were hiding in a sturdy old stone chapel, barely better than a rotted shack against a Blight. And yet, here they stood, arguing about one prisoner.

The Revered Mother's eyes flicked between the Wardens and the red-haired songbird, suspicion in every wrinkle. Leliana spoke with honey in her voice.

"We wish to return the qunari to his people," Leliana said softly. "If Ferelden shows mercy to one of the Qun, perhaps the Qunari will remember when the Blight comes to their shores."

Morrigan smiled. Even honey hides the stinger. She hadn't thought the woman capable of subtlety beyond hymns and heartbreak.

The Warden—Emma—stood beside her, silent, her expression calm enough to fool the typical observer. But Morrigan knew better. This Warden was not Andrastan, but much like them, she troubled by *so many absurdities* while the world itself was dying. She couldn't let go of them. But, to her credit, she was trying to do so, and so simmered quietly.

The Revered Mother replied, "He butchered innocents. The Qunari have no place among decent folk."

Emma's muscles tightened—so slight a motion, tilting like a prey animal. No one else might have seen it.

"He turned himself in," she offered, impulsively. "How many butchers do the same?”

This query was not their plan, and would not play to their advantage. Not coming from Emma. Not in this church. Morrigan admired and pitied her losing move.

"You would set him free?" the Revered Mother demanded.

Leliana stepped in again before Emma could answer. Clever girl.

"We would take him into the Warden's charge. He'll fight the darkspawn—pay for his crimes in service. Let the Maker decide if he's redeemed."

Ah, groveling to divine vanity. How trite. The Revered Mother hesitated—perhaps afraid? Finally, she nodded.

"Then take him. But his blood is on your hands."

"Whose isn't?" Emma looked up into the rafters. Morrigan studied her. She did not think for a second this Warden believed in the Maker. To whom was she confessing?

Outside, the air was cleaner but no less oppressive. Clouds pressed low over Lothering's muddy streets. Alistair waited by the Chantry steps, arms crossed, the salvaged armor catching what little light remained in the afternoon.

"Well?" he asked as they emerged.

"We have him," Leliana said.

"'Have him' meaning...? One more for our murderer collection?"

Emma nodded.

"That's... good? I think?"

"I don't know," she was looking upward again, into the grey clouds.

Morrigan descended the Chanty's steps deliberately brushing past Alistair, without acknowledging him. "You would defend a murderer," she observed, to Emma, "'Tis a curious moral compass you've cultivated."

"Not a defense. We got him a different sentence," she shrugged. Once you start a serious murderer collection, the tendency must be to push it as far as you can.

"And what of the ones he slew?"

"They're gone," she said simply, and looked at the apostate at last.

"Be careful now; You sound like you care," said Alistair.

Morrigan just smirked, refusing to dignify the Wardens with a response.

## threads

Alistair knelt in the dirt, wrestling with a coil of twine that seemed determined to make a fool of him, unspooling and tangling.

"I swear this stuff is possessed. Or maybe it's just—"

"Incompetently handled?" Morrigan suggested, not looking up from where she was methodically cutting canvas into workable sections.

"I was going to say 'temperamental.'"

Emma crouched nearby, measuring another length of twine with her fingers, her expression distant. She'd been quiet since that ugly business with the refugees.

"It's long enough," she said flatly, marking the spot. "Cut here."

Morrigan's blade flashed. The twine parted.

“There,” Morrigan said. “Your struggles against inanimate objects need not continue.”

Alistair glared. “I don’t see you volunteering to wrangle it.”

"You know," Emma said, not looking at either of them, "we could just... leave."

Alistair fumbled another loop. "Leave the tent half-assembled? I mean, I know I'm bad at this, but—"

"Ferelden." The word dropped like a stone. "We could go to Orlais. Find the Grey Warden veterans. They’d know what to do."

The twine slipped through Alistair's fingers entirely. "Orlais again. Why? You're joking."

"Does she *sound* like she's joking?" Morrigan asked, sharply.

Alistair’s drew his brow, an irritated stitch. “Emma… the Blight is here. In Ferelden. If we run to Orlais, the horde rolls over everyone from here to Denerim. By the time we come back with help, there won’t be anything left.”

“That’s exactly what I’m thinking. Duncan trained you for six months? I've had weeks. The Wardens in Orlais are more than two half-trained conscripts. They'd know how to organize a defense, how to—"

"How to arrive after Ferelden has been overrun and half the population is dead," Alistair cut in quietly.

"But they'd have a chance to stop it from spreading across Thedas."

“I can’t leave my country to die while I go running to the neighbors for help.”

“You could be getting reinforcements,” she insisted; It's what Duncan wanted Cailan to do. Why couldn't she say it? “Instead of dying pointlessly."

“Pointless?” His voice was sharp. “Then what did Duncan die for? What did any of us—”

"Going to Orlais, to the experienced Wardens—that's the plan that actually saves lives. Maybe not Ferelden's, but—"

"But not Ferelden's," he repeated. "You said it yourself."

"Staying here is more dramatic than smart. We don't know enough. We don't have enough support. Loghain is close to finding us."

"I'm a Grey Warden; I won't turn my back on the darkspawn to abandon Ferelden. Even if staying means—" He gestured helplessly at the half-assembled tent, the darkening sky, everything. "This."

"That's not heroic, that's just—"

"--incompetent?" Morrigan suggested again.

"--self-destructive." Emma said.

"Probably. But Ferelden is my home. Emma, we're the only ones left from Ostagar. If we run, that’s it. No one in Ferelden fights the Archdemon. No one even tries."

Emma stared at him for a long moment, then stood, wordlessly turned and left. The mabari hound trotted after her, from where he'd been investigating a promising bush. They watched her go.

"Well..." Alistair said after a moment. "She was never supposed to be a Warden. She didn’t want this. Duncan conscripted her... She probably just wants to go back to her tower and her books and pretend none of this ever happened. Or go to Orlais where there are people who might actually survive."

The words came out harder than he'd intended. Morrigan continued cutting canvas with methodical calm.

"And the worst part is, she's *right*. Going to Orlais, finding Wardens who actually know what they're doing—that's the smart plan."

"How predictably maudlin." Morrigan's knife paused mid-cut. "Perhaps she simply possesses a functioning sense of self-preservation, unlike certain stubborn fools."

"Is that supposed to make me feel better?"

"'Tis not my responsibility to manage your feelings, Warden. However—" The knife resumed its work. "—should your companion prove as pragmatic as you fear, you would not be fighting the Blight entirely alone."

"Right." He should probably feel grateful. He didn't. "Well. Thanks, I suppose."

"How gracious. You are very welcome," her voice was acid.

They worked in prickly silence for a moment, Alistair threading twine through grommets while Morrigan arranged the canvas sections. The tent was taking shape.

"I do not believe your Circle mage will leave Ferelden," said Morrigan.

Alistair looked up. Morrigan was studying the tree line where Emma had disappeared, her expression unreadable in the gathering dusk.

"You sound awfully certain about that. Even though her plan is the one that makes actual sense."

"I am." Morrigan's fingers traced an idle pattern on the canvas. "There is a tether between you and her. A fine tether, perhaps, but strong." Her voice took on an almost musical quality, careful and precise. "Emma may be ambivalent. She may rail against the foolishness of staying. But she will not abandon Ferelden."

Alistair shook his head. "How can you possibly know that?"

"As of late, your Warden has acquired a rather telling companion."

"The war dog? What does that have to do with—"

"Everything." Morrigan cut him off with a gesture. "During that unfortunate business with the refugees, whilst you were busy being heroically stupid, did you not notice the beast?"

"He was... relentless. Until She called him back."

"And before it came to that?"

Alistair shrugged.

"He was *vigilant,* all the while your poor attempt at diplomacy invited them to gut you." She leaned forward slightly, amber eyes intent.

She knew the dog tipped the battle brewing, ensuring Alistair had a better position to defend himself, rather than talking his way into a noose.

But Alistair frowned. "He's been our off-tank. He guards Emma."

"Oh, he is devoted to her entirely."

Alistair stared at the near-tent. He had twisted the twine taught against his palm.

"So what you’re saying is..."

“As I have *been* saying: she will not abandon you.” Morrigan continued, returning to her canvas. Her voice softened. “Logic and reason would send her to Orlais—'tis the sensible choice. But the tether holds.”

There was something almost sad in her voice.

"You actually feel sorry for her," Alistair said, surprised. Morrigan's knife flashed in the firelight.

"I merely observe what is plain to see."

Alistair looked toward the trees again, at the darkness where Emma had vanished with her reasonable objections and her loyal dog. He thought about Ostagar, about the jump from the Tower of Ishal, about finding her alive in the Wilds. The wordless relief that had passed between them before the bickering resumed.

He rubbed his forehead. “Maker. I really hope you’re right.”

"I usually am." Morrigan murmured; She knew Emma and Alistair both were bound to this land. She gathered her cut pieces and stood. "Now, are you going to finish with that twine, or shall I do everything myself?"

Alistair chose to believe Emma was coming back. Just not yet.

"At this point? Probably safer if you do."

### Lothering to Redcliffe

The path to the Imperial highway out of Lothering was rutted by carts attempting to flee faster than the muck allowed. Deep grooves chewed the earth raw, mud churned to a gray slurry that sucked at boots and wheels alike. Every few hundred paces, something lay abandoned: a broken crate, a dropped sack of grain, a child's shoe.

Emma had Sten recovering anything useful. Leliana and Alistair spoke quietly of eulogizing Lothering in song. The bard didn't find this necessary. The town was already done.

They walked until the roofs vanished behind the low hills and the air lost the sour tang of panic. Only then did the party begin to spread out naturally.

Alistair took point by habit. Shield on his arm, sword loose in hand, eyes scanning the tree line for darkspawn scouts. Sten stomped with stoic certainty. Muffin ranged freely, nose low, tail high, delighted by the sheer abundance of new smells. Morrigan stalked somewhere ahead, disdainful of roads entirely.

Leliana drifted closer to Emma as the light began to tilt toward evening.

"You have not asked me about my dream," Leliana said lightly, as though noting a missing stitch in a tapestry.

Emma didn't look over. "I assumed you'd tell me."

Leliana smiled at that.

They walked awhile longer before she spoke again.

"I knew this would come up sooner or later," Leliana said, and sighed. "I don't know how to explain, but I had a dream... There was a darkness. It was so dense, so real, very pressing..."

Emma's grip tightened on her staff. "And?"

"And there was a noise," Leliana continued. Her voice lowered, losing its habitual brightness. "A terrible, ungodly noise."

Emma stopped walking. Alistair turned, confused, then halted as well.

"What kind of noise?" Emma asked evenly.

Leliana hesitated, searching. "Like… as if the air around me was screaming. I was being pulled."

Emma nodded once, focused.

"I stood on a peak," the bard said, encouraged. "I could see everything below me, and the darkness rolled in like a storm. When it swallowed the last of the light, I fell. And it drew me in."

"You dreamed of the Blight," Alistair said.

"I suppose I did," Leliana agreed. "That was what the darkness was, no? The storm, the noise, the way it consumed everything… What else could it be?"

Emma said nothing.

Leliana clasped her hands together, warming to the memory now. "When I woke, I went to the Chantry gardens. As I always do. There is a rosebush there, in the corner by the wall. Everyone *knew* that bush was dead. It was grey and twisted and gnarled– the ugliest thing you ever saw. But that morning—"

Her voice softened, reverent.

"There was a single rose. Blooming."

Alistair blinked. "In Lothering?"

"Yes."

Morrigan let out a quiet, humorless huff from somewhere ahead. Somehow Emma heard exactly what she meant: *How quaint.*

Leliana ignored her. "It was as though the Maker Himself had reached down and said: even here, even now, there is hope."

Emma studied Leliana's face. The conviction there was absolute.

"Did you hear voices?" Emma asked.

"No," Leliana said gently. "Not voices. He spoke to my soul. In a language no human tongue can express."

Emma exhaled. "That's convenient."

Leliana smiled, unoffended. "I know how it sounds. But tell me, what should I believe? What I feel in my heart, or what others insist I must?"

"If the Maker is real, He's absent," said Emma. To even grant the Chantry the argument of His existence, she still had no inclination to beg for the return of a deadbeat God.

"He is still here," Leliana replied, "I hear Him in the wind and the waves, I feel Him in the sunlight that warms my skin."

Emma resumed walking, and Leliana fell back into step beside her.

"I'm not saying you're wrong," Emma said after a moment. "I'm saying… if something pulls you, ignoring it won't make it go away. I've tried."

Leliana glanced at her, surprised. "You've felt something like this?"

"Storms," Emma said. "Darkness. The noise you described. That's familiar."

"Perhaps," Leliana said carefully, "we are being called to the same place."

Emma shook her head. "Maybe we're processing what we already know." Then she added, "But I'm glad you're with us."

"Yes," Alistair quipped cheerfully. "Every apocalypse needs a blasphemer."

Leliana laughed, light and uplifted: "I know what I know, and no one will ever make that untrue."

Emma watched her move ahead of them, unease budding in her.

---

The road had narrowed to something that demanded a decision. Alistair volunteered to take first watch without being asked. They made camp before dusk.

The fire crackled low. Morrigan built her own fire, somewhere just out of sight. Sten sat with his back straight, sword across his knees, utterly unconcerned with comfort. Leliana hummed softly as she unpacked, a hopeful tune.

Muffin snored at Emma's feet, warm and solid. She stared into the fire and thought, not for the first time, about running. No Duncan to shank her as she ran. No Circle walls. The road was open. Morrigan's existence was proof that apostasy was possible.

She had found recruits. Alistair wouldn't be completely alone without her.

But she didn't move. A memory of Flemeth's words surfaced unbidden: "It is up to you. Pray not for someone else to destroy the Blight. It will **always** nip at your heels."

The old witch had been right about many things, including: Duncan had changed her. Permanently. The Joining was rewriting her blood, cell by cell, into someone else.

Something else. Something that could sense darkspawn. Something darkspawn could sense in return.

She didn't feel it yet. But she would. Soon enough, the connection would snap into place, a chain forged in her marrow.

If she ran now—bolted for Orlais or Kirkwall, found the veteran Wardens who actually knew what they were doing—maybe she could outrun the Blight itself. Get ahead of the horde before her blood sang for them to hear.

Or, she'd just be outrunning Alistair.

He felt them. She'd seen it in the Wilds, the way his head would tilt, his eyes going distant. *"They're moving parallel to us."* He'd known without seeing. Without doubt.

So the darkspawn would sense him first. Follow him. Hunt him. And he'd be luring them. To Leliana, Sten, Morrigan—anyone willing to help him.

The other Warden interrupted her thoughts, clearing his throat from the edge of the firelight.

"So... We're still planning to head south... to Redcliffe. Tomorrow?"

Emma didn't answer immediately.

"If… if that's all right. Arl Eamon might help. That's something."

*Something.* She nodded.

The point of no return passed quietly. Behind them, Lothering burned.

[^](#top)

## Confession

“So… there’s something I should probably tell you.”

Emma glanced at him, distracted but curious. “Hm?”

He began, fumbling despite having rehearsed, “I told you Arl Eamon took me in, raised me until the Chantry got me. The reason he did that was because—well—because my father was King Maric. Which made Cailan my… half-brother, I suppose.”

“…What?”

They’d seen darkspawn in endless tides, abominations clawing through the swamp, spiders bigger than men. But this—this made her blink. In better circumstances, Alistair would be fascinated by this, but for once he could not allow himself to get distracted.

“I would have told you, but—it never really meant anything to me. I was inconvenient, a possible threat to Cailan’s rule, so they kept me hidden. I’ve never spoken of it to anyone.”

“Really?,” she prodded, sharply. He dropped his gaze, shame pulling at his shoulders.

“It’s not like it matters. I didn’t want you to think—”

“You don’t want me to think,” She repeated, folding her arms. The mill-wheel groaned a counterpoint, “Not after Ostagar. Not in Lothering. When assassins were on our heels. All I do is think about it! But you let me make decisions without knowing--”

She stopped. *You let me make decisions without knowing all the reasons why someone might want you dead.*

“I just…” His hands came up, open, pleading. She turned her back on him and paced the bridge.

“I didn’t want you to like me because of it. I wanted you to like me for me,” His entire body recoiled at his own words. What was he saying? Why did he keep talking?

“This is—” She broke off, circling back toward him. He expected Emma would continue to yell at him, but she went quiet, simmering. Fatigued. “You’re worried about me *liking* you?”

*Congratulations, you absolute idiot,* Alistair thought. *You got what you wanted—she certainly doesn't like you more for it. Would that have been so terrible?*

“I’m leading fugitives and apostates across Ferelden, fighting the Blight, dodging the most powerful man in the kingdom who wants us dead—” She gestured at him as if he were an accusation embodied. “And you let me walk into *this*?”

He felt himself shrink into the word. *This.*

“I didn't want you to know, as long as possible,” he apologized, “I can explain. Everyone who knew either resented me or coddled me. Even Duncan kept me from the fighting because of it.”

“You put me in a blind spot, Alistair,” Emma shivered without the warmth of her anger. She recalled King Cailan at the war table, the night he died: *Send Alistair and the new Grey Warden, Emelyn…*

Why her? What did Cailan know? What did Loghain know? Her mind was reeling, realizations were clicking into place. The sound of the mill's churning through water made her feel nauseated.

“Maker, Emma, I didn’t mean—I mean, I do see that now. I hated keeping it from you,” Alistair recognized unasked questions in her halting expression. He'd lost her trust; His voice wasn't strong against its absence. “I hated it. But the alternative—if I told you, it would just… change everything.”

Change everything. The words were hollow, for being self-fulfilling.

Emma could feel the Veil quivering around them, stretched taut and thin by whatever horror stirred upriver. She closed her eyes, reaching inward, searching for guidance. Nothing, just a dreadful and vague sickness... and the frantic sound of Alistair's anxious, rushing pulse, amplified on her by the veil's tension.

He realized, she wasn't just angry. She was scared... He didn’t know what to do with that, nor could he tolerate the following silence, only the steady flow of water between them.

“So there you have it. Now we can move on. Pretend I’m still just some nobody who got too lucky to die with the rest of the Wardens.”

She was still refocusing their recent past. Of course he had been so upset. He knew all along their posting at Ishal wasn't really just an easy errand for two junior Wardens. His blood had spared and doomed both of them.

"Is that what you think?"

He shrugged, “No... I think I was lucky to survive with you,” and turned on his heel so suddenly it startled her eyes open again, while he was practically running away. She let him go.

## Trust

“In the wilds, you wondered, why did your mother rescue us? and not the King?”

Morrigan studied Emma with patient curiosity. The fire crackled between them.

“Yes indeed, I asked Flemeth that very thing. The day we pulled you from the tower.”

“And?”

“And she told me nothing useful.” Morrigan shrugged. Mother had smiled that infuriating smile, as if the question were that of a child. ‘All in due time, my girl.’ Due time.

“Now you know: She rescued the *other* brother. Why?”

“I do not know, Warden.”

“Speculate, then.”

