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“The Blight is over!” sang the shrill voice of Ferelden’s reinstated queen. “And now, we gather here to celebrate those responsible for our victory!”
“No, I won’t agree to this.”
“Warden Alistair, the last of the Theirin bloodline, gave his life to save ours!”
“Will you not reconsider?”
“We will honor his memory, but the one who led the battle against the darkspawn, thankfully, remains with us still.”
“The answer is no, Morrigan.”
“I give you the Hero of Ferelden!” she announced, beckoning the enormous hall to erupt with the voices of a hundred joyous onlookers. Safir stared blankly at all the faces that cheered happily in her honor. Their cries filled the room, blending into an indistinct roar like that of a distant blaze.
She stood before the fireplace, watching its flames dance beneath her and lick at its brownstone walls. They flared out and up, the smoke that billowed through the chimney swirling like the nerves in her stomach. She was too late in calling out for her sister.
“The first Grey Warden to defeat a Blight since Garahel in the Exalted Age, with us stands Safir Tabris! There is no form of repayment that can match our gratitude, but is there any boon that you would ask of Ferelden’s queen?”
“The answer is no, Morrigan.”
“Warden?”
“The answer is no.”
Safir looked back up from the floor, snapping out of her trance to answer the question. She looked at Anora and then back into the crowd, meeting eyes with her father. They were wet with pride.“I would like to see my people treated fairly, for once,” she said, attempting to give him a smile to remember. She likely had precious few left in her.“An excellent idea!” the queen agreed. “How would you feel about being named the alienage’s bann?”“Shianni would be a better choice,” Safir answered, half out of a selfish desire for solitude.“Then we will have to track her down. And what of you, Warden? What will you do?”“I think I’ll travel.”“I suppose the Wardens are in no position to stop you. Well, I hope your travels bring you back soon,” Anora continued, speaking words to which Safir did not care to listen.
A pressure on her arm pulled her back, arresting her movement. Alistair’s voice spoke to her from beside, telling her he would take her place. Before she could protest, he set off. Before she could give chase, he struck the final blow. Before she could say goodbye, he was gone.
“There is a crowd of citizens outside who are eager to greet their hero,” Anora told her. “I suggest you make at least a brief appearance lest they storm the gates,” she finished with a giggle before leaving the dais and disappearing into the room.
“The answer is no, Morrigan.”
“Warden, will you not step down and celebrate with us?” Zevran asked from in front of the crowd down below. “You are quite pretty to look at, but as a statue I must say your figure is disconcerting.”Safir looked back at him, unable to move from her place atop the stairs. The laughter on his face fell into confusion, and then worry. His lips began moving again, and he took several cautious steps forward. She continued to stare at the empty space he’d left behind.
The flames whipped in erratic arcs, dancing in the fireplace. Tense fingers clawed into shivering flesh. “Morrigan, wait,” she called, but the doorway was empty save for her own flickering shadow.
“Morrigan, wait.”
“Safir, are you alright?” Zevran’s voice broke out to her left.“What?” Dazed, she turned to look into his eyes, searching them for some indication of what he’d said. He looked more worried than before, his lips moving slowly for a while before she began hearing the words.“...come down and join us? You are beginning to worry me.”
“The answer is no, Morrigan.”
“Yes, Zevran,” she answered, almost breathless. “I was just thinking of the alienage.”Stepping down the stairs and through a corridor of excited bodies, she sank into their noise and bluster.
Despite the hour and gloom, Redcliffe’s halls still echoed with the fervent voices of its dwarven guests, many of whom were still drinking their nerves away. Tentative footsteps bounced off the walls as she made her hesitant way to Alistair’s room.
He had his back to the door when she entered.
“Oh, there you are.”
“Oh, there you are.”
“Oh, there you are…”
“There you are, Safir!” her father said, wrapping his arms tightly around her neck. She returned the hug weakly, holding on lightly to his back. “My beautiful Little Owl is a hero now! I’m so proud of you. Your mother would be so happy if she could see you here.”The hug relented, and her father’s tear-stained face stopped just a short space away from hers. Like Zevran’s, it fell from joy into concern. “What’s the matter, darling?” he asked, his hands still on her shoulders.“Nothing,” she offered, knowing it wouldn’t work. “I’m just… at a loss for words, I guess.”“My Little Owl has never been at a loss for words,” he answered, shaking his head. “Try again.”