There it was, again—an edge of desperation beneath the command.

“My mother is a complex creature, if not transparent. Perhaps she had grander designs that Cailan could not serve. Perhaps it was no plan at all, and merely circumstance. She may have simply chosen the better swordsman, or the one who is also a Grey Warden. It is logical enough, yes?”

“You really don’t know?”

Morrigan raised her eyebrows.

“Interrogate me all you wish, Warden. My answer will not change, and I have no patience for your doubts. Either believe me, or do not. But choose.”

There was a commotion behind them—raised voices, quickly hushed. Leliana, on damage control. Emma’s shoulders tensed. She wanted to look back.

“You do not trust him now. That much is obvious. And yet— to be fair to you, you’ve shown a real talent for recognizing the hidden depths in mediocrity.”

Emma scowled. “That’s not what this is about.”

“I have complimented your judgment, and you… glower at me? Are you quite sure you do not wish to gloat? I believe the phrase is ‘I told you so’--”

“No.”

Morrigan’s eyes narrowed. “Oh. Oh, I see. You’re worried about him. How tedious.”

“I want to know why we’re here. And why should I believe anything you say.”

“Ah yes, a pitiful inquiry, the philosophy of the weak: ‘Why me?’ Does it matter? Flemeth saved whom she saved. I have no reason to lie to you. The truth benefits me. Your trust—such as it is—benefits me. Shall I continue listing reasons, or would you prefer to waste more time?”

“It matters…Teach me to shapeshift.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“You heard me. Please.”

“Ah. So that’s what this is about, then?” She stood, brushing dirt from her robes. “Very well. But know this—shifting your form will not make you any less yourself.”

“I’m counting on that,” she was more interested in others, no doubt.

“Shapeshifting is not like your magic. It requires you to let go of yourself entirely, even as you remain present. Quite a paradox, yes? It is rather like trust, in that way,” Morrigan prodded, never one to let a difficult subject go.

“Now you’re philosophical.”

“I suppose so. I cannot help but think Mother would appreciate the irony,” Morrigan mused, “—here is this Warden, who she rescued, asking me to teach her the very same skill she used to keep her own secrets.”

“Do *you* appreciate the irony?”

Morrigan just smiled.

# Dead Siege of Redcliffe

Night draped itself over Redcliffe. Torches sputtered in the cold air, scattering light down the slope where the militia's knights waited in formation. The castle loomed above them, a black silhouette against clouded starlight, its windows dark save for an occasional flicker of eerie green light.

Emma stood near the center of the defensive line, staff planted in clay. The lake shimmered far below them, a wide belt of water hugging the village. She focused on the hill; she’d memorized every route they could force the undead through.

"Remember," Murdock's voice was confident, "they'll come down fast. Hold them at the bottleneck. Don't get drawn out into open ground."

Emma nodded curtly. "Break them through the choke points. No one wanders."

From the castle, a distant howl echoed across the rocky hillside. The sound was neither human nor animal, twisted by demonic magic into a mockery of life. Morrigan positioned herself, choosing high ground with sharp, practiced efficiency. Her golden eyes met Emma's, then drifted toward the lake.

A low collective moan rolled downhill from the castle, like fog.

"Here they come," Murdock warned.

"Leliana, ridge position," Emma called their strategy for the militia. "Perth—spears center. Alistair—forward wedge."

Murdock echoed her orders. The repetition steadied the line. The unmistakable stench of rot carried on the wind.

The first figures broke from the darkness above—shambling corpses in various stages of decay, barreling downhill in uneven clusters. Dead flesh hung from their bones, rusted armor clanking.

Ser Perth’s knights braced their shields, forming a wall of steel. Emma raised her staff; electricity crackled at the tip, mana humming steady and deep in her veins.

Morrigan struck first. A sheet of frost blasted across the hillside, freezing a line of corpses mid-lunge. They became brittle obstacles. The next wave stumbled into their frozen brethren, tripping, tangling.

Emma released her spell. Lightning chained itself corpse to corpse along the line Morrigan prepared. Frozen flesh shattered under the thermal shock, exploding into glittering shards of bone. Alistair barreled into the survivors, his shield turning them to rubble with each blow. The knights pushed forward behind him, their formation holding as the magic dissipated into the night.

Villagers shouted in fear and exhilaration. Leliana’s arrows pierced skulls with surgical precision. More shambling corpses arrived before anyone could catch a breath; A new sound drifted from behind them.

Morrigan heard it first, her head snapping toward the water. Leliana stiffened seconds later. A wet shuffle. A dry-dragging moan. Emma turned, following their gazes toward the docks. The lake’s surface rippled outward—something deliberate moving beneath it.

“They are flanking us,” Morrigan announced, lips curling. “Through the lake.”

Bony hands broke the surface. Corpses surfaced like drowned lumber—limbs tangled in soaked cloth, ribcages glistening with algae. They clawed onto the dock in a series of wet slapping thuds, half-sliding and half-clawing across the planks.

Villagers near the water screamed. Thomas shouted from the evacuation posts for reinforcements. Alistair reacted instantly, helping redirect militia downhill while the knights held the front. Chaos wavered down the defensive line.

A handful of terrified villagers sprinted toward the water, either to fight or to flee—neither wise. Emma pivoted, staff lifting. A corpse lurched toward the civilians on the dock. Her lightning struck it back.

A second villager screamed from the shallows as skeletal hands grasped at her legs. Alistair sprinted to intercept, his blade cutting through a half-rotted corpse before it could drag the woman under the water. He pivoted to finish another, urgently calling for help.

Emma froze for a fraction of a second, her body betraying her will.

Then: “Morrigan—go. I’ll cover.”

The witch moved without hesitation, rolling downhill as a dark blur, emerging as a massive spider to web the dockside undead in sticky nets. Leliana nailed stragglers that slipped through gaps.

Emma took an involuntary step backward, then followed at a measured pace behind Morrigan's advance. The undead converged from both sides—the castle hill and the lake shore. The militia buckled. Some held. Others bolted towards her. She blasted deserters with a controlled telekinetic shock, knocking them back into the fight.

Alistair darted through the chaos with reckless precision, intercepting blows aimed at farmers still holding with their spears, clad in hastily repaired leathers. Emma's heals popped through them; Cuts clotted. Her lightning cracked across advancing corpses.

Another wave surged from the lake, streaming water from empty sockets. Emma swept stunning electricity across the water around them. Fish and amphibians bobbed to the surface. The skeletons struggled against the stun, dragging themselves into her aggressive current as Alistair peeled them off, throwing an axe to drop one closing in on her.

“They’re coming from everywhere—” Alistair tried to warn her.

She barely noticed. Every time one fell within her field, she felt its death echo, sucked it down, converting it to mana. Her magic was a turret of artillery and panacea, a conduit routing energy from a layer of death.

The hillside roared with chaos—gravel skidding under boots, steel ringing on bone, magic cracking through wet air. Leliana’s arrows flew in metronomic rhythm.

A villager staggered too close to the shallows. A corpse grabbed his coat. Emma blasted it without blinking. Electricity convulsed through the skeleton and dumped it back into the water, sizzling. Emma lowered her staff slowly, her energy dispursing into the damp ground.

Silence rolled gradually down the slope, broken only by ragged breaths and soft groans of the wounded. Morrigan scuttled back up the hill as villagers stared warily.

Emma’s gaze drifted past her toward the lake. The water had gone still. Her fingers clenched around her staff. Morrigan reformed, human again, to look at her with eyes narrowed. Alistair jogged up toward them, removing his helmet, grinning, a manic glee of surviving by inches.

“You were incredible. Maker’s breath, you saved half the village—that chain lightning alone—”

Leliana approached quietly, offering Emma a waterskin. She took it, grounding herself.

“I will help check the villagers,” Leliana said softly. “Some are injured, but hiding it.”

"Pride is a dangerous thing on a battlefield." Morrigan scoffed.

“Hannah’s ready for the injured. Otherwise hold positions. We need the perimeter secured before any more surprises.”

Emma's mind was already moving ahead. She looked over the hillside, counting bodies, intact shields, broken spears, evaluating how long they could hold if dawn didn’t come soon enough.

## judgement

Emma found Morrigan sitting apart from the others, as always, staring into the fire with that particular stillness that meant she was thinking rather than watching. She approached slowly. When Morrigan didn't send her away, she sat at a careful distance.

"You asked me once," Emma began, "whether I’d grown fond of the Circle. My cage."

Morrigan's eyes were sharp with interest. "And you deflected rather skillfully, as I recall."

"I did. But I was fond of it. The library, the stonework, the quiet... off-season fruit. Even the isolation..." She paused. "So fond I couldn't appreciate how difficult it was."

Morrigan studied her for a long moment. "A confession, Warden? How unlike you."

"I know the difference between solitude and loneliness." Emma kept her gaze on the fire.

"You think *I* am lonely."

"Were you? in the wilds?, surrounded by life, but..."

"...but not one's own kind," Morrigan finished, her voice softer than usual. "A world full of people and buildings and things was all very foreign to me. If I wished companionship, I ran with the wolves and flew with the birds. If I spoke, it was to the trees."

"Did they speak back?" Emma was intrigued.

"No. Don't be foolish."

Oh.

"Such simple pleasures and one-sided conversations will only enthrall for so long. I recall the first time I crept beyond the edge of the Wilds. I did so in animal form, remaining in the shadows and watching these strange townsfolk from afar."

"I happened upon a noblewoman adorned in sparkling garments the likes of which I had never before seen. I was dazzled. This to me seemed to be what true wealth and beauty must be. I snuck behind her and stole a hand mirror from the carriage. 'Twas encrusted in gold and crystalline gemstones and I hugged it to my chest with delight as I sped back to the Wilds."

Emma could picture it perfectly—a child, feral and fascinated, clutching something that represented everything she'd never had: A shiny construction of cut, poured, and polished rocks.

"Flemeth was furious with me." The softness vanished. "I was a child and had not yet come into my full power and I had risked discovery for the sake of a pretty bauble. To teach me a lesson, Flemeth took the mirror and smashed it upon the ground."

"I'm sorry."

"Do not be." Morrigan's tone sharpened. "I was heartbroken at the time, but the lesson was necessary. Beauty and love are fleeting and have no meaning. Survival has meaning. Power has meaning."

Emma chose her words carefully, "Is the lesson also: beauty is dangerous?"

Morrigan blinked, caught off-guard. "'Tis the same thing, is it not?"

"Is it?"

"Warden, must you do this? 'Tis tedious when you refuse to simply accept what I tell you."

"I'm asking you to reconsider. It didn't go wrong until Flemeth decided it."

"She was protecting me—"

"From what? You were a careful thief."

"As I have told you, it was a needless risk."

Emma leaned forward slightly. Morrigan stared at her. The black point slightly deepened in her eyes of amber.

"I thought the Circle was protecting me."

Morrigan did not miss the comparison. She crossed her arms.

"Flemeth is many things, but she is *not* like your Circle. Any resemblance is mere strategy. The Chantry created the danger. We responded to it, yes. But 'twas they who set the field."

"That's...very true," said Emma, sheepishly. "Regardless, judgement can be a greater danger than temptation."

"And so what, praytell, is the difference between danger and the temptation which inspires it?" Morrigan asked, her tone a mocking near-melody.

"I don't know... but smash something beautiful before it hurts you... too easy. A child can do that."

Morrigan laughed, bitterly.

"Often, Warden, I get the impression you have never been a child. Or perhaps have always been, and will always remain, a child. I am quite unsure."

Emma shrugged. Yet another question of all or nothing. She had no way of choosing.

"Human children are no marshsnappers, digging themselves out of the egg and into the water." Morrigan illustrated. "They aren’t born knowing how to survive."

Emma: "Most little marshsnappers die. That's why they lay so many eggs."

Behind them, Alistair and Leliana shared a laugh, probably at Sten's expense, who grumbled non-verbally.

"Perhaps," Morrigan said finally, her voice very quiet, "my time in the Wilds was indeed lonely. But such was how it had to be. Vanity attracts the attention of strangers. And in the Wilds, strangers lead to death."

"And who set that field?"

Morrigan turned back to the fire, but her shoulders had loosened fractionally. After a long silence, she said, "'Tis just the nature of the Wilds."

"I find myself wondering at times what might have become of the girl with the beautiful golden mirror. But such fantasies have no place amidst reality."

"No way of knowing; But she was real. Unless you're making it up," said Emma.

"No, I most surely am not," Morrigan chuckled.

[^](#top)

## deconvolution - Circle of Magi

Kinloch Hold rose out of Lake Calenhad exactly as Emma remembered it: round, indifferent, wet stone and narrow windows. Heavy and watchful. Its solidness reassured her the moment her boots struck the dock. The sensation of a held breath, old and patient.

She could feel the Veil here, thinned and ragged, pressing too close. The air itself felt wrongly textured, like fabric worn through in places, the Fade bleeding through the gaps. Magic pooled dangerously, slick as lamp oil, fibrous and quivering, waiting to ignite.

A shadow passed overhead. Morrigan descended from her scouting flight, feathers dissolving into flesh as she landed lightly beside them.

"The upper floors are compromised," Morrigan said, brushing a stray feather from her shoulder. "I saw movement in the windows. Neither mage nor templar."

"Abominations," Alistair said quietly.

Emma's gaze tracked upward, along the tower's curve. Somewhere inside, people were dying. Or already dead. Or something worse, caught between the two.

---

Emma breathed in. Familiar corridors. Familiar pressure. The walls pressed close, as intimate as skin. She had spent years learning this place. Every stair, every blind corner, every hiding spot. She *had* been nobody here.

She re-entered in barbarian's robes, flanked by a man in Warden's armor and an archer in studded leather. Morrigan followed and circled near them, feline.

A few Templars held the ground floor in a ring of sanctimonious steel. Knight-Commander Greagoir stood at its center, jaw locked, eyes rimmed red with exhaustion. His men looked like they'd been awake for days, fighting on borrowed time.

"I want two men within sight of the doors at all times," he was saying. "No one opens them without my express consent. Is that clear?"

"Yes, ser."

"Then we wait. And we pray."

Alistair leaned closer to Emma. "The doors are barred," he said quietly. "Are they keeping people out? Or in?"

She shrugged. That much hadn't changed.

"Well. Look who survived." The Knight-Commander greeted Emma. "A proper Grey Warden now, are we? Glad you're not dead."

"You don't mean that," Emma said.

"We're dealing with a situation that does not involve you," Greagoir replied.

"What happened?"

"Plainly? The tower is no longer under our control. Demons and abominations infest the halls." He paused, measuring his words. "We were complacent. First Jowan. Now this."

Emma heard Morrigan's attention sharpen behind her. She stretched and purred. Greigoir's eyes narrowed at the animal.

"Don't think I've forgotten your part in his escape," Greagoir added.

"His escape is small," Emma said. "Compared to this."

"True enough."

"Your Templars failed," she said flatly.

The Knight-Commander's hand tightened on the hilt of his sword. "They did what they could. It wasn't enough. We were prepared for one or two abominations. Not the horde that fell upon us."

"And you're still waiting here?" Emma asked Greagoir, surveying the few templars left. "How many are inside?"

"I don't know. They came from above, from below, everywhere at once. We fell back," he said. "We barely held long enough to seal the doors."

"You shut everyone in there. The mages. Your own men."

"The doors will not close forever," Greagoir said. "Everything inside must be eliminated. I've sent for reinforcements. I've petitioned Denerim for the Right of Annulment."

Alistair's voice, when he spoke, was low and certain. "The mages are probably already dead. Everything left needs to be dealt with. No matter what."

Emma turned on him. "*Dealt with?*"

He met her eyes steadily. "I'm not-- I'm not eager to kill innocents. I'm saying we may not find any."

"If any still live," Greagoir interrupted, "the Maker himself shields them. It is too painful to hope. There is no alternative."

Emma looked between them—Greagoir's exhausted certainty, Alistair's pessimism, Morrigan's cold contempt. Three different conclusions, all arriving at the same end: everyone inside was already lost.

She thought of the apprentices who'd slept in rooms above hers. The enchanters who'd supervised her practicals. Even the Templars who'd watched from doorways, hands never far from sword hilts.

Alistair swallowed. “All the Circles have doors like these,” he said. “To keep abominations from getting loose. An unprepared village could be wiped out by one.”

“Like the unprepared Templars here," she noted.

Greagoir’s expression hardened. “We held the line as long as we could. Some of us are still holding it.”

"We've fought abominations," Emma said. "We can help."

Greagoir cleared his throat. "Very well. A word of caution," he said. "Once you cross those doors, there is no turning back. I will open them for no one unless I have proof it is safe. Only if First Enchanter Irving stands before me and tells me so. Otherwise, the Circle must be destroyed."

Irving was not the Circle. Emma knew that. She also knew this was the only opening she would get.

"Let us in," she said.

Greagoir hesitated for a moment, then gestured sharply. His men pulled back the barricade with the groan of straining wood. The great doors loomed, bordered in old Alamarri carvings—spirals and geometric patterns that predated the Chantry by centuries.

The tower had been built by hands long dead, had survived conquest and reclamation and sanctification. The Circle had papered over it with rules and schedules and doctrine, but it had always been a fortress. A watchtower. A place where people looked out at the world instead of being locked away from it.

It would survive this. The people inside might not.

"Once you're in," Greagoir said, "we seal it behind you."

The doors opened.

The smell hit first—blood and hellfire-stink, the acrid residue of arcane missiles. Chalk sigils smeared across the floor, half-finished, abandoned. Someone had tried to hold a line here. It hadn't worked.

The doors shut behind them with a final, echoing boom. The chatter and prayers of the Templars faded. Ahead, the tower spiraled upward into darkness and distant screaming—some of it human, some of it not. Some caught between the two in ways that made the distinction meaningless.

Emma drew on her mana and set the spell.

Stone climbed her calves, crept over her knees, locked around her forearms in gray facets shot faintly with blue. The magic settled with a low, grinding sound, like masonry shifting into place. She had learned this spell here, pressed against these walls, learning to become. Learning to disappear.

Alistair's eyes moved from her stone-plated arm to the tower walls behind her. The same grain. The same cold texture. The same faint blue threading the gray. It was like the tower had taught her to wear its skin.

"You blend in a bit too well," he said quietly.

She said nothing. Her fingers traced the wall beside her, cold with accumulated magic. Centuries of mages drawing power from its foundations.

Morrigan reformed. The transformation was seamless, practiced—one form flowing into another without resistance.

"Curious. The Chantry may have built their Circle here, on doctrine" she said. "They never understood what they were standing on. And here you are, wearing stone like a second skin."

"It's resistant," Emma said.

"Mmm. And what of those who remain inside? What shall we find of them, I wonder?"

"I don't know," Alistair said. "But it won't be fun."

They advanced slowly, boots whispering over stone dust and residue. The corridors narrowed into the apprentice quarters—rooms that had once been quiet and orderly, where children learned to fear themselves in incremental doses.

Now the bunks lay overturned, blankets soaked with blood and worse. A staff lay broken across a doorway. Someone's primer on elemental theory had been torn in half, pages scattered.

"You know how this usually ends," Alistair said, his voice carefully neutral. "Once a demon's inside someone, there's a point where there isn't a person left to save."

"I know," Emma said.

"I was there for a Harrowing. Only one. She fought it for hours. Said all the right things. And when it broke her, it happened fast. We didn't hesitate. We couldn't."

His admission settled between them. Emma swallowed. It might as well have been Areli he was describing.

"…I didn't have much interest in becoming a templar after that," he added, quieter.

She slowed, then stopped. Stone scraped softly as she turned. "I'm not asking you to forget what you know," she said.

He looked at her. Torchlight caught in his eyes, restless and bright. His pulse was too fast—she could feel his life intensely, seeping through the uneven texture of the Veil.

She closed her eyes, focusing on him, and brought more beats into focus-- Leliana. Morrigan.

Others. Distantly, barely, arguably alive. Thralls, perhaps. They faded away. She couldn't keep them in sight.

"You've gotten… braver," Alistair said. "Coming back here, of all places. For the Circle. For Connor. For people who might already be gone."

"We keep winning," she said lightly. "It's made me cocky."

"You're not cocky. You're—Emma, you're terrifying. Because from where I'm standing, you look like someone who's about to throw herself at every demon in this tower if it means saving one more person."

"And that's usually your job."

"Maybe. Probably. But that's not—*I'm* supposed to be the stupid one here."

"You were," she corrected. "Now look at you. So wise."

Behind them, Morrigan made a soft sound of disgust. "'Tis touching, truly. Shall we discover whether this foray is justified?"

Alistair studied Emma for another heartbeat, cold fear and something warmer entangled in his gut. "Just so we're clear—if I see an abomination, I'm not asking it nicely to surrender."

She turned and started forward. "Fair. Stay close."

"Always do."

The stone resonated under Emma's boots. It remembered her.

## regret
(Broken Circle - Tower Crawl)

Her hands brushed the stone as they ascended. Stone under her palms, familiar as a pulse. The party fell into its rhythm as she led them through its narrow hallways and spiraling stairs.

They cleared the floor methodically, the last abomination collapsing in a wet sprawl that echoed down the stairwell. Emma pressed her back to the wall, breathing through the residual hum while Alistair checked the landing ahead.

"Clear," he called back, then paused. "For now."

She pushed off the wall and joined him, but he didn’t move on. He stood there instead, helmet tucked under his arm, eyes fixed on the stairs. Lingering, hesitating to face her, working up to something.

"What?" she asked.

"I was just thinking," he said carefully, "about what you asked me. Back in the Wilds. How I became a Grey Warden."

"Yes?"

"But you never really—I mean, you haven't said much about..." He shifted his weight. "Duncan conscripted you, too. From here."

"He did."

"Because of Jowan."

There it was. She'd been waiting for this since Redcliffe, since they'd found that pathetic, terrified man in the dungeon. Since Alistair had looked at her and *not* asked.

"Yes," she repeated.

“The blood mage,” he went on, too quickly. “The one who poisoned Arl Eamon.”

“I know who he is.”

“I didn’t mean—” Alistair stopped himself. “I know you didn’t know he’d do that.”

“I didn’t.”

“But you helped him escape.” His voice was gentle, but she heard the edge underneath.

“I knew what the templars were going to do to him.”

“He was practicing blood magic,” Alistair said, a fact he’d been turning over too many times. “In the Circle.”

“They accused him first,” Emma said softly, then louder: “They were sharpening the knife; He twisted it.”

“Emma—”

"He was..." her friend? Not quite. "He was desperate. And he was one of the only people I had left.”

That gave him pause.

“They were going to make him Tranquil,” she continued. “Or kill him. Quietly. Officially. So yes, I helped him.”

“And then he poisoned Eamon.”

“And then he poisoned Eamon,” she said, without flinching. “And Lily was sent to Aeonar."

Alistair looked at her for a long moment. "You feel guilty."

"Of course I do." Her voice cracked, just slightly. "I thought I could save someone the Circle had already condemned. Now our best shot at an ally is dying."

She turned away, staring up at the spiral of stairs they still had to climb. Alistair was quiet for a long moment. The stairwell groaned faintly above them, something shifting in the dark.

“If I hadn’t helped him,” she said, more quietly, “he’d already be dead. Or worse. And I’d be living with that instead.”

“It’s not the same,” Alistair said. His hands curled into fists.

“No,” she agreed. “I didn’t want Duncan to drag me out of this tower. Jowan didn’t want to poison anyone. But here we are.”

He stared at her, realization hitting hard: “If I hadn’t helped him,” she went on, “Duncan wouldn’t have conscripted me. I wouldn’t be here. I wouldn’t be a Grey Warden.”

“So what,” Alistair said at last, voice tight, “we just accept that people die and it’s inevitable and none of our choices matter?”

“No.” Emma sagged slightly. “I don’t know. I just—”

*"People die. It's what they do."* The veil was thin. She often heard the voices of the dead, or...something else. This one chilled her.

She shook her head. “I can’t undo what Jowan did. I can’t save Eamon from what’s already happening. But I can save whoever’s still alive in this tower.”

“And if there isn’t anyone left?”

“Then we tried.” She turned back to him. She met his eyes. "That has to be enough. Remember?"

Alistair was quiet for a moment. Then he nodded, just once.

"I'm sorry," he said. "For keeping secrets. For making you lead blind. After everything..."

She didn’t answer right away. When she did, it was softer, reluctant.

"I still trust you," she looked at him-- pitiful. Like it was a burden. He would have longed to hear these words, but not like this. He absorbed it like a blow.

“I’m sorry too,” she added. “For Jowan. For Eamon. For all of it.”

As they climbed, he spoke again, quieter.

"For what it's worth—I understand why you did it. Helped him. Even knowing how it turned out."

"Do you?"

"Duncan saved me from the Chantry. If he hadn't, I'd probably have done something stupid. Maybe hurt someone in the process." He glanced at her, making more excuses.

"We're all just one bad decision away from being Jowan," he added.

"Probably true."

"Isn't it?" He managed a weak grin. "Let's try not to prove it today."

---

The corridor smelled of ozone and old parchment, smoke and something sweeter underneath—blood, cooling on stone. Emma moved through the book-choked hallways fortified in the tower’s own simulacra. A summoned wisp coiled at her shoulders, ready to lead their enemies astray.

Owain confirmed what they suspected: The abominations had been summoned by blood mages. She focused on the voices, whispers of the living and the dead, while leading the party through the halls. They now followed living voices ahead—low, urgent, edged with the particular desperation of people who'd chosen wrong and knew it.

"—should never have listened to Uldred—"

"Too late for that. We agreed. Loghain would free us from—"

"From what? Look around! This isn't freedom, it's—"

Emma raised one hand. Alistair, pacing ahead, heard her, going still mid-stride, shield already half-raised. Leliana melted into the doorframe's shadow. Wynne's hands flickered with potential light, held in reserve like drawn breath.

The blood mages were clustered in what had been a reading room. Shelves torn down, books scattered like broken birds. Three of them: two women, one man, robes stained and torn, hands crackling with stolen power. They were arguing over a corpse.

Emma watched their patterns. The way the taller woman kept glancing toward the far door. How the man's fingers twitched—not nervousness, muscle memory, preparing a specific cast. The third mage standing slightly apart, already regretting, already beaten.

She didn't announce herself. She stepped just far enough into the threshold for light of the spell wisp to bound around the corner, so Alistair could be seen.

The effect was immediate. All three mages turned, power flaring instinctively. The tall one's hands came up, blood magic already coiling—

Alistair took exactly three steps forward and stopped. Just there, shield angled, a wall made manifest. Visible. Threatening. Bait.

"Oh, Maker," one mage breathed. "Templars—"

"No," the tall one hissed. "Wardens."

Emma had already cast. Mana Drain, silent and surgical, threading through the Fade to puncture the tall mage's reserves. The woman gasped, stumbling, her prepared spell guttering like a candle in wind. Blood magic demanded fuel—mana or health, take your pick. Emma had just forced her hand.

Leliana's bow unleashed a pinning shot, perfectly placed—the man's shoulder bloomed red and he jerked backward, his casting arm suddenly useless, spell collapsing into sparks.

"Hold," Emma said. Not loud. Barely more than conversational. But the room heard it.

The third mage—the one who'd been apart, who'd been doubting—raised her hands. Surrender? Or another cast? Emma's staff shifted fractionally. Waiting.

The tall woman snarled and drew on her own blood. The spell came fast and vicious, a lash of crimson force that cracked toward Alistair—

—and shattered against his shield with a sound like breaking glass. Something in his armor rang, a discordant note that made Emma's teeth ache. The magic dissipated around him, like heat cooled by water.

But the tall mage was committed now, health-cost casting, desperate and accelerating toward her own death. Perfect.

Emma patiently injected the truth she already knew. He was already finished. The spell sank in quietly, unraveling what kept him upright. The mage didn't feel it. He was too busy bleeding herself dry for one more strike—

Leliana's second arrow found her throat. The mage went down in stages—on knees, falling forward, landing. Then still.

For one heartbeat, nothing happened.

Emma felt the corpse hollowing.

Then, it bloomed.

The explosion was concussive, beautiful, precise. It caught the man mid-cast, still trying to work around his pinned shoulder, and the force threw him into the bookshelf with a bone-crack on wood. He didn't get up.

The third mage screamed and ran—not toward the door, toward cover, fleeing—

Emma blasted her mid-stride. A punctuation mark on their victory. The mage's ankles folded and she hit the stone, stunned, defenseless.

She pulled from the two corpses. Emma felt a correction. Like water in a bowl, finding its level after being tipped. The tower was pouring into her now. It had been draining into her since they'd climbed past the apprentice quarters. Every death returned, a closed circle, elegant and terrible.

She watched the stunned mage, calculating. Wynne's eyes darted toward Emma, then away, moving forward, her Group Heal still uncast, held like insurance.

The mage on the floor was breathing in hitches, consciousness returning in stages. Young. Emma's age. Her fingers twitched toward a spell she didn't have the mana for.

"Don't," Emma said quietly.

The mage froze.

Leliana emerged from the shadows, arms taught, ready to pull her arrow against the string. Alistair shifted his weight, clinking an audible threat.

Emma crouched, just out of reach. Her mana thrummed aggressively. For a moment, she considered ending her.

“Em?”

Alistair hadn’t moved. Shield still up. Still angled. Emma could feel her own mind on all pistons, what he didn't say: *Are we doing this? Is this the cost now?*

She relaxed, slightly. And asked the blood mage with one word: "Uldred?"

The mage's eyes were wide, terrified, but coherent. "Gone mad. He—we thought—Loghain promised—" Her voice cracked. "We just wanted to be free."

"I know."

"We wanted what you have. To choose."

Emma smiled bitterly. She didn't smile often, but for this?

This mage who'd chosen blood magic for freedom and found only a different cage. The blood mage was young enough to still beg, old enough to know begging rarely worked.

Behind her, she felt Wynne's disapproval like weight. Felt Alistair's tension, his Templar instincts warring with whatever he'd become. Felt Leliana, still waiting.

"The Chantry won't take you back," Emma said. "And you'll die alone."

"I know." Barely a whisper.

Emma stood. The mage watched her, desperate hope and resignation shining alike in her eyes.

"Good luck," Emma said. "Don't let me see you again."

The mage nodded too fast, scrambled up and ran, stumbling, not looking back.

Alistair exhaled slowly. "That was—"

"Mercy," Wynne cut in, but her tone was complex. Not quite approval nor censure. Understanding, perhaps. Or recognition of something she wished she didn't understand.

Emma was already moving toward Irving's study, where she knew forbidden knowledge was waiting for her. Her hands were steady. Her reserves were full. Death Syphon had seen to that.

Behind her, Leliana lowered her bow and crossed herself, whispering something in Orlesian that might have been prayer or might have been regret.

Alistair fell into step beside Emma, shield still ready, armor silent in negative of the ringing that had been.

They had found survivors. And now saved at least one Circle Mage.

Emma felt the weight of it—not guilt, exactly. Something colder. She was learning which deaths paid for others. The Spellwisp coiled tighter at her shoulders. Rock Armor settled deeper into sinew.

## Revenant

Emma crouched beside a Templar's corpse, its armor gone cold. Blood had settled into the stone's grooves, dark as old wine. A sparkling amulet was half-hidden, clutched in the corpse's gauntlet—silver with Andraste's flames etched into the metal.

She cleaned it against her sleeve with careful deliberation, then held it up.

"Leliana."

The bard turned, bow lowered. "Yes?"

"This looks nice," said Emma. "Do you like it?"

Leliana's face brightened. "Oh, how dear of you! Thank you so much!" She clasped it around her neck, pressing it to her chest as though it might warm her. "It's beautiful."

A small, almost-smile flickered across Emma's face—then she turned back to the wreckage.

Wynne studied the ceiling with elaborate concentration. Alistair watched from his post at the doorway, head tilted. Neither spoke.

The Chantry lay gutted. Cabinets torn open, candles crushed underfoot, holy texts scattered like autumn leaves after the first hard wind. Emma moved through the debris with the method of someone conducting an inventory, or perhaps an autopsy. She checked bodies without flinching. Opened drawers that groaned on broken hinges. Pocketed reagents, a cracked ring, vials whose contents she recognized by weight and color.

Behind an overturned statue—Andraste herself, face-down in dust—Emma found what she had been looking for: a glass vial. Blood sloshed sluggishly inside, old and dark.

A phylactery. Her breath caught.

She held it up to the light. She hoped--

The crystal was fractured through the center, hairline cracks branching like frost.

Not hers. The blood was too dark, the seal decades old.

The vial grew hot in her palm.

"Emma—" Wynne began.

It shattered.

The blood didn't spill. It *rose*, spiraling upward. Bone erupted from the vortex's eye, snapping into place with splintering sounds. Armor manifested around the assembling skeleton—rusted and pitted, bearing unfamiliar heraldry. Orlesian, maybe. Old.

The face inside the helm was skeletal, empty sockets glowing with rage.

Emma barely had time to swear before it pulled them.

The force hit her like a hook in her sternum. Her boots skidded across stone as she slid toward it. Wynne staggered. Leliana grabbed for a bench and missed, her bow clattering away.

“Spread out!” Alistair shouted, shield already up as he charged to intercept.

Emma pulled herself up by her staff. Stone locked around her limbs. She struck first with mana drain—probing, testing if it *had* mana. It didn't. She adjusted. The spellwisp flared, orbiting tight and frantic.

Leliana recovered her bow and loosed a shot. The arrow struck true and shattered against ancient plate. The revenant’s gaze fixed on her. Alistair shouted her name. It pulled again.

This time she had nothing to brace against. Her boots left the floor. The blade met her halfway. The sound was brief and wet. She crumpled.

Wynne's power flooded the room, golden light washing over Leliana's still form. It bought seconds. The revenant raised its sword again.

"Alistair-!" Emma cast on it spitefully. The magic burrowed inward, spirit warring against spirit. The revenant didn't care. It kept moving.

"I'm *trying*!" Alistair slammed into the ancient steel; It turned. He took a blow on his shield that rang like a bell. It sent him skidding backward.

Wynne followed with shimmering wards, hands glowing steady as the revenant's spectral chain whipped past her shoulder.

Emma hurled lightning. It crawled across the armor and grounded into the floor. Something flaked away. She was hurting it. Slowly. Too slowly.

But she had its attention now. It drifted toward her.

She thrust flame between them—fire to buy distance—then turned and ran. Hot air scattered papers and shattered glass. The revenant staggered through the fire—

—and pulled again.

The force drove Emma to her knees. Her staff spun away. She slid helplessly forward and collided with it. Stone armor spared her from being split open. It shattered instead, the impact knocking the breath from her, vision clouding as she tumbled into debris.

She heard Alistair's boots hammering stone, catching up, always catching up...

Her hands were empty. Just stone, blood, and the sound of his shield taking blow after blow.

Wynne tried to reposition. The pull caught her mid-incantation and slammed her down hard enough to knock the sound from her lungs.

Emma rolled, trying to break the pull’s geometry. Pain lanced through her side as a chain caught and dragged her back. Her spell guttered out. The wisp died.

Leliana and Wynne were still. Emma lay near the shattered phylactery, blood darkening the stone beneath her.

The revenant turned its full attention on him.

“Oh,” Alistair breathed. “Maker.”

The pull came for him.

He drank without thinking. One potion, then another, bitter burn barely registering. He was ready—shield braced, knees bent. The revenant's blade came down.

The impact on his shield drove him to one knee. His arm shook.

"Not—today—" he grunted, and shoved back.

The revenant barely moved. It raised its sword again.

Alistair threw his first bomb. Frost crept across rusty plate in a thin shell. The revenant's next swing came slower. Not much. Enough.

He rolled aside, came up in a crouch, fumbled for another potion. He tossed it back, then threw another bomb. Shock. Lightning ripped through the frost-slick metal. The revenant convulsed and sagged.

He slammed into it, shield-first, then retreated as the pull dragged him back in. He caught himself on a bench that shattered under his weight.

No bombs left. Three potions. A sword that felt like lead. If he didn't—

The revenant roared, advancing, pulling, refusing to die, slashing at him. Had he been slower, it would have carved him. His shield cracked. His arm went numb. He pushed back anyway.

The revenant raised its blade again.

Alistair raised his shield.

But the revenant collapsed.

Chains clattered as it imploded, unraveling into ash. The pressure in the room vanished. Silence rushed in to fill the space it left behind.

Alistair dropped to his knees, chest heaving, shield slipping from his fingers.

“Stay down,” he muttered. “Just stay down.”

It did.

He laughed weakly, looking over the smoking remains in disbelief, ashes drifting over him. His arm shook violently now that he wasn’t forcing it to work.

Then he heard Emma groan, and he was on his feet again. She lay near the shattered phylactery, arm over the base of a ruined dais, pulling herself up. Blood soaked her robes along the ribs.

He knelt, a health potion already in his hands, pressed to hers. "Drink."

She did, wincing. The wound began to knit itself back together with the potion's reluctant magic. He scooted her staff toward her with his boot.

"Leliana—" Emma tensed with effort.

"I know." He was already looking past her, scanning the room. "I'll get her. Just-- Don't go anywhere."

She nodded.

Leliana lay twisted, one arm beneath her, bow shattered nearby. A faded echo of Wynne's magic clung to her. He rolled her carefully and lifted her head to press another potion to her lips.

“Come on,” he murmured. “Don’t make me explain this later.”

She swallowed. Her eyes fluttered open.

“Did we…?” she whispered.

"Yeah," he answered. "Barely."

Wynne stirred next, rolling onto her side with a pained sound. She drew in a careful breath, then another, testing herself. “That,” she said faintly, “was deeply unpleasant.”

“That’s one word for it," he replied, looking her over. She nodded. He returned to Emma.

She'd managed to sit upright, staff planted like a crutch, hands trembling as she uncorked a mana potion. She drank with her eyes unfocused.

He sat beside her. She heard him in the armor, still shaking.

"You killed it." Her voice was quiet, focusing. His cracked shield. The bruising beneath mail. The way he'd favored one leg.

“We did,” he replied.

"I didn't see the end." Something tightened in his chest at the way she looked at him—wide-eyed, unguarded.

“I did,” he said. “I threw every bomb I had. Drank nearly every potion. Threw at it whatever I could grab. It went down. And stayed that way.”

She leveraged closer, using her staff. He felt her magic ease bruising, returning feeling to his arm. No flourish. No light.

"Next time," he said quietly, "let's *not* shatter mysterious bloody vials." She reached up and unbuckled his helm. His voice broke as her fingers brushed his neck and lifted it.

"Sorry—" she started.

He shook his head, refusing apology. She exhaled.

Behind them, ash settled. Wynne helped Leliana sit. The tower creaked around them. Emma looked past, surveying wreckage.

"We should keep moving," Wynne suggested without conviction.

"Em," he said quietly when she didn't respond.

"In a minute."

He knew that look. She was reconstructing the fight. He could see it in her eyes—the pulls, the failures, the moment everything went wrong. Processing debris, bomb casings, scattered glass. All the desperate improvisation that had bought them life.

Another lesson learned.

## Portrait (Diptych)

(9:25) The portrait hung in a narrow alcove on the way to the chapel, gilt frame bright against weathered stone. King Maric, forever mid-stride, cloak wind-tossed, smiling bravely. The hallway choked with apprentices pressing close to it, trading rumors. Two Templars stood beneath the frame, helmets tilted, pretending to supervise while obviously eavesdropping.

Areli spotted Emma passing quietly behind the crowd, and nudged through to meet her. Emma acknowledged her with a look, which moved across the students then Templars: unimpressed by the sudden gravity in the air.

Areli loved that about her.

"Let's go," she murmured. They climbed up the narrow, curling flight of stairs into the higher floors.

The Chantry's guard recognized them and waved them through at the wrong hour. Their work was so dull and specialized no one had bothered memorizing their schedule. The restricted top level level had become used to them.

"You knew," Emma said. Proud.

"King Maric's dead," Areli confirmed. "Lost men don't survive at sea for long."

"Did they find anything? Wreckage?"

"Nobody knows," said the Templar in the doorway. "But Cailan's the new king. Long may he reign." His gaze lingered on Areli in a way that had nothing to do with what he was saying.

The room still smelled faintly of incense from a recent Harrowing, the Veil wobbling thin in the air, cut by the silhouette of the telescope. They set to work on the star charts, shoulders brushing more than necessary, until the Templar's footsteps faded down the corridor.

When his patrol stretched long enough, Areli produced a tiny satchel of herbs from her sleeve. They passed it between them, the mild haze softening nervous edges in the chamber.

“Did they think the legendary king Maric was riding back to them, out of a storm?" Areli rolled her eyes, summoning a soft breeze to scatter the scent.

"To the late King Maric," Emma responded dryly. "And his son."

"Yes," Areli agreed, with sardonic gratitude. "Bless their very large problems, far from us."

Downstairs, the portrait had devolved into theater. Even First Enchanter Irving hovered at the edges, observing the chatter spiral and settle. A cluster of enchanters clucked about the new king. “So young,” one said. “So tragic.” The older apprentices exchanged glances. Someone giggled.

Wynne swept in like a winter gust. "This is *not* amusing," she snapped, launching into a lecture about Maric's campaigns against Orlesian occupation, reciting dates and battles.

She scowled at their irreverence and assigned extra reading. The tower had stripped these children of any country outside stone walls. In time, she promised, they would mature and understand the importance of national freedom. The Good King Maric had ended Orlesian tariffs, saved the Circle's budget. That meant *something.*

When Areli and Emma finally descended for evening assembly, the hallway had emptied. Only Jowan remained, hunched over like a wet sock.

"My parents must be upset. They *loved* him." He laughed bitterly. "So—whatever. Fuck them. Fuck the King, this one and the last."

His words came out small, shaky. He braced for reproach. Behind him, Emma made a crude gesture toward the portrait—a sharp, repetitive flick of her wrist that implied Maric was a monumental wanker.

Areli laughed, bright and unbothered. Jowan flushed pink but smiled, convinced he'd said something clever. Emma looked smug. The tension eased.

Night settled. Assembly passed. And sometime later, a new portrait appeared in a different hall: Cailan, all gold and hope and hero's posture. Almost nobody noticed it at all.

---

(9:30) The Circle was a ruin. Emma had been warned, but warnings couldn't blunt the shock of walking through halls where barely a tenth of the mages had survived. Doors hung splintered. Curtains streaked rust-brown. Some apprentices had been found hiding in wardrobes, others dragged half-conscious from crawlspaces. The Templars had retreated behind the ground-floor barricade.

The weeks under Uldred's occupation had left grime and gore smudged across stone. Barely visible on the wall was a pale rectangle. A ghost of a ghost. The place where Maric's portrait had hung.

Now Maric's face rose unbidden in her mind, more vivid than she had any right to remember. The strong lines, the bright eyes. She'd thought the portrait a little idealized back then. Now she wasn't sure.

Alistair looked like him.

It must have been a good likeness, if she could see the resemblance so clearly in hindsight. Why hadn't she seen it before?

Cailan's portrait… she couldn't even place it in the building. She remembered the man more than the image: On the day he died, gleaming in golden plate at Ostagar, that impossible armor, cheerfully greeting her. Later, in the command tent lit by torches, he'd stood beside Duncan, Loghain, and Uldred—yes, *Uldred,* smiling like a man who hadn't already decided to damn the tower.

Only weeks after Jowan betrayed her. And in turn, mere weeks before Uldred slaughtered nearly everyone here. In the space of a season she'd gone from nameless apprentice to nameless Grey Warden, standing before a king, being told to follow Alistair to Ishal.

He was just some rookie Warden, as far as she'd known. And he still was. But he'd known more about being a Warden than she did, and she'd leaned on that knowledge. He hadn't known much—but he'd been open with her. Or she'd believed he had.

But not about this.

Even while they became criminals, fugitives, hunted by Loghain as traitors to Ferelden.

There had only been time to act. Leliana had spoken to everyone, returned to Emma with sweet, pointed assurances she'd ensure the truth stay quiet. Redcliffe was begging for help. Connor needed freeing. Bandits and monsters tore apart everything along the roads. And so easily she resumed trusting him—to draw fire with clumsy, dependable courage, or outmaneuver enemies in alleys too narrow for his shield.

Emma sank down against the cold stone beneath the vanished portrait and lit the herbs she and Areli had once used to celebrate Maric's death. Now just a dry cope. She inhaled slowly, chest tight.

Areli, the Circle, the King with all the Grey Wardens, were gone.

She and Alistair were younger than even Cailan had been.

And it was so, so tragic.

## maleficarum

The parchment was thin, old and dry, the ink bleeding through in places where the vellum had worn translucent. Emma read without blinking, eyes tracking enchanted symbols that rearranged the longer she looked.

It knew.

She knew.

*Blood magic*, the scroll declared in its careful, academic hand, *is not separate from the natural order but woven through it—the body's covenant with itself, the magical currency by which flesh purchases its own continuation.*

She sat on the cold stone floor of the Great Hall, surrounded by the quiet aftermath of violence. Lyrium residue clung to the walls like frost, glittering faintly in the light of her spell-wisp. The wisp hovered at shoulder height, less companion than captive, its glow sullen.

The scrolls hadn’t even been hidden. The maleficarum had been bold. Or careless. They lay scattered among mundane reports and lesson notes, buried by boredom rather than secrecy. She’d found illegal correspondence, yes, but most of it had been tedious. These she’d found by accident.

Or by instinct.

She spread the scrolls across her lap, one after another. Pieces of something larger. A theory. A practice. A justification, or perhaps a confession. The handwriting shifted from cramped and frantic to smooth and assured, the pen of someone who believed their work would outlive them.

*Creation magic assumes equilibrium*, one scroll read. *It seeks to restore what was, to maintain the fiction of balance. But the body knows better. It only moves forward. It must. The body is always in deficit, always borrowing against its own future. Life is debt.*

She thought of Wynne in the classroom, years ago, standing before a diagram of the four humors. "Creation is the most difficult school," Wynne had said, "because it requires you to *listen*—to the body, negotiate with the Fade, to the delicate interplay between what is and what could be. You cannot force Creation. You can only guide it."

Emma had been a mediocre student of creation. Not incompetent—she could stanch bleeding, mend bone, coax infection from wounds—but never exceptional. Never like Areli.

Areli, who had brightly moved through Wynne's lessons, effortless. Areli, whose hands glowed with that particular gold light that marked true healers, the ones who didn't just repair damage but understood life. To her, the body was a language. A song. Something to be answered, not commanded.

Spirits listened to her.

Which was why the Templars watched her most closely.

Areli’s talent, and her beauty, had always drawn their attention.

“You’re trying too hard,” Areli had told her once, during a late-night study session in the observatory. They’d been practicing on mice. Small cuts. Broken legs. Harmless injuries, if you knew what you were doing.

Emma’s mouse had survived. Barely.

Areli’s was scurrying around its cage within minutes, bright-eyed and unbothered.

"I followed the process," Emma had said, defensive.

"You followed the *steps*," Areli corrected gently. "The body wants to heal itself, Em. You're supposed to help it remember. Don't push it."

Emma had nodded and tried again. And again. Over months, over years, she’d improved. She became competent. Useful.

She’d assumed it was practice. Repetition. The slow accumulation of skill.

But sitting there now, Banastor’s scrolls spread across her lap like an accusation, she understood.

It hadn’t been Creation at all.

*The mind is no more sacred than the knee, the small toe, or the ear. It's man's origin of reasoning, nothing more. And true reasoning requires connection to the rhythm of the blood, the tireless pounding of life.*

It was beautiful. Familiar. And then:

*Interupt this, and even the mind is yours to control.*

She pressed her palms against her eyes, hard enough to see stars.

Areli had been a natural healer because she'd understood Creation. She'd listened to the body's song and harmonized with it. Her magic had been gentle, generous, a dialogue between self and other.

Emma's magic was nothing like that. Now she was discovering what it meant. Where it may lead her.

She was stealing—from the Fade, from the residual heat of recent deaths, from the tower itself, which had been so saturated with violence.

She was bleeding her enemies to keep her allies breathing. It was battle, yes. But also...

And it worked. It had always worked. Better than Creation ever had.

She stared down at her hands. Reagent ink darkened her palms. Old blood stained the creases. Capable hands. Hands that saved lives.

Hands that took without asking.

---

She didn’t hear Alistair approach until his shadow fell across the scrolls.

"You've been sitting there," he said. "Leliana's worried you fell asleep sitting up. I said that was impossible, but she made me come check."

"Still awake."

"What are you reading?" he asked, gesturing at the scrolls.

"Theory," she said.

"Thrilling."

"Mm."

He studied her, then leaned back against the bench. There was a cut above his eyebrow, scarred already, a thin white line that stood out against his skin. "You seem… somewhere else."

"I'm here. I'm tired."

"We're all tired." He paused. "This is something different."

She began rolling the scrolls with careful precision. Slow. Methodical. As if they were nothing more than tedious paperwork. The parchment crackled softly.

“Emma,” he said, quieter. “This was your home. You don’t have to talk about it. But if something’s wrong—I'm here for you. You know that. Right?”

She hung her head. She thought of Areli, radiant and doomed, too bright to ignore. Jowan, bumbling and desperate, tolerated until he wasn't. And herself... slipping through the cracks because nobody thought to look twice.

“It’s strange,” she said. “I lost everyone I cared about before…” Her throat tightened. “Before Areli died, I never would’ve considered helping Jowan.”

Alistair stilled. He’d been tugging at his gauntlets, undoing them, pretending to be busy. “Areli?”

Emma nodded. She couldn't look at him. "She would have been good at this. Wynne taught her—she was going to be a spirit healer. She understood it like a native language. She was so good, Alistair."

He had so many questions. But he went with: "And you weren't?"

"I was... above average. But I never had her instinct for it. I never…" She trailed off, fingers tightening on the scrolls. "She helped people because she understood them. I save people because I'm stubborn."

"Stubborn works."

"Does it?" *It does.* But what does it cost?

"You've saved me countless times. Sometimes while half-dead yourself. I'd say that's evidence in favor."

She looked at him. He took it as an invitation to sit close. Earnest and unguarded. Bloodied with compassion that made him so dangerously easy to trust.

"What if I told you I don't understand how I did it?"

"I'd say nobody knows how they do half the things they do in the moment. You just… do them. And then you *might* figure out the how later."

“And if the how is wrong?”

"Emma, you're scaring me a little. What are you getting at?"

She hesitated. *I think every life I've saved has been paid for in ways I didn't understand. I think the Circle taught me how to hide what I was doing. From them. From myself.*

But instead she said: "It should have been her. She should be doing this. Not me."

"That... sounds familiar. You talked to me about this. When we talked about Duncan." Alistair swallowed. "You're alive and she's not," he said quietly. "It's just what happened. None of this is fair. You know that, but for what it's worth... I know it's hard to accept. And I'm so sorry."

"If I hadn't-- If I had protected her--"

"You were a kid yourself."

"I'm not much more, now."

"You are. And you did what you could." He reached out, hesitated, and took her hand. She looked down, watching. Her fingers over and through his, tightening. The blood in his wrist, pulsing. "You can't save everyone. No exceptions for the people you love."

“I’m not who I thought I was.”

He considered that. “Would that be so terrible?”

“Probably.”

"Well." He squeezed her hand. "Whoever you are, you're the person who keeps pulling my sorry ass out of the fire. So I'm pretty fond of her, actually."

Emma blinked back tears.

“Especially if she’s stubborn,” he added. “Areli sounds like the kind of person who’d be proud of you."

He didn’t know what he was saying. Not yet.

But he wasn’t wrong.

The scrolls rested heavy in her lap, their secrets pressing close.

“You’re right,” she said quietly.

## Lost in Dreams

In the Fade, there was no such thing as time, and every chance her body no longer lived outside this place. Sloth kept her captive here, haggling with her desires, her weakness, offering her visions of what she'd lost: A world without the Blight. Kinloch's library at dawn, frost on the windows. Jowan and Lily, the later heavily pregnant, relaxing by a hearth.

Areli's melodic laugh as she danced.

The Fade had rendered her with a clarity that had faded from Emma's own memory. Forgetting these details felt like a betrayal. It was difficult to look away.

When Sloth failed to tempt her with what she had lost, he tried again with what she now needed: Wardens from Orlais arriving, knowing exactly what to do. Loghain as an ally, not an enemy. A united Ferelden.

And most of all: it offered a deep comfort, a promise of restful sleep. Here she felt the limit of Sloth's art. She had not much memory of rest for it to use. So it relied on words, whispering: *stay, sleep, rest.* Unconvincing, and yet, somehow still tempting.

She denied the demon, pushing forward, following a thread of... someone, maybe more than one, who needed her. Emma had lost some of herself, and did not remember who, or why, how long they'd been trapped here, or if anything remained worth saving outside this nightmare. When she tried, she mostly only thought of earth and water, death and numbness.

But sometimes, she found eyes that judged her: Areli's she recognized, a rich and saturated brown. Followed by more she could not place: Hazel rings of amber and green. Solid gold, bright with inhuman intensity. Pale blue, as a sky on a sunny day. All of them, eyes that pulled some longing out of her.

She did not understand it. Just memories, gazes of the lost, a demonic invention, or a mere flicker in the dying of her mind, perhaps. Emma fought through the Fade until her sense of self frayed at the edges, and wove it back together again, only for the process to repeat in loops.

She navigated Leliana's guilt-soaked dreams of betrayal, Wynne's endless corridors of failing students, at least three to thirty times. She fought the rage demons with familiar faces. She'd learned to shift her form—mouse, golem, burning spirit.

She tried to keep Niall alive, but was not optimistic.

And somehow pushed on, more certain than ever, but also more lost. Wheat taller than she rose on every side, from every angle. Everything in itself golden and swaying, without horizon, only the dry whisper of grain, starchy stalks scratching her skin and tangling in her hair. These fields rippled as though the Fade itself were breathing, endless gold, disorienting, bending...

A child’s laughter drifted through. She followed the sound until the wheat fell away into a clearing, and now stood before a cottage: serene, whitewashed timber, climbing ivy, nestled in bushes of roses, so starkly red. Smoke rose from its chimney, smelling of hearthfire and fresh bread.

And on the steps, sleeves rolled to his elbows, hair bright as new copper in the impossible sunlight—Alistair. Unarmored but in a simple tunic, homespun. He looked different, younger. Softer.

When he saw her, his face lit up, gesturing eagerly. She could barely look back at him, squinting. It was painful behind her eyes, like staring into the sun.

"Em! I was just thinking about you... I'm glad you made it. Come here—you have to meet them. This is-- this is my family. My sister, Goldanna, and the children--"

She looked at the woman in the doorway—someone he'd never known, and yet his "sister" was a strong construction; Sloth had no trouble reading the lack in him. A racket of a heartbeat knocked through her-- her own, she realized, with trepidation. In spite of him apparently inviting her here, did he not want to be found?

"It's not real," Emma said quietly.

"What? No, are you daft? Just look—" He turned back to the cottage, to the playing children, to the woman who waved at them both. "This is... I mean, I know it seems sudden, but—"

“They're demons,” she insisted, but he laughed.

"Yes, everyone says that about their family," He shook his head. “You don’t understand. You’ve never had this.”

“No, and neither have you. This isn't real,” she repeated, louder, and reached for him. But he shied away. It was as she feared.

She knew she had to be strong and convincing, but heard herself pleading: “But *you* are real. Please--We need to go.”

“I… don’t think I’ll be coming.” He was gentle, apologetic. “I don’t want to spend my life fighting, only to end up dead in a pit.”

She'd expected resistance, there'd always been resistance—this tricky demon specialized in hooks that sank deep—but hearing him, speaking so calmly, content without irony. It induced a vertigo in her.

"I don't want that for you either," She was still squinting, vision blurring beyond comprehension.

“Right?," He thought she was agreeing with him. "Not when I could have this. Isn’t that what we fought for? So people can have lives?"

The woman waved at them, on cue. “Alistair! Supper’s ready. We’ve been waiting.”

Alistair assured the demon he'd be there shortly, while Emma internally wrestled for a point of stability. Something, anything, for leverage to pull them out. Then he continued:

"Maybe—maybe we deserve a life too, you know? Please, Emma, stay and eat with with us,” and smiled, a bit more himself, trying to reassure her. Emma sat next to him on the steps.

“Deserving has nothing to do with it," she sounded harsh. He dimmed, the stalks of wheat shivered. "I meant--" but he interrupted her.

"No, it's alright. You said it yourself, many times. We're probably going to die. The Blight's going to kill us, or Loghain, or—" He turned to look at her, bitter. He was remembering.

"But here, I could just be someone. Not a Grey Warden. Not a bastard. I could just be... some guy who lives with his sister."

"You won't be anything, because this place is a lie," she tried again to reach him, searching for his hand, or his acknowledgement. He accepted this passively, eyes drawn back to the fake family.

“I can’t just—”

“You can’t stay,” she insisted. “You'll die here, too.”

He looked at her then, really looked, and saw how ashen she’d gone. She kept his gaze, painful as it was, but throbbing and dull, no longer sharp.

"Does it matter? Stay with me, Emma. We can die here, with one real supper, just for once. There's nothing wrong with that."

She leaned into him. He sighed. He was faltering.

“You won't do that. You can't abandon Ferelden," but she would have. She went through all of this, while he persuaded her. Emma just had to remind him.

"They don't need us. Maybe someone else—"

She had come for him last—fought for everyone else first—because some part of him had been pulling her across the Fade, making sure the others were safe before he'd let her reach him. She was sure of it.

"There's no one else. You made me see that," she touched his cheek, found the beat in his neck. They still lived, out there, somewhere. Probably. He flushed.

It reminded him of Ostagar—the sky choked out with smoke, her fingers finding him in the dark. She had trusted him then, when she had good reason not to. And now, she had been pleading with him, blinking back tears. He couldn't keep saying no. He owed her this.

Behind them, the wheat blackened and bent, burning away. Alistair quickly pulled her to her feet; She clung to him.

"Don't look back," she told him.

The children's laughter warped into shrieks; The cottage melted. Beams collapsed inward revealing a dark path.

"What's happening?" he asked.

"Just move," she said, trying to pull him behind her, but she felt a cold numbness creep through her body. Sloth was insulating her, trying to sever the connection between them. Emma hoped dimly she felt him near her still, if it was not another illusion. The darkness of the dream itself dissolved, sliding away like water. Her perception constricted until she felt nothing, no one.

Then— She was awake.

On her back, looking up into the spandrels of Kinloch hold, spattered in demonic viscera. She half-remembered: wheat and water, syrup and ash, Alistair's face in her palm. And fear-- had she lost him?

But his arms locked around her immediately. Alistair pulled her against his chest, encased in metal, cold and hard. The worst, and the best, hug.

"You're here..."

"I'm here." He pulled back just enough to look at her, gauntlets still gripping her shoulders. "I'm here, Emma. I was right behind you."

She just nodded, dazed. Details were escaping him, too-- he wasn't entirely sure what he was saying. But whatever it was, of course he had followed her. He could not imagine ever doing otherwise.

Memories were gone, but emotions still lingered. How he had pitied her so deeply it ached. And now, too aware of that for comfort. He stood, offering Emma a hand up, but she stayed grounded for a moment, shifting to observe Leliana stirring awake from her own dream, before accepting.

"Well, huh..." Alistair started, his voice unsteady as he surveyed the carnage. "There's nothing quite like a stroll through everyone's nightmares, on a dreary Tuesday afternoon."

She paced around, checking on everyone. They'd all come back-- except for Niall. Emma knelt next to him, tapping her staff gently to the stone, channeling a mild energy to kill what little was left mimicking life. Then, from his cold hands, she took the scroll he died for.

"We still have Uldred to deal with," Emma rose, tucking the Litany of Andralla into her belt's satchel.

"That's the spirit," Alistair dutifully adjusted the straps on everything that had shifted out of place in his sleep.

"Yes, indeed. He'll be an abomination, by now," said Wynne, as if they didn't already know.

## Broken Circle/Uldred Boss

Emma's throat tasted of iron, her voice wavering through the Litany. She was no Chanter, but the ancient words still caught at something in the Fade, unraveling Uldred's hold on his thralls as he pulled them.

Leliana's arrows punctuated Emma shaprly, flying past her ear. Wynne's wards burst open in domes of light, buying them precious seconds. But the spirits of rage kept coming, their warped bodies shrieking, and Emma knew: if Uldred didn't fall soon, they'd be overwhelmed. For every spirit they ended, more encroached.

Uldred's abomination led the assault, its distended mouth spitting gouts of flame. It *needed* to end her litany. But the chamber's architecture had become her weapon—Emma had positioned herself on the raised dais, using the stone platform's height. Between her and the abomination, a seething mass of thralls formed a living barrier, puppeted through the fade.

Uldred, always the most resourceful, had also an assault of insult bouncing around the chamber from the abomination's multi-throated roar:

"Ah, little Emma. Irving's stray pet. I never took much notice of you." She ignored him.

"You blended in so nicely—obedient, quiet, unremarkable." Uldred laughed, dripping with contempt.

"and Jowan," he mused, conversational despite the carnage. "The fool. He really thought you could help him, before I broke him."

Emma's hands tightened on her staff. She could see Jowan's terrified, bloody face in her mind, betraying her--

Alistair's blade cleaved through the fray, a negating edge that split magic missiles into harmless sparks, and dulled Emma's own wild arcs before they could sear him. He was fighting both sides of the battle, carving toward her, desperate to close the distance.

"He was a terrible student. Don't blame yourself. But he did bleed beautifully."

The abomination had learned. Every time Alistair gained ground, it would release a pulse of telekinetic force that sent furniture, bodies, and debris sliding across the blood-slick floor. He had to keep his shield raised just to avoid being brained by flying masonry. The distance between them might as well have been miles. He couldn't dispel and advance simultaneously, not against this many.

"Not like your other friend—the one with all the fire. Areli, was it?"

Emma's voice cracked mid-word.

Uldred himself flickered through the chaos, his semi-corporeal form phasing through fallen pillars, splintered benches. He would reach Emma easily enough through the Fade, but the Litany was her own disruption, forcing him to manifest physically to attack.

And manifesting meant vulnerability to Leliana's arrows, which had already forced him back twice. He circled like a predator, waiting for her concentration to slip.

*Hold on, I’m almost there,* he thought, breath rasping inside his helm. Every step forward felt like dragging an anchor through a lightning storm.

"So precious. Such passion. Such naiveté. And you handed her over yourself."

Emma's spell lashed out, wild and burning. Uldred's laughter swelled. Alistair vaulted over some twisted brass equipment, carved through another shrieking demon, his blade ringing, sliding forward through the blood.

"Such noble intentions. But you and Irving both- I will enjoy watching you die."

Emma kept chanting, kept hurling power, felt it building inside her like a storm—

The abomination's limbs thrashed, grotesquely elongated. Alistair ducked a whiplike arm, slammed the shield upward to jam it, twisted under and carved through the joint in one ugly stroke. The limb fell, thrashing.

"Did you really believe he recognized your power? No. You were convenient. Disposable. A pet they hold by the ears, afraid you'll bite."

Uldred's latest insult, she thought, the one meant to be the killing blow--to her pride-- was miscalculated. Lightning crackled from her fingertips, uncontrolled, beautiful, vicious.

There was a horrible, bloody charge in the air. Alistair couldn't route it. He shouted a warning, but Emma didn't hear. She dealt the abomination a mighty blow, delivering the spell disguised as chant with a vengance. Thralls fell limp. Spirits dissolved into air.

Alistair's blade finally found its mark. Steel cleaved through the abomination's center mass with a sickening crunch.

For one heartbeat, Emma thought they'd won.

Then Uldred lurched forward, the remaining arm lashing out with impossible speed, whipping her, tossing her back with a sound like kindling snapping. The Litany tumbled from her hand.

The hungry abomination was already looming over her broken body, moving with supernatural speed. His form flickered—half-man, half-demon, all blighted, wholly wrong. His hand plunged into her chest. *Into* her, robes sizzling around its wrist.

Emma's screamed as her own blood eagerly rose to meet him, leaving her in hot, pulsing streams—felt Uldred drawing on it like a well, felt herself becoming the conduit for something vast and hungry. She slumped, and dared not look up.

"Blood answers blood," Uldred whispered, almost tender. "Yours is strong. I can use that."

Power surged through him, fed by her life. The chamber filled with crimson light. Emma thought to move, to speak, to cast—but she realized: struggling would only give him more power. Stillness was her only option. She cooled as he drained her. Her vision narrowed to a pinpoint.

"You'll lose control. But perhaps that's what you want. You could let me in. We could finish what Irving started—together."

Alistair: "Nope."

He didn't hesitate. Templar training took over— skills he'd hoped never to use. He slashed through the fade, cutting a void into the space between Emma and Uldred, severing that bloody thread of stolen power.

Emma felt that void slide through her: cold, absolute, merciless. The deathly and sudden absence of magic; Her body bloodless, unable to heal. Her heart stuttered, and stopped.

Uldred shrieked, his form destabilizing. Alistair pressed his advantage, blade draining Uldred of everything it had. With his shield, he crushed the abomination's skull-- still human-shaped, until he shattered it. The monster collapsed.

Emma's chest lay open and still, blood pooling. Not pulsing.

"No—" Alistair dropped everything, greaves scraping stone, knees displacing the growing pools, blade and shield clattering uselessly besides.

"You fool—she was the abomination's conduit!" Morrigan was livid.

“Come on, Em—” His hands shook, he spread them over her, trying to keep in there whatever she had left.

Morrigan batted him away, sinking green vapor into her. Flesh repaired, but still cold.

"You *severed* her life, you imbecile!"

“I KNOW--! please, Wynne!” His shouting cracked through the air as her lightning had been, just seconds ago. “WYNNE!”

The old mage was already moving, shoving past, briskly articulate. "The BOTH of you, get OUT of my way." Golden light flared between her palms, pouring into Emma's still form. Alistair shifted back, exchanging glances with Morrigan, seething at him. She turned away.

*It's up to Wynne now.*

Alistair grabbed her limp hand from the stone, bent his head over Emma's knuckles, coldness absorbing his own living warmth in vain. He prayed, in silence. The seconds stretched like hours. Then, a gentle breath, hardly audible. Barely, but *alive*. Her fingers twitched in his grip. Color crept into her grey face.

"Wynne—" His voice broke. "Maker, I owe you—"

The healer shushed him. He watched, the relief snapped from him. Morrigan muttered something about templar stupidity, pacing. But then, Emma convulsed, head rolling. He looked to Wynne, who nodded and sat back, professional despite the tremor in her hands.

"Em?" Her clammy hand returned the squeeze he'd held for her. His relief rebounded. “Hey... we won. And you scared the life out of me."

"Your Warden needs rest. Hours of it. Preferably a full day," said Wynne.

Alistair nodded, and thought, *whatever it takes.* But what he said was: “Hours? But... we don’t have hours.”

Her eyes opened, unfocused but aware.

“Then you’ll have to make them,”

*Oh, sure.* But he was quiet. Wynne's tone brooked no argument.

"Redcliffe needs us to hurry," Emma echoed him.

“You’re not going anywhere,” he snapped, but she agreed far too quickly. With a sinking feeling, he realized he'd overcommitted.

"You, go ahead. Take...take them. I'll stay."

Alistair shook his head, “Absolutely not, we don’t split up the party. Not after—” Her eyes flickered briefly to the surviving mages and Templars who would be accompanying them.

He looked back to her, with resignation.

“I can’t leave you here.” His mouth had not quite caught up with that resignation...

"There was a moment, I thought… well. I thought I--I thought it would be like...what nearly happened already. Emma, I'm so sorry, I..."

...but it was getting there. While he rambled, Emma fumbled at her belt. He let go of her hand, to help her open the pouch. She pushed a small vial, wax seal unbroken, out of the leather.

He redoubled his bow over her. The movement drew them close, into a pocket of privacy, or so he hoped. He looked back to Wynne, to Leliana, speaking amongst themselves—*had they seen?* and his pulse hammered at his throat as she pressed the forbidden item into his palm. His fingers closed around it, instantly.

"What—Maker Emma, do you even know--?" he whispered. *Idiot,* of course she knew. He’d just insulted the most deliberate, dangerous gift she could make.

"Can you use it?" For once, words failed him. He nodded.

"Good. If I don't make it... find me."

The phylactery felt heavy in his palm. After everything. She still trusted him. Her life, literally in his hands.

"Right. I'll try not to drop this."

Alistair memorized the way she was looking back at him, as he tucked it carefully against his chest, into the pocket already sewed inside his tunic. Next to his mother's amulet she'd found for him, in Redcliffe. Where he'd now be going, without her. He dreaded how much he would miss her.

"We'll move fast," he promised. "And you'll catch up."

"I will."

He forced himself to step back. To trust Morrigan, and their contingency he'd just been given, to protect her... if anything else went wrong.

As he gathered his weapons and shield, Emma called him back. He turned.

"You did the right thing," she said.

"I-I did?" She nodded. He had to look away. "When I smashed through that thing, and I realized--if Wynne hadn't been there--"

"I know," she cut him off. "Better than becoming a thrall. Thank you."

He wasn't sure if he could have lived with either end. He looked down at his hands—still shaking, still slick with blood on his gauntlets. Her blood, also inside the vial, warming against his own heart.

"Don't thank me. Not for that. Save your thanks for Wynne." And then he took another good look at Emma. Just one last time, before he left her.

## float/boat

Lake Calenhad remembered everything. Barefoot children playing along the shore. Dry seasons and storms. Nets heavy with fish. Bodies that went down and bodies that came back up. Centuries of Circle mages crossing its surface in shackles or hope or both. Their recent battle against the undead.

Now it carried her back to Redcliffe.

The boat rocked gently as it crossed. Emma watched the water with drowsy mistrust. It felt different than when she’d crossed it weeks ago. Less choppy. More hollow.

Morrigan perched across from her, arms folded, the faintest curve to her mouth suggesting she’d been waiting for something.

“Warden, if I may: what does it feel like to cross the same lake the Templars used to ferry you to your prison?”

Emma swallowed, suppressing rising nausea.

“You look as though it offends you greatly,” Morrigan observed.

“It makes me sick.” Her voice came out thin. Everything felt distant and soft-edged; the lake’s surface was eerily calm. Water lapped against the hull with slow, patient indifference.

The shoreline emerged from the mist in small, pale shapes—then the familiar silhouette of Redcliffe’s docks, and a handful of figures waiting on them. One of them pacing.

“He has been keen since dawn,” Morrigan said. “Like some forlorn hound.”

Even from a distance, Emma recognized restlessness in the way he moved. As the boat drew closer she watched him stop mid-stride, one hand lifting to shade his eyes against the afternoon glare.

The boat bumped the dock with a dull thud. Alistair was already there, steadying the hull before the ferryman even reached for a rope.

“Emma. and Morrigan. Hello. Long time no see,” He greeted them, flippant but strained. One day shouldn’t feel like a long time, but it had.

Emma took his offered hand. The dock creaked beneath them; the motion made her stomach curdle. His hand was warm, textured, anchoring. Everything the lake wasn’t.

“You look terrible,” he said.

“Thank you. I feel worse.” She swayed. His other hand shot to her elbow.

“Alright, that’s enough standing. I'm picking you up now.” he said, swiftly shouldering her.

Her stomach lurched as he lifted her off the dock. “Oh-- I might get sick on you.”

“I’m not worried." His voice lightened as she instinctively slipped her arms around his neck. "I've had worse on me. Darkspawn ichor, for instance. Or that time in Lothering when— Nevermind.” He stopped abruptly, readjusting his grip as he started up the dock.

“You took your time,” he murmured.

“Connor?” she asked.

“Safe. The ritual worked. Isolde is… let’s call it profoundly grateful. She actually cried... on me. It was deeply uncomfortable. But he’s recovering. He asked about you.”

“You seem…” He hesitated. “Alive. Mostly.”

Her fingers curled into the strap of his leathers. “I’m alright.”

“You’re not alright,” he said softly.

"Nearly." she said.

Around them, the village hummed with recovery—hammering, shouted instructions, the thump of crates being moved. Ordinary sounds reclaiming the space after disaster.

“I missed you,” Alistair said at last. “It was one day. I felt like I’d lost a limb. It’s pathetic.”

“I missed you too.”

“Morrigan said you spent the whole time reading. Barely looked up.”

“Morrigan exaggerates. I looked up once. To miss you.”

He groaned, over-dramatically. “You’re going to be the death of me.”

They entered the Chantry—still the village’s makeshift command center. A portion behind the bookcases sat empty now, hollowed of people returned to their homes. Wynne had ensured there was still a cot pushed against one wall.

“You didn’t have to carry me the whole way, but… thank you."

Alistair lowered her carefully to sit, then crouched until they were eye level. “How bad is it? Really?”

“Better. The boat was worse than Uldred.” A jest, but rooted in feeling.

Alistair had been trying very hard not to think about Uldred. He sat back on his heels, something dawning in his expression. His eyes widened.

"Wait. Emma, please tell me you can swim."

He didn't know why this occurred to him; Plenty of people get sick on boats. And yet...

“…swim?,” she echoed, barely more than a breath.

Alistair leaned in, tone all brittle cheer. “Yes. That thing people do in water. Tell me you can.”

She exhaled, eyes drifting toward the floorboards. “I… can't, no.”

“You can't—? Emma, why didn’t you ever say anything? You were on a boat this morning.”

"I would've," she said, apologetic. "If we had time to do anything about it."

"We have time now--We will. If I could teach you, even a little— Let me take you to the lake, soon, before we leave. We can't keep keep dragging you across Ferelden like this. One day we might not have a boat, or a bridge, or—"

"I know." Emma gave him a long look, hesitating. She closed her eyes, trying to focus. “But, that lake…"

"I'm sorry... I know it couldn't have been easy on you, how the Chantry built the circle out there, using the lake like a moat..."

“Just… let me look out for you with this. Alright?" She nodded. He'd offered her a very decent explanation for everything.

Alistair finally eased back only far enough to help her lie down properly—boots off, blanket drawn up, fingers lingering at the corner to make sure she was settled.

The Chantry buzzed faintly beyond the bookshelves, a world still turning. They both knew the moment of calm wouldn’t last. Wynne would come. Teagan would want debriefing. Murdock had plans that needed reviewing. The mages needed coordination. And beyond all that, the next impossible decision waited.

---

Emma had almost convinced herself she'd escaped the consequences of admitting she couldn't swim. A foolish hope, she knew, when Alistair appeared in the Chantry doorway, arms crossed, boots dusty, jaw set in that righteous angle she recognized too well.

Emma, who had been quietly reviewing Genitivi’s notes on Haven and pretending to be engrossed, looked up at him. “Now?”

“Yes, please. Before Teagan traps us in another meeting where we argue about the requisitioning of shovels.”

Wynne didn’t even look up from reorganizing poultices. “Go,” she said. “Both of you need air.”

Morrigan smirked as Emma passed. “Do try not to drown, Warden.”

The walk to the water’s edge took them down the titular cliffs of rocky red clay, past carpenters rebuilding porches and children chasing each other between drying laundry lines. Redcliffe was a village awkwardly getting itself back together. In the quiet between hammers, the lake glinted like nothing had ever happened.

“We’re not going far,” he said. “Just the shallows. The shallowest part of the shallows, in fact. It's where the castle groundskeeper taught me to swim."

They reached a stretch of shoreline where reeds clung to the mud and the water lapped in gentle, careless strokes. Alistair kicked off his boots and rolled up his trousers with the casual competence of someone who grew up doing this.

Emma did the same, slowly, like she was preparing for combat and not… this.

"Right then," he said, stepping in so the water reached his shins. "Come stand with me. I won't let you float away, or drown, or anything..."

She did, inch by inch.

He held out his hand. She took it. They waded deeper, until the lake reached her knees.

Emma gasped as the cold bit up her legs, but the real sting was the strange threading of something insistent under her skin. An extra wetness, unreal, leaking from the fade. The drowned magic humming. She swallowed. Alistair squeezed her fingers.

“Doing okay?” he asked.

She gave him that small, honest, miserable half-nod of hers. “It’s… loud. Under the surface.”

"Loud? How?" he asked, but she didn't clarify. Couldn't, really.

"We'll go slow then. No rush. We can pretend the darkspawn will wait. Just… breathe, alright? In and out, like you've been doing your whole life."

Emma nodded, keeping her eyes off the water, on him. He'd never seen her like this—not without an enemy looming, something to fight. This was different. Worse, maybe.

"So," he said. "You just need to let the water hold you up a little."

"It'll swallow me."

"No, see—this whole village depends on this lake. It supports way more than it swallows. Literally," he argued.

“That’s debatable."

"Well, look. What I mean is—you're not sinking while you stand here, are you?"

"No."

“Good. So now, hands on my arms. Just to balance.” His voice had gentled completely, stripped of any foolishness.

Emma placed her palms lightly on his forearms. He stepped backward so only their fingertips brushed, trying to project confidence and not think about how she was touching him, or how the sun caught in her hair, or—

“Now lean back. Slow. Don’t fight it.”

Emma’s breath hitched. “Alistair—”

"I'm right here. You're fine. I've got you."

She let herself tilt, tension bowstring-tight through her body. The lake pressed cool against her back. For a split second she felt the drop—

Alistair's hand cupped the back of her shoulder immediately. "Hey. Stay with me. Just breathe, remember?"

Emma forced air in, tremoring with panic. The water steadied. She blinked up at the sky, not drowning, not falling. Just… floating.

After several seconds she whispered, almost betrayed, “It’s holding me.”

"See? What did I tell you? I'm occasionally right about things. Don't spread that around."

She let out something between a laugh and a shaky exhale. “I hate this.”

"I know. And you're doing it anyway."

She closed her eyes against the brightness. “Alistair… I need to tell you something.”

He stilled, hand still anchoring her shoulder. “Alright. I'm listening.”

But the water tensed under her.

“Later,” she whispered. “When we’re done.”

“Okay. Later, then.” No rush. Except for the Blight. And Loghain. And that thing with the Urn. But other than that...

They stayed like that—Emma terrified of buoyancy, Alistair steady beside her. Slowly, her muscles unclenched.

"There. That wasn't so bad, was it?"

"It's terrible."

"But you did it." His grin was genuine, proud even.

“Okay,” she said at last. “Enough.”

He helped her up. Together they waded back, the water falling away from her limbs like it was reluctant to release her. She didn’t relax until her feet stopped sinking into the mud.

Only when they reached their discarded clothing on the grass did Alistair fully exhale. He wrapped his cloak around her. He wasn’t hovering, but only by sheer force of will.

“There,” he said, voice gentler than his grin. “You faced the lake, and the lake did not, in fact, eat you.”

Emma wrung out her sleeves. “It tried.”

“…It maybe considered it. Briefly. But I wouldn't let that happen.”

She just stood there, gaze lowered. Her hands trembled once, barely, before she pulled the cloak tightly around her.

He wanted to know what she’d meant back in the water. That *I need to tell you something,* then, *later.* It tied him into an internal knot. He’d been replaying the tone of it, the hesitation, the way the lake seemed to lean in—Maker, get a grip, man.

“Let’s sit a minute," he offered.

They dropped onto a patch of sun-warmed grass, clothes clinging, boots abandoned somewhere behind them. For a few moments they just existed, side by side, listening to Redcliffe on the hill above.

Emma tucked her knees up under her chin. Alistair rested his elbows on his thighs, staring out at the water haughtily, as though daring it to look at her wrong.

He also pretended he wasn’t dying—quietly, politely—waiting for her to speak. Was it something about Uldred? About her magic? About the Fade? Did she regret something? Did she regret trusting a man the Chantry trained, promising to protect her from the same waters it had used to enclose her?

“Alistair,” she murmured.

He sat up too fast. “Yes?”

“About before. In the water.”

He tried to keep his expression level. But failed. He had to look away and pretend to adjust his damp sleeve.

“Oh. Right. That. When you said you needed to tell me something, and then immediately decided the lake wasn’t the right audience,” he said, and it came out very normal.

She looked up, a bit apologetic, a bit fragile, but with a smile-- thin but real—made something in him unravel. She could see right through him. Of course she could.

"And I’d like to know what it was. If you want to tell me. If you’re ready. Or even semi-ready."

Her brows lifted in a weary little arch—the kind she gave him whenever he was being simultaneously charming and inelegant. He took it as permission to keep going.

“I’m not prying,” he lied, poorly. “Just… nudging. With extremely good intentions."

"It’s not about you,” she said, glancing sideways at him.

He felt relief, embarrassingly. He dragged a hand down his face to hide it.

"Yes. Good. I mean—not good that it’s something else, but—well. You know.”

"I do."

She stared at her knees for a long moment. Then lifted her gaze to the lake again, briefly.

"It scared you," he said, quieter now. "Whatever it was." That scared him.

"It's difficult. I don't talk about this, but..."

She sighed. He turned toward her fully.

"When I grew up in the Frostback valleys..."

"--you're Avvar." He hadn’t expected that. It explained things—her instincts about spirits, the focus beneath her fear and the steel beneath her calm. He couldn't believe he didn't see it before.

"Not a large hold, with a banner, or a name worth songs. But yes. I was. And yearly, we'd go up while the river flooded. After the rains, we'd return."

“One summer, the river flooded again, after we resettled the valley. There was a storm. Not the worst storm, even. But the ice on the mountain… broke. The water carried everything and everyone away. It...happened so fast.”

“Emma,” he said softly, “Maker.”

Emma accepted his arm around her shoulder. He couldn't breathe, unsure what to do with the rest of himself. She stared down at her palm, faintly trembling. After a long moment, she exhaled shakily, reminding him to also.

“I didn’t think you’d want to know," she said.

“Are you joking? There is nothing about you I don’t want to know.” He decided not to put his foot in his mouth, not this time.

"Well... nobody understood why we all drowned, but I lived. I mean, magic, obviously. Except I hardly knew any, and there were elder mages. It didn't make any sense. The Chantry questioned me for days. I think they suspected I caused the flood. Or sacrificed the others." Or knew someone who had.

“I *know* you didn’t survive because you did something wrong,” he said, voice steady, so sure about something he couldn't know.

"It's possible. I don't know."

“Whatever happened, you fought to stay alive. Anyone would've done the same."

"Sure... and I was young. So they sent me to the Circle, like any other mage."

“Em... I’m so sorry.”

"Don't be. It was... surprisingly easy, The tower… it let me forget. Or ignore it. I dreamed about it, sometimes..."

Alistair’s brows pinched, just slightly. “And now that you’re out here…”

"Now, I know I cannot cope with a natural body of water. Embarrassing, really."

“For what it’s worth,” Alistair added, trying for lightness but cracking in the middle, “if I’d gone through anything remotely like that, I’d probably still be hiding in a broom closet.”

“You wouldn’t.”

“Absolutely would,” he insisted.

"Liar," she pushed back.

## Fate

They were camped on the edge of the road, firelight spitting sparks. The wind was thin and cold, carrying the scent of pine and distant rain. Alistair felt ridiculous, effort-fully protecting a flower from being crushed by his gear, during a march of all things. He couldn't carry on like this. He couldn’t put it off any longer.

“Here,” he said, pulling the rose from a leather bundle protecting it, tilting its face towards her. “Look at this. Do you know what this is?”

Emma hadn’t seen a living flower since before leaving the Tower. She touched a petal, tentatively, then pulled back. For a moment he thought she might refuse... but she pretended she'd cut herself on a blade.

“Your new weapon of choice?”

He took eagerly took advantage of her opening.

"Yes, that's right. Watch as I thrash our enemies with the mighty power of floral arrangements! Feel my thorns, darkspawn! I will overpower you with my rosy scent!" He paused, his smile turning sheepish. "Or, you know, it could be just a rose. I know that's pretty dull in comparison."

"Sentiment can be a potent weapon." Emma looked up at him with those dark eyes, which in twilight seemed all pupil and no iris, deeply absorbing as if possessing their own gravity... Oh, if he didn't speak now, he'd never...

"That obvious, am I? I guess I shouldn't be surprised... I picked it in Lothering.”

Emma recalled the doomed town, and by the highway, hearing of Leliana's dream—She pushed the thought aside. Whatever it meant, it could wait.

Alistair studied her, uncertain. She was even as ever. He hoped that was good.

“I remember thinking how strange it was,” he said, “that something so beautiful could grow in a place so full of despair. I should’ve left it, but I couldn’t. The darkspawn were coming. It would have been destroyed. So I kept it.”

The rose trembled slightly as he extended it toward her.

"I thought I might give it to you, actually." She reached for it. This was going well.

"In a lot of ways, I think the same thing when I look at you." Her fingertips brushed his palm, traced his knuckles. Deliberately.

He was used to armor, steel, and callouses. Emma was unlike any of that; although impossibly soft, her touch may as well have been a lightning bolt, bridging them with a crack of intensity. He went very still, pulse hammering visibly at his throat.

"You think of me as a gentle flower?" She withdrew, reaching past him to pinch the stem of the rose instead.

"A gentle flower? No... I don't know that I'd put it that way. I guess it's a bit silly, isn't it?" He kept talking, despite suddenly feeling remote.

“Here I am, doing all this complaining… and you haven’t exactly been having a good time of it yourself…You've had none of the good experiences of being a Grey Warden since your Joining. Not a word of thanks or congratulations. It's all been death and fighting and tragedy, and I realized..."

He hadn’t realized. He’d procrastinated. He was afraid to say it, like he may have made a mistake, unlikely as it now seemed.

"I've never even thanked you. For staying and not walking away when you had every reason to."

Emma looked down at the rose, turning it slowly.

Emma: “You know I thought about it. Duncan didn't give me a choice. But you… He freed you. And it meant I got to know you."

He wasn't prepared for that. It took a moment for his head to catch up to his still‑wild beating heart.

“I just wanted to tell you,” he said, “that you’re a rare and wonderful thing to find in all this darkness.”

“So… are we a thing now?”

He barked a laugh. “Ha. Please. You don’t catch me that easily. I know I’m quite the prize, after all... I guess it was just a stupid impulse. I don't know. Was it the wrong one?"

"No. Thanks, Alistair."

Alistair felt an internal convolution loosen breathlessly. He wished to say something clever, warm, anything. But if he kept going much further—

“I’m glad you like it. Now, if we could just skip the awkward embarrassing part and jump straight to the steamy bits, that’d be great.”

--He might say something foolish and insincere, like that.

"Alright," she said flatly, unsure what he'd do. "Clothes off."

"Bluff called! Damn!" He laughed, running a hand through his hair. "Maker’s— you’re cruel. Absolutely ruthless."

“You’re cute when you’re bashful.”

“I’ll be—” he choked on his own fluster “—standing over here. Until the blushing stops. For safety. You know how it is.”

[^](#top)

## Lost Save - 9:31ish

They stood before the column of fire, the air around it rippling with heat that somehow failed to burn.

“Right,” Alistair said, eyeing the flames. “So we just… walk through it. Naked. In front of everyone.”

Emma was already disrobing, quoting, “Those who carry nothing but truth may pass unharmed.”

“An absurd religious hazing ritual. Appropriate, I guess.”

He glanced back at their companions, who had tactfully turned away—except Zevran, who was laughing, delighted by the spectacle.

“You can wait here,” Emma offered, unbuckling her belt. Glass vials and metal clasps clinked as she dropped it onto the stone.

“And let you have all the fun? Absolutely not.”

She helped him undo a series of buckles. The intimacy of it—the ritual stripping-down, the preparation for trial—more vulnerable than the nakedness itself. He dropped the last of his gear beside hers, catching her eye. The holy fire cast strange halos around them.

Finally, he pulled the loose edges of her robe aside, lowering it over her shoulders, revealing her. He’d seen her unclothed before—privately, closely—but not like this. Not illuminated by something holy and terrible while their companions half-giggled behind them.

Only now, in the clarity of that bright fire, did he appreciate how she’d changed: leaner, firmer, a little less mage and a little more soldier. He shivered without his tunic.

She smirked. He returned a shy smile. The tension softened into something conspiratorial.

“Well,” he said as she took his hand, “if we die, at least we’ll die beautiful.”

Emma laughed, tugging him forward, stepping into the fire.

There was no heat. No pain. Only the sensation of being lifted—unmade, then remade.

They were nowhere.

Then the fire spat them into elsewhere.

A vast, unfamiliar void. Naked. Weightless. Colors churned like storm-glass caught in a whirlpool—violets, deep blues, greens—spiraling around a central ring of shining chrome. The spiral elongated, collapsed, reformed around an unseen axis. A strange beat pulsed from within it, perfectly regular, felt inside their ribs.

The beat flattened into a steady hum. The ring hovered in impossibly smooth rotation.

Emma’s breath caught. She was certain she was not meant to witness this. Its symmetry was perfect—unnervingly so. Forbidden. A truth stripped of myth. She knew as they were here, looking at it, they were also within it. Spinning. Perhaps as they'd always been.

“This isn’t the Gauntlet,” she whispered.

“It’d be nice if it were.” Alistair tightened his grip on her hand, following as she stepped forward, compelled.

Colors thinned, stretched like paint dragged over glass, then drained away entirely, leaving only a white needle of light and brushed metal.

The bare metal.

It was clicking.

“Listen.”

The clicking sharpened into rhythmic friction, precise and mechanical.

“I am,” Alistair murmured. His voice sounded small. Something pressed at the boundaries of the space, making the air itself shiver. His skin prickled.

And then Valor stepped out from the spaces between the clicks.

**“Greetings.”**

The spirit had no fixed form—light given a silhouette, its edges bleeding into the void. Broad-shouldered. Steady. Familiar. His voice carried the cool edge of conviction.

**“We have come far,”** he said. **“But not far enough.”**

Valor did not look at Alistair at all. He stepped between them anyway, hands gripping her shoulders. “Emma, How do we leave?”

She stared past him, transfixed.

**“I know what you seek,”** said the spirit. **“Strength to change the fate of nations.”**

His voice pressed against her chest like a hand.

**“And—rarer still—the knowledge of why things are as they are.”**

The spinning disk dilated. Details sharpened into impossibly fine metal tracks and pits, each groove vibrating with something sublime.

*Writing.*

**“I can give you both,”** Valor said.

“Emma,” Alistair warned, voice tight. “Don’t.”

**“Let me show you.”**

“Please—”

But she was already reaching—toward the light, toward understanding—

Alistair struck.

His heel slammed into the disk’s edge. It wobbled, skipped. The clicking broke, grinding into a shriek of metal on metal. Emma cried out. Alistair yanked her back, holding her tight.

Light shattered. Static filled the void. Color peeled away. Valor’s form fractured into jagged, glitching shards.

The space buckled, ruptured, collapsed—

Everything tore open in a single violent instant, revealing an impossible window:

A cramped room. A humming tower of black metal. A glowing CRT monitor. A person slapping the side of the tower as the disk inside shrieked.

“Shit! I didn’t save—”

Another voice: “Dude! I told you to get an SSD!”

The metal whine crescendoed and ground to a stop. Then it was all gone. They slammed onto cold stone, naked, fire roaring behind them. The Gauntlet stretched ahead—ordinary. Too ordinary.

Emma gasped like she’d been struck. Something inside her felt torn out—she didn’t even know what it was.

Alistair’s eyes darted to her. For a moment, he feared someone else might look back.

---

Emma sat cross-legged by the fire, gently cleaning her staff.

They’d made camp in an abandoned antechamber. The stone still held the day’s warmth. Alistair had gone through all the motions—set gear down, adjusted bedroll, tried to sleep—but his attention kept drifting toward her, then away again.

She noticed.

“What is it?” she asked quietly, not looking up.

He startled. “Am I staring? I’m-- well. Maybe I am. Sorry.”

She shrugged, but lifted her gaze, questioning.

“Emma… do you remember what happened? In the fire?”

She paused. “We walked through. It was bright. It felt… strange. Then we were on the other side.”

A crease formed between her brows. “Why? What do you remember?”

“I—” He rubbed the back of his neck. “That’s the problem. I *don’t* know. I know something else happened, but when I reach for it it’s like trying to remember a dream the moment you wake. I know it mattered. I just… can’t get to it.”

“That’s the Fade,” Emma said, though something inside her tightened. She set aside her staff entirely. “Especially here.”

“Right. Yes. That’s what I keep telling myself.”

Then, quietly:

“After that... I had this dream,” he said. “And you were there. Something was… reaching for you. From inside. Hands coming through your ribs like they were growing out of you.”

Alistair’s voice roughened. “I wanted to stop it. I tried. And I couldn’t. When I woke up, I felt—Maker, Emma, I don’t have words for it. Just that something’s waiting. Patient.”

She watched him; His fingers kept flexing. The fire popped a flash of light, highlighting his intensity.

“We've fought many demons. If something had tried to possess me, one of us would know,” she said.

“I know. That’s what scares me. This didn’t feel anything like that.”

He leaned forward, elbows on his knees. She moved closer until their knees nearly touched.

“Back at the Circle, fighting Uldred… For one horrible second, I thought—you know... but I understood everything. I could *see* it. I still remember. I remember *everything.*”

Emma looped her arm around his, grounding him. He shut his eyes at the contact.

"But this... whatever I saw, those hands...I don't even know," he repeated. She pressed into the flexion of his arm, gently releasing his fingers. He grumbled, ducking his head to rest heavily on her shoulder.

“You need rest,” she whispered, stroking his hair as a silent reminder: *I’m here. I’m fine.*

“I don’t think I can.”

“Try.”

"Emma—"

"I know you won't sleep through anything dramatic," she promised, lightly.

He hesitated. She kissed his temple. Once, twice, steady. Convincing. He settled onto her lap. She watched as his breathing slowly evened, shallow. Tightly wound. Barely, but asleep.

Emma stared into the fire, frowning. She remembered nothing.

## Flemeth Fight, Kokari Wilds
“Do not think her gone soft in age,” Morrigan had warned them, before they left her behind. “My mother is many things. ‘Forgiving’ is not among them.”

"We need a plan." Emma spread the map across the damp ground, weighing down the corners with stones. Her fingers traced the route through the swamp, pausing at each water crossing marked by the Chasind scouts. "Flemeth's hut is here, deep in the wetlands."

"Lovely." Alistair crouched beside her, close enough that she could feel the warmth radiating from his armor. "Nothing says 'friendly visit' like trudging through a swamp to meet an ancient witch of legend."

"The water paths will be our main challenge. We should establish signals for crossing formations."

Zevran lounged against a tree, cleaning his nails with a dagger. Alistair shot Zevran a warning look. She ignored them and continued,

"Sten and Alistair take point, I'll coordinate from center with support, Zevran and Leliana on flanks, Wynne on barriers. If we encounter deep water—" she paused, "Zevran's on reconnaissance."

"How delightfully practical," Zevran purred. "Our fearless leader seems less than enthusiastic about getting her feet wet."

Alistair had already deliberately placed himself between her and Zevran's knowing smirk. "It's called tactical positioning. Emma coordinates better with full field visibility."

"Of course." Zevran's smile widened.

"We leave in an hour," Emma interrupted, "Check your supplies."

As the others dispersed, Alistair lingered.

"Remember what we practiced at Redcliffe. If—"

"I remember." The swimming lesson felt like a lifetime ago—his patient hands supporting her back, her death grip on his forearms, the mortifying panic when water touched her face. She'd managed to float for exactly three seconds before scrambling for shore.

"But the swamp won't be like the lake," she added. Emma had also been anxious of Lake Calenhad’s cold, semitransparent depth; But now found herself nostalgic for it. His hand found hers on the map.

"Don't," Emma responded, pointlessly, while squeezing back. She had noted the way he angled himself, as if he could shield her from this as simply as he could a physical assault. This was plain for Zevran to read, at least, and probably the others as well.

Embarrassing, but maybe better they all knew, or suspected.

"Don't what? Don't stand here? Don't breathe? Don't fail to notice that you're gripping that map like it's trying to escape?"

"Someone needs to keep you from making terrible jokes at inappropriate moments."

"My jokes are perfectly timed, thank you very much."

The swamp had reclaimed itself—water risen, thick black and sucking. The Korcari Wilds pressed in on all sides, thick with rot and fog that turned the midday sun to a sickly yellow smear. Their boots squelched through mud that grabbed at every step, and Emma forced herself to focus on the rhythm of movement rather than the sticky air and soggy ground saturating her entirely.

"Cheerful place," Alistair muttered, slapping at something with too many legs. "Really captures that 'slow descent into madness' aesthetic."

"Shh." Leliana held up a hand, arrow already half-nocked. "Something moves ahead."

They fell into formation without thought, weeks of travel having honed their movements to near-telepathy.

"Just a giant leech," Zevran reported, reappearing from the mist. "Already dead, thankfully. Though the size suggests we should watch the water."

"There." Alistair pointed through the trees. The hut squatted in the swamp like something grown rather than built, all angles wrong. The Wardens exchanged glances. It had not, until this moment, felt much like the same swamp where they'd been rescued, almost a year ago. It had been here the two of them had learned they were the only Grey Wardens in Ferelden. His visor was open, exposing a knot of grief in his brow, once so familiar. She realized she couldn't recall the last time she'd seen it.

"Well, well." Flemeth stood silhouetted in the doorframe, and Emma's blood chilled. Power radiated from her like heat from a forge, ancient and amused and probably inhuman. "The young Warden and her merry band. Come about my daughter's little request, have you?"

Emma wasn't interested in talking. She looked at her companions—Leliana already reaching for her bow, Sten simply waiting for orders, Wynne's face grave but unsurprised. Zevran twirled his daggers with anticipation. And Alistair...

Alistair stepped closer to her, voice low. "We can walk away."

"And let Morrigan be possessed? By her own mother?"

"No-- I-- You're right. Of course."

Everything was their problem now—the Blight made sure of that. Morrigan was one of theirs.

Then the bog itself seemed to inhale. The wind dropped. The reeds bent outward. And Flemeth rose from the muck. Not the woman, not the hag of the Wilds—something else. Her dragon form tore through the canopy, swamp water sliding off her scales in sheets.

“Great. A disapproving parent who is also a dragon,” Alistair raised his shield, bracing in the muck.

"Form up," Emma commanded. "Spread out, don't group where her breath can catch us all. Wynne, barriers on the melees. Leliana, Zevran—"

Leliana crossed herself and knocked an arrow, cold eyes calculating angles, “Aim for the wings when she lifts. Bring her down,” she called to Zevran, her bardic voice lilting through rain.

"Already on it," he vanished into stealth.

Emma saw the telling glow building in Flemeth's throat. "MOVE!"

Fire turned the swamp to steam. Emma threw herself behind a twisted tree, bark exploding above her head as flames licked around either side. She heard Alistair's war cry, the clash of sword on scales. The surface of the swamp was slick and black as oil.

Emma called out from the left flank, sending a bolt of energy that sparked harmlessly off dragon hide. The enchanted arrows flew true, a dozen striking in rapid succession. Flemeth roared, whipping around with her tail catching Sten full in the chest. Their off-tank flew backward, hitting a tree with a crack that made Emma wince.

"Sten!" She started toward him, but Wynne was already there, blue light flowing from her hands.

"Focus!" Wynne commanded, ever the teacher, even now.

Emma turned back to see Alistair dancing between Flemeth's claws, his shield taking gouges that would have eviscerated him in leathers. Zevran appeared and disappeared, leaving bleeding wounds that re-sealed behind dragon scales. The dank smells of iron and peat hit her in waves.

"We're not hurting her enough!" Alistair yelled, diving under another swipe.

Attempting to make advantage of the wet, Emma hit Flemeth with a storm of frost and shadow, but it dissolved uselessly in a spark of violet. *She resists cold.*

Her staff pulsed with white fire, enchanting their weapons to flame with an unspoken command: *Burn her.*

Flemeth reared to fight fire with fire, breathing a blast that rolled off Alistair’s shield like molten sunlight, briefly lighting the field beyond seeing anything. She heard Leliana’s arrows sing over their shoulders, each one striking softer flesh—between scales, under the jaw, along the wing joint.

Emma's mind raced. They had done this before, with the dragon at Haven. But Flemeth was older, smarter, and she knew their tactics. Every time they seemed to gain advantage, she adapted. Then she saw it, when the dragon reared back for another breath attack, there was a pause, a gathering of energy that left her exposed.

"Alistair!" Emma shouted. "When she breathes—"

“Come on, then!” understanding, he provoked the dragon who obliged him, diving with a crash. Emma channeled a forcefield around him, preventing him from being split with the blighted water. The spell held, barely. And that was now a new problem.

Emma looked at the positioning—Flemeth was too mobile, too reactive. Unless..."Leliana, Zevran—drive her toward the water!"

Zevran laughed, breathless. But they moved anyway, harrying Flemeth toward the deep pool at the clearing's edge. Emma felt her chest tighten as they got closer, the dark water reflecting nothing, promising everything she feared. Flemeth, focused on the immediate threats, didn't notice her back claws sink into mud, until it was too late. She reared up, wings spreading for balance—

"NOW!" Emma screamed. Arrows soared. Her spell, a concentrated lance of arcane entropy, struck the exposed point. Flemeth’s roar reverberated through the air. Furious at the resistance, her slit-pupiled gaze swept to the next threat — Zevran, shooting too close, loosing arrows with reckless rhythm. Her tail lashed, spraying mud, and she pivoted toward him like a serpent scenting prey. The amateur archer lowered his bow, eyes flicking to Emma with a quiet plea for help.

She looked back-- just in time, the force-field dissipated, their tank charged toward them. Flemeth rounded swiftly in a mighty surge of motion, rocking the peaty surface. He was determined to draw Flemeth’s wrath away from their archers, covering their retreat. He slammed his sword into Flemeth’s hind leg with a resounding crack. Her retaliating claw caught him mid-turn.

It wasn’t a clean hit; worse, it was a crushing one. The strike flung him back into a deeper part of the bog, where he vanished beneath the surface. The splash was deep and sickening. Then, nothing. No shout. Just the ripple closing in on itself.

Emma went after the depth where Alistair had vanished, waded toward the rippling spot where the bubbles still broke. Her next spell fizzled in her hand. Every instinct screamed at her to stop, to let someone else—anyone else—She could just wait, and hope.

Zevran was already there, looking to their leader; Oddly slow, struggling not to freeze in fear. He estimated their odds of surviving this fight, her typically stoic command broken, the other Warden underwater. Not good.

In an instant, she reflected rapidly on a series of past and present: *"Water erodes even the strongest mountain, and remembers everything it swallows."* Areli sleeping soundly in a bunk, before she was lost to the Circle. Alistair in the lake of his boyhood home, where he moved through the water with an ease that made her envious, promising not to let her drown. If he could surface on his own, he would have already. She did not want to go on wondering if she could have done something, anything different, not with another.

Zevran barked at her, “Warden! Go, or he’s gone. I’ll cover your back.”

Emma stumbled after, trembling, the swamp closing around her waist. She searched for Alistair’s pulse, distant under the water — but it slipped away, sinking. He was drowning because she insisted they come here.

“His armor,” she gasped. “It’s too heavy—”

Flemeth was already rearing again, wings spreading to take flight. Leliana’s arrows whistled in arcs of red flame, and one struck deep. The dragon roared, staggered—its wing faltered. Zevran seized the opening, a rare shot into the same wound. Leliana’s last arrow loosed — divine fire trailing like a comet — and slammed through Flemeth’s eye.

Emma got a glimpse of the dragon reeling backward as she plunged into the liquid darkness, thick with sediment and plant matter that turned everything to shadow. She propelled herself forward, despite wanting to surface, to breathe, to escape. The signs of life she had been following dissipated against the fade. Somewhere ahead, something metallic glimmered faintly—a shoulder plate, bubbles leaking through a helm, anchored motionless at a wretched angle into the mud. He’d hit hard and cratered into the bottom. Emma’s lungs burned already.

She kicked through the muck toward him, every stroke fighting suction. Zevran, somehow not far behind, his eyes were narrow slits behind the dim gleam of a dagger he’d drawn—his “knife for close conversations."

Emma reached the fallen Warden, desperately clawed at his plates, fingers sliding off the mud-slick steel. Zevran appeared at her flank and mimed cutting. But there was no leverage, no air. Every tug sent clouds of silt blooming around her like smoke. To her horror, she discovered the swamp’s pressure had sealed him into the suit, like a coffin's lid pinned down by the earth. They couldn't access the straps or cut them.

Her spell fizzled, her staff-less hands burned—the fade’s current muddled by the water’s density. Her magic didn’t travel well here; it hit resistance like sound underwater. She tried again. Her hands found his breastplate seam and she pressed her palm flat. Her glyph flickered and she reversed the spin, forcing the pressure out.

The spell detonated in silence, a concussive bloom of blue and white. The mud Alistair was embedded in loosened, clouds of silt boiling up like smoke. And the damned breastplate buckled, separating by a finger’s width—enough for her to jam her hand in and wrench the straps. The leather, swollen and tight, refused to give. She summoned a thread of flame to the dagger in Zevran’s hand, mana draining rapidly to keep the the blade burning faint gold underwater, but the rogue managed to saw through.

Emma jammed her own knife under another strap. The effort was blind, desperate. Her knife and hands were meant for chopping herbs. Zevran followed her fast, sawing through the leather buckles of the breastplate, swollen and gritty, practically glued together. She moved on, looking for anything else to get through, so desperately grasped and stretched the doublet underneath, cutting him out of careful stitches and strong wool. Her lungs convulsed to remind her she was also running out of time. Her entire will compartmentalized her fear of submersion, suppressing the urge to surface, refusing to leave without him.

She tried and failed to pry the armour open as Zevran he cut through the last strap. He was still too heavy, the water too thick, and she could feel her head getting light, her limbs getting denser.

*I'm going to drown. We're both going to drown.*

With her last bit of mana, Emma forced the next repulsion glyph, veins now burning with her lungs. She heard the unmistakable sound of bone cracking, but it worked. The cloud of debris they had created sucked inward, toward the vacuum of the breastplate pried open at last. The force ripped through the mud and kicked both of them upward. Armor peeled away in chunks—breastplate, spaulders, gauntlet.

She thought of nothing but *up*, of firmly dragging the other warden behind her, thought of nothing but them breaking the surface, thought of nothing but—

Air.

She gasped, choked, gasped again, treading poorly while struggling to keep hold of him, his helmet heavy against her shoulder. The rain hammered down harder now, drumming against her face, turning the swamp’s surface into a boiling skin. Leliana was bounding toward them.

"Help!" The word came out as barely a croak.

Her vision was cloudy, but she felt hands on them—Zevran, pushing, Leliana hauling them to shore. As they emerged from the swampy pool, its water released them with a slurp, and they collapsed onto solid ground.

Leliana rolled Alistair onto his side. His visor was still locked down; Emma slammed the heel of her hand against the hinge, but it didn’t budge. She used her knife as a lever, wedging it beneath the visor seam and prying. The visor gave way with a splintering crack; The knife snapped. Air hit his face. He didn’t breathe.

“You’re not done yet,” she insisted, tearing open the satchel of vials at her belt to chug a mana potion. The spell bridged the gap between them; she felt his heart’s heavy stillness inside herself. Emma pushed harder—pulled harder, mimicking the rythmn of her own heartbeat—until, finally, with Leliana shoving at his back, viscous bog water gushed from his mouth. He sputtered, coughed, groaned, an ugly sound of drowning undone. The glow around her hands dimmed as she saw his eyes open.

Zevran sat back, running a hand through his hair, exhaling slow. “Maker’s mercy. Remind me to never fish for Wardens again.”

“You owe me a new bowstring,” Leliana said softly; She secured it poorly in her haste to pull her companions out of the water.

The swamp was still again, except for the hiss of cooling scales. Zevran looked away, under the pretense of watching the corpse steam in the distance. Leliana carefully removed her ruined bowstring, stealing glances at the Wardens, her eyes shining.

Alistair took in Emma, crouched over him, soaked to the bone, hair plastered to her face, her palm pressed to his sternum and radiating an unnatural warmth into his lungs. Feeling returned to him in stabbing pins and needles. He became aware of her other arm curling around him, pulling him up against her as he ejected goo on every other exhale.

"You... can't swim."

"Neither can you, apparently."

"Meant to..."

"Shut up. Just breathe."

Alistair’s eyes fluttered, unfocused, a hand pawing at his torn doublet. He wheezed something and promptly choked on it.

"Get us potions... and a tent," she said to Leliana.

"Em, where...?" he managed.

"Don't worry. Sit, please..." He tried to straighten, but pain constricted him. He was limp and heavy. Emma struggled with the angle for his lungs to drain.

“Keep him upright,” Wynne said sharply as she reached them. “He’s aspirated half the swamp.”

Leliana arrived with the potions, then sprinted off again to start assembling camp. As Emma eased him up with a poultice, she spotted among the vials: Her phylactery with the amulet of Andraste chained around it.

Somewhere behind them, Bodahn and Sandal must have already retrieved some things. Leliana’s romantic streak had saved their asses more than once, and apparently today was no exception.

"It's safe. We found it." She assured him; He didn't respond.

"Alistair." She could feel everything. Still breathing. Still going to be fine, eventually. But she bid him anyway. Slowly, the arm she held him by latched onto her.

He felt her gasp, heard her cry, felt tears hot on him as she pressed her face into the dampness of his hair and neck.

Leliana looked back at them before she shook out a bedroll onto the driest patch of land available: a massive tangle of roots forming a platform above the mire. Together, they dragged Alistair onto it. Leliana and Zevran built a tent around them.

Wynne swept in with an armful of supplies. "Out of the way, dear. Let me see him."

Emma shifted back, allowing her the elbow room, watching as Wynne's practiced hands moved over Alistair's torso. The older mage's expression darkened.

"Broken collarbone. Possibly cracked ribs."

Emma withdrew a pungent bottle of brandy, wincing as Wynne narrated her own observations. She recognized exactly which injury she’d caused cracking the breastplate open. Flemeth had done the rest.

“And his lungs,” Wynne added grimly, already warming water into steam. “Fluid. We need to keep it from settling. I’ll handle that. Warden, tend the fractures.”

Alistair blinked at the bottle. "--getting me drunk?"

"Very." She tipped it to him, slowly, patiently holding it back as he coughed.

“Your bedside manner has improved considerably,” Wynne remarked without looking up. Then, lowered, a precisely calculated volume: “At this particular bedside.”

Emma ignored her.

"Em..." Alistair squinted at her, breaths deepening as the alcohol took effect. "Did you—?"

“Drink.” Emma held it steady while he coughed and tried again. His eyes were glassy as he slumped. She held him up, fumbling with the nearly empty bottle in her other hand.

"Alistair." She squeezed his better arm; discarded the bottle and found the nape of his neck. "Focus. Sit up. Please."

"I wanna lie down..."

"Don't." He obeyed, slowly, straining.

“Leliana,” Wynne said, “hold his shoulder. When Emma manipulates the bone, he’ll try to pull away.”

“Manipulate wha—?”

“We’re putting your bones where they belong,” Emma said, palms sliding into position as he squirmed. She felt the misaligned ends through swollen skin.

“Try to be still. It’ll hurt," she warned him.

He groaned with contempt. "--already hurts!"

"Wynne, the ribs—"

"Wrapped already."

Wynne began a slow, practiced healing pulse over his ribs while Emma prepared herself.

“Leliana,” Emma said. "Brace him." Leliana planted a knee beside his arm.

Emma met Alistair's eyes. "Ready?"

He nodded, steeling himself, a steady gaze on her.

Emma pulled and pushed in one sharp motion. Bone ground, clicked, and he cried through clenched teeth, arching against Leliana’s hold. She pushed back, until it settled into place.

“Done,” she murmured.

Alistair slid down again, panting, drenched hair sticking to his temple.

“Sit up,” Emma insisted, stuffing her cloak behind him as Leliana lifted him forward.

"Mmhmm," his hand was searching again for the pocket inside his absent tunic. While Wynne pushed him away from her bandages, Emma quickly slipped the phylactery with the amulet into a dry pouch.

The Senior Enchanter gathered her supplies: "You did well."

"Thank you." Emma's tone was flat. "Please leave."

Leliana followed her out, casting one last concerned glance back.

"Leliana," Emma added, "thanks for the potions."

"Thanksss..." Alistair echoed as they left.

Emma silently splinted and bandaged him, her hands deft as she secured his shoulder around his good side. Finally, she slipped the pouch under the bandages, where he had been searching. His hand met hers there.

“Hi,” he whispered, smiling faintly. “You saved me."

"Don't mention it."

"I will. Endlessly." His breaths were rough but steadying. Better. “Stay?”

She nodded, settling on his better side.

"Good." His breathing deepened, he stopped squirming. Then, barely audible, he mumbled: "Love you."

Probably not conscious. Probably the brandy. Probably true.

---

Emma still didn't want to put her own pack back on, as they moved the camp up bit by bit, away from the heart of the swamp. She herself hadn't looked directly at the water since she escaped it. The thought made her stomach turn.

They had to go slowly, and couldn't go far. She still had Bodhan on the recovery of Alistair's broken armor, which she knew he'd be eager to get back and repair, if possible... Unfortunately, some parts were still missing.

Zevran crouched near the fire, leathers half-off, his hair plastered to his face in humid gold tangles. He glanced at Emma's fingertips, cleansed but still stained of poultices.

“Not the best element for you, no?” he says softly, voice light. “And yet, you pulled off a rescue. That’s a fine irony.”

Emma nodded and stared into the fire. “You could’ve run. Thank you.”

Zevran gave her his most quicksilver smile. “Sure, I could’ve. But then who would ruin your reputation for calm under pressure?” He patted her shoulder, resigning himself to internalize his performance of comradery. “Besides, the bastard owes me a drink now.”

"I'll make sure you get it."

Emma and Muffin circled the camp, distantly supervising Wynne fussing over everyone. Then she found herself sitting outside Alistair's tent. Couldn't bring herself to go back in, but couldn't leave either.

"Em," he called, detecting her presence there. She pushed herself through the tent flap.

“You're worried about me,” it was dark, but his tone was pleased, lightly teasing. She knew his expression exactly.

“You drowned.” The tent had them close. He felt her shiver.

“Just briefly," was his best attempt at reassuring her. “Besides, I’ve seen you die twice. Fair’s fair.”

Emma settled back to her spot next to him, still warm, listening to his steady heart and ragged breathing. For a while, neither spoke. The tent canvas hissed under the rain.

"You saved me," he reminded her. Again.

"You'd do the same."

"Yes, but I didn't—" He stopped. "Sorry."

"No, don't..." she refused the apology.

"--and then you *stayed* here with me. All night." He squinted, struggling to remember what he'd been through. Mostly, he remembered how closely Emma held him as he struggled to breathe.

"I just... keep seeing you go under," she admitted.

"Leliana told me you didn't even hesitate..."

"Oh... I hesitated." She pulled her knees to her chest. "I really didn't think I could."

"But you did... That's... no one's ever..."

"Alistair—"

"I know we don't talk about it," he interrupted. "This thing between us. We joke and we flirt and we dance around it because there's a Blight and you're, well, you're you. And I'm... well, I'm an idiot. I really don't know how to do this. But when I was underwater, when everything was going dark, all I could think about is that I hadn't told you—"

He trailed off. It was cruel, what he had wished he had said had seemed so clear, and now--

Emma thought: he *had* told her. Probably. Now he was struggling. She decided to save him the trouble.

"I think," she said slowly, "I'm falling in love with you."

It wasn't easy for her, either.

"Emma-- You think?" he countered, stunned.

"Why not?" She looked at him, feeling as though she should ask permission somehow, after guessing at where he meant to go.

He chuckled nervously, "Well... I've lost everyone who ever mattered to me. Duncan, the other Wardens... But you're still here. We're still here. For now."

"For now is all anyone has," she gently pressed her forehead into his arm.

The sensation dimly recalled a new detail: How he'd wanted to comfort her. He'd held his arm held to hers, but she cried. Her face as she stifled the sound on him.

"Emma, I—"

"I know, I know..."

He pulled her close, his elbow locking around her, as she had done then.

"I love you," he insisted. "I love you."

---

Emma woke to find herself still in Alistair's tent, still in all of yesterday's clothes, his unsplinted arm curled around her shoulder. Outside, she could hear the camp stirring. Leliana's soft humming, Sten's heavy footfalls, Zevran making some inappropriate comment that had Wynne scolding him.

"We should get up," she murmured.

"Mm, no." Alistair tightened his hold. "The Blight can wait."

"I failed to consider this. When did you get so wise?"

"When I took a nap in soup. Who knew?"

He hugged her, pressing her into bruised ribs. Painful, worth it, although this didn't go unnoticed. She slipped away all too quickly.

"Thanks for not dying," she said.

"Anytime. Well, no. Let's never do that again."

The camp was subdued when Emma emerged. Morrigan had caught up with them. She sat apart from the others, the grimoire open in her lap but her eyes unfocused. Leliana was trying to maintain normalcy, preparing breakfast while humming nervously. Even Zevran was quiet, sharpening his blades with unusual focus.

Emma approached Morrigan slowly. "May I?"

Morrigan gestured to the log beside her without looking up. "Come to ensure I'm not planning to transform into a dragon and eat you all?"

"Are you?"

"Alas, I think not," Morrigan closed the grimoire. "This book... it's not what I expected. It's... history. Memories. Some things she never told me."

"Anything interesting?"

"Perhaps. Or perhaps it's all lies, stories crafted to manipulate me even now." Morrigan finally looked at Emma, who had no answers.

So Morrigan changed the subject. "You entered the deep swamp, I was told. For that fool templar."

"He's not a templar," she insisted.

"So I've heard. You did this, although you could barely swim. More the fools both of you."

"True."

Morrigan stood abruptly, crossing her arms.

"I will need time. To study this, to understand what mother—what Flemeth intended."

"Naturally."

"I want you to know that while I may not always prove... worthy... of your friendship. I will always value it."

Emma found herself strangely moved, but she knew Morrigan would not appreciate any added sentimentality.

"I don't expect anything more."

As Morrigan walked away, Alistair slowly approached with two cups of tea.

"That went better than expected. She didn't threaten to turn anyone into a toad."

"There's still time," Emma accepted the tea gratefully, warmth seeping into her still-cold hands. She thought maybe she wouldn't mind being a toad, temporarily.

"So what now? We've killed the terrible witch, you've conquered your fear of water—"

"I doubt that."

But Emma was thinking of Morrigan with the grimoire, of Flemeth's knowing smile before she was, apparently, slain. She unhunched herself, sat upright, squaring her shoulders.

As they broke camp, she caught Morrigan watching her with an unreadable expression.

"What?" Emma asked.

"I am... concerned, perhaps. For I believe you have changed. If you make decisions based on feeling rather than logic, you may yet get yourself killed."

"Not this time," she watched Alistair helping Leliana restring her bow, making her laugh. No regrets.

"Oh, this time, sure. And what of next time?" Morrigan adjusted her pack. "I wonder, who shall you choose, when you must choose between saving one and many?"

"Many, obviously," Emma said. "In this aim, we cannot lose a Grey Warden."

This was a real and logical answer. It hadn't satisfied Wynne, either. But this was an upside of leadership: Emma didn't need them to accept her reasons. For now.

[^](#top)

~9:34
## Rose's Thorn (Orzammar)

Orzammar’s merchant quarter glittered like a forge turned inside out—iron, gold, and greed on every step down toward the Diamond Quarter. Torchlight slid over steel and gemstone. The air tasted of iron, lamp oil, and the dry rot of a city that had never known rain.

Emma drifted between stalls, half-listening to Oghren haggle loudly over a greataxe while Alistair stood nearby, arms crossed, looking very tall and uncomfortable.

Among the broad-bladed axes and sturdy dwarven shortswords, one piece stood out—a slender dagger, the steel dark as red wine, its pommel wrought into a blooming rose. Fine work, too fine for its company. She could not help but be reminded of the blooming rose from Lothering. Even now, the last living one she'd seen.

"For the elf?" asked the dwarven merchant.

Emma glanced back at Zevran, who was examining a set of throwing knives with professional interest. She picked up the dagger, examining its weight. Light, balanced. The sort of weapon meant for quick, precise work. Zevran would appreciate it. She caught his eye and gestured him over.

"What do you think?"

Zevran took the blade, turning it in the torchlight. His fingers moved with practiced ease, checking the edge, the balance point, the way it sat in his grip.

"Very nice." A slight smile; He seemed pleased. "Though I confess, Warden, this would serve better in the hands of a fighter who knows a shield."

"You mean Alistair?"

"He carries daggers, does he not?" Zevran spun the blade once, then offered it back to her. "This is made for someone who fights with their off-hand occupied. See here—" he indicated the grip, "—drawn quickly while holding something else. Shield, torch, struggling victim..." He shrugged. "Your templar-trained man would make better use of it."

The merchant nodded. “Elf’s not wrong. That’s an off-hand blade. Called the Rose’s Thorn.”

Emma considered this. Alistair *did* keep daggers—he'd used them effectively enough in the Deep Roads when they'd been pressed too close for his sword. It wasn't his preferred weapon, but, if Zevran thought it suited him...

"Tell me about it."

The smith snorted. “Pretty name, ugly story. Old forge-line made it generations back. Fine work—but it killed a king in a duel that wasn’t supposed to be deadly. Ended the noble line, and stained the house’s honor. The whole forge was blacklisted, erased from the Memories.”

“A curse by another name,” Zevran said.

The dwarf gave him a flat look. “If losing your clients counts as a curse, sure. We call it bad business. Steel’s good as ever. A name’s all that’s tarnished.”

Emma looked at the blade again, at the rose and thorn, at the dark steel that had ended a king's life.

"Perfect," Emma said, reaching for her coin purse. "How much?"

"Oh, my Warden, so poetic. Sometimes curses can be weapons, no?" Zevran chuckled. Quietly. Emma nodded an agreement.

The merchant named his price—steep, but not unreasonable for a weapon of this quality. The Rose's Thorn sold for around one hundred and fifty sovereigns. The dwarf grumbled something in dwarven that likely translated to *"reckless surfacers",* and accepted the coins.

“Just don’t tell anyone where you got it.”

"So," Zevran said softly as they moved away from the stall, "you buy a cursed blade that hungers for noble blood, and intend to give it to your royal bastard."

"Alleged curse. Alleged bastard."

Emma glanced back to make sure Alistair was still occupied with Oghren. Zevran studied her, but she was unreadable. They rejoined the others as Oghren sealed his deal, the dwarf looking pleased with himself and his new greataxe. Alistair glanced at Emma.

"Successful shopping?" he asked.

"Very," she said. "I'll show you later."

Something in her tone made him pause, but before he could press, Oghren clapped him on the shoulder with enough force to make him stumble.

"Right then, Wardens! Let's get back to camp before I spend all my coin on ale instead of decent steel."

---

That evening, after they'd settled into camp and the others had dispersed to their various evening routines, Emma approached Alistair with the wrapped bundle in her hands.

"I have something for you."

He looked up from where he'd been maintaining his sword, grease cloth in hand. "Oh? Should I be worried?"

She held out the bundle.

Alistair took the cloth-wrapped package, his expression shifting to curiosity. The fabric was rough under his fingers, probably cut from someone's old cloak. He unwrapped it carefully, revealing the dagger within. The torchlight caught the rose pommel, making it gleam. He stared, then let out a low whistle.

"It's beautiful," he said, genuine surprise in his voice. Then he looked closer at the blade, at the thorn etched along its length. "Wait, this is—Emma, this is high-quality work. This must have cost—"

She sat beside him. "It's called the Rose's Thorn."

"Fitting, I suppose." He turned it over in his hands, testing the balance. Like it had been waiting for his hand specifically. “Where did you—?”

Emma paused, and he recognized that look. either very good news or very complicated news. Sometimes both.

"Near the Diamond Quarter. It has a history. It killed a dwarven king, ruined a forge, that sort of story."

Alistair smiled, then grew serious again, studying the blade, feeling the edge. Sharp enough to cut through anything. He looked back up at her, brow arched.

“So... you bought me a king-slaying dagger.”

“Apparently,” she said, unbothered.

“That’s—Maker, Emma, that’s dark even for you.”

“Depends on what you’re cutting. This blade ended a dynasty.”

He went quiet. The fire popped between them.

"Oh--I see. Well--Emma, Not that I want the throne, everyone knows that. But..."

"I know," she said, gently. "But in Orzammar, there's always an alternative, isn't there?"

He chuckled, rubbing the back of his neck.

"Em—that's either the most brilliant or insane gift anyone's ever given me. I can't decide which."

"Both," she shrugged.

"With you? Usually is." He picked up the dagger again, more carefully this time, balancing on one fingertip. "I have to admit, there's a beautiful logic to it."

"Zevran called it poetic."

"He would." The metal felt warm now, like it had absorbed heat from his skin, or maybe from the fire. Or maybe from whatever mad magic Emma had woven into this moment.

"He said it would suit you best.”

"Zevran suggested—really?" Zevran, who'd tried to kill them. That Zevran?

"I'm also surprised."

"The world really is ending if Zevran's thinking about someone other than himself."

“Admittedly... I thought of you, when I saw it," she smiled at him, "But, you'd use it well."

"Thank you," he said finally. "For this very pointed irony."

He sheathed the dagger carefully at his belt, where it settled like it had always belonged there, like a fitting armor. Another curse worth keeping.

From across camp, Zevran caught Emma's eye and raised his wineskin in salute.

## Proof - Orzammar

Rendered lives pressed on her: elves in chains, men burning in Tevinter plazas, ghosts of paths not taken. They crushed her without mercy, relentless, flattening, sharpening, pointedly thin and cruel. A bitter blade.

And yet where the dwarves should have been, a hollow, a vast ache, a bottomless well of gravity in the center, swallowing all sound and beauty, like a socket where an eye had been torn out… forever open.

Beneath it, something older and harder locked into clutch. Shoulders braced, spines pushing stone just as worms push the dirt, rock yielding with a slow groan. This beat poured into her bones, thick and molten at first, but solidifying. She tried to resist, will herself to dissolve into the stone and be done with flesh. but she was not strong enough. The rhythm offered a deep solace, but tragically, it wasn’t hers. She felt wretched and cursed to walk the surface as meat.

Only once, in a dream or through Caridin himself, the stone did sing to her, and she remembered:

“Our Stone will never forget you, nor will we, so long as we may shape it.”

She remembered Kinloch, how its tower moaned and flexed under winter winds. She remembered Ostagar’s stones, Alamarri-built, humming faintly beneath the soldiers’ chants. This was older, deeper, like Caridin’s forge: hammer, anvil, earth, the rhythm of labor itself written into the world.

The Proving ring gathered it all. It was no pit but a bowl, stone carved so perfect it seemed to drink sound and return it magnified. Standing at the center was like standing in a singer’s chest. Every step, every clash of metal, every shout from above rippled across the walls and poured back, layering until the air itself trembled.

It was less an arena than a great instrument, a singing bowl struck by anything that had ever moved. The crowd throbbed above, the forges pounded beneath, and the overtones shook her teeth while the undertones rattled her ribs. Spellweaver hummed in her palm, hers only a moment in time. It was a much older, greater being, already mourning for her.

Emma fought in time. Spells broke like percussion, lightning cracking on the downbeat. She barely thought—the dance of combat bore her up, pulled everything into sequence; But none like the Silent Sisters, with no need to speak. In their wisdom, the Sisters knew to explain would profane this, command and communion both. She realized why the dwarves called it Proof: not of strength or honor alone, but proof they still resonate with themselves.

[^](#top)

~9:34
## prison break - Fort Drakon, Denerim

Emma goes still in the chains, pupils dilated, breath leveling in a way Alistair knows down to the bone. A familiarity that comes from counting someone's heartbeats in the dark through the manna in her veins.

The guard doesn't notice. He's leaning against the far wall, tossing a bruised apple in boredom. But Alistair feels the Fade flex like a pulled thread-- that awful prickling sensation.

*Please tell me that wasn't magic.*

For a second he's convinced he imagined it. He doesn't know how long they've been in here (at least a day), his stomach feels like stepped-on clay, and there's a persistent ringing in his ears. Emma's gone so quiet he thinks she's passed out.

Then the shackles clink softly against stone. Not wrenched open. Not forced. Just… *empty*. His heart slams against his ribs.

The space she’d been displaces the air softly. The templar by the door glances over, frowning at something he can't quite place. If Emma had cast anything, even slight, this man should be on her like a hawk on a mouse. But the guard just shifts his weight.

Alistair's nerves are lighting up anyway. He's ninety percent sure Emma just did something impossible. Ten percent doubtful, maybe he's hallucinating. One hundred percent sure he should *not* be the one playing mage-detector right now. He wants to call for her, but he's too concerned she actually pulled something off to risk alerting the guard.

The templar starts pacing. He finally looks over properly and freezes mid-step.

"Where—Maker's breath—*WHERE IS SHE?*"

There it is. Panic. Steel scraping from the scabbard, boots skidding on damp stone.

Alistair shoves himself upright against the wall, chains rattling. "Maybe she, uh… evaporated? Very tragic. You should write a report."

The templar growls, steps forward--

—and a rat scampers out from behind the waste bucket.

Right past his boot.

The templar *jumps*, jerking back with the kind of full-body flinch normally reserved for stepping on caltrops. For one beautiful moment, he's entirely distracted by the rodent.

That's when Emma hits him.

She's halfway back into her body, still disoriented, still *naked*, still shaking from bones that just finished being the wrong shape. But since she met the arcane warrior in the ruins, and found that sword, her magic made her strong-- albeit, a strength of little finesse. Her fist lands with the force of someone who's accidentally discovered she can punch like a sledgehammer.

Surprised, he folds like a kicked stool, armor clattering as she shoves him toward Alistair, who finishes him with the chain.

He stares, as their enemy is struggling, asphyxiating, and going limp. "Right. So that's new."

Emma's breathing hard through the recoil of this impact on her, arms wrapped around herself. "Don't… don't ask me to do that again."

"Absolutely not. Once was *plenty*."

She fumbles with his chains, fingers still trembling. The manacles are heavy, old, built specifically for restraining magic, but there's that strange strength still simmering in her hands, and she manages to snap the pin just enough for him to wrench the rest open.

It feels like a miracle. *Please don’t let us die naked.*

They fight the next pair of soldiers: dirty and desperate. By the time they're winded enough to lean on each other, they are very aware they cannot keep doing this.

"Maker's saggy left-- *oh.*"

Two Chantry sisters sweep through the corridor. Suddenly he was embarrassed to be talking about the Maker's tits, even after all this time.

But they're Leliana and Morrigan wearing veils.

Leliana radiates serenity, hands folded. "We found your things. Well… *some* of your things."

Morrigan looks like she's contemplating war crimes. "This costume itches. It chafes. And I *despise* it with the fire of a thousand suns."

They hand over a small bundle: some clothing, a belt with pouches, knives, Rose's Thorn still in its sheath.

Alistair blinks at Morrigan's disguise, then laughs heartily. Emma's looking devious, trying to suppress her smirk.

"Do *not* speak to me." She rips the Chantry robe clean off and hurls it at the wall.

Leliana sighs at the discarded habit with the same disappointment normally reserved for burnt pastries.

Emma's half-dressed, buzzing from unfamiliar, desperate and illegal magic. Morrigan studies her with the air of a teacher dispensing faint praise.

"So," she says, "you finally managed a transformation. Congratulations are in order, albeit *modest* ones."

Emma, still flushed: "I turned into a rat."

"A beginning." Morrigan's smirking, "You are, as ever, painfully slow to adopt instruction."

You could practically feed Emma that backhanded praise as dessert. She's beaming despite everything.

Alistair, fastening his belt: "Wait, so that was?-- I *thought*-- I felt something! I also thought maybe I just had a concussion..."

Emma: "You definitely had a concussion."

Morrigan flicks him a look. "It takes very little to fool a Templar, particularly when it comes to magic which is both ancient and esoteric."

Emma ties her hair back with still-shaking hands, jaw set. They're not free yet. They're bruised, under-equipped, drastically outnumbered. But the party's together again. And the next goon who tries to stop them is in for a *very* disappointing day.