“Come on, Safir, one more time,” Alistair told her. “Try again.”
She brought the shield up to her eyes, spying at his sword hand from behind its upper rim. He struck once, twice, and then a third time, easily breaking her guard and stepping forward to kiss her cheek.
“You have to try harder, honey. The darkspawn won’t be as nice to you I am.”
“What’s wrong, Safir?” he asked again. “You should be happy! The Blight is over. You saved the world!”“Not mine,” she answered simply. “Oh, no. Oh, my poor baby…” he started, hugging her again and cradling her head in his hand. “I know it’s hard, Little Owl, but you have to be strong. You have to be strong, like Mama taught you.”Safir’s arms remained at her side this time, and she hoped for the moment to end.“Pa, not here,” she asked. “Please, not here. Go tell Shianni the news. I’ll meet you back at home when I’m finished with this.”“Alright, Safir. I’ll go. Promise me you’ll come straight home?”“I promise.”“Okay,” he said, stepping back from the hug and kissing her forehead. “I love you so much, Safir. More than anything.”“I know,” she answered. “I love you, too, Pa.”
The door to Goldanna’s house shut firmly behind them, leaving the rude woman to her miserable devices. Safir bit her cheek in frustration, ready to say awful things about her in Alistair’s defense, but his voice spoke up before she could raise hers.
“Look, I know that didn’t exactly go the way we… or I guess, I expected it to. But I want to say thank you.” She prepared to respond in kind, but to her surprise he continued speaking. “And before we go any further, I… Look, you’re a true friend, and… and I love you.”The hall’s noise rose up again as she watched her father shrink away and pass through the doors on the other end. With no voice to focus on, her ears blended everything they heard into one, ambiguous roar.
“The answer is no, Morrigan.”
Safir drew a long, shaky breath, steeling herself to wrap up the pleasantries and get away from the fuss and commotion. It did not take long before she found herself wrapped up in yet another exchange. This time, it was Zevran who sidled up to her, his tone of voice starkly upbeat.“Warden, if I may, I would like to speak with you before you leave,” he said, placing a gentle arm on her shoulder to guide her away from the nearest cluster of nobles. “I was merely wondering about something you said. You told Queen Anora that you will be leaving soon. Is that true?”“It’s what I said, isn’t it?”“Indeed it is. I hope you do not think I take you for a liar,” he assured her. “I just wish to confirm that those are your true plans. I have grown fond of traveling with you, you see. Sad, but true.”“Then I guess you’d like to come with me?” she asked him. “Only if you would have me. Staying in one place for too long would only invite the Crows to seek me out sooner. While fun, that could get complicated,” he explained. “Well, I won’t leave without telling you first, then,” Safir answered. In truth, she would prefer that he let her go alone, but she lacked the will to tell him so. “You can come if you really want to.”“That is an offer I would be very hard-pressed to refuse. So, I won’t!” he laughed. “I will not keep you any longer, then. You will be in the alienage, yes? I’ll make sure you know where to find me.”With that, Zevran finished, leaving her side to mingle with whoever else was in attendance. Safir inched again towards the door, deciding to speak only to those who approached her first.And again, it did not take long for that to happen.“The Hero of Ferelden,” Wynne cooed. “My, my. How does it feel?”“I didn’t kill the archdemon, Wynne.”
“The answer is no, Morrigan.”
“Dead heroes are all fine and well,” Wynne answered, seemingly annoyed at her. Had she forgotten that the dead hero had a name? “I understand. But living heroes give the people something to gawk at. And by something, I mean you.”She ended the sentence with a joke in her voice, dismissing his death as if it was meaningless. Safir clenched her fists and hoped she could refrain from hitting the old witch where she stood.“But it’s not so bad, is it?” Wynne continued, ignoring her quickened breathing. “A Blight defeated with the other nations barely becoming aware. Who could ask for better?”“Alistair could.”“I suppose there is that… Poor boy.” Wynne let her face fall for a moment, but quickly picked herself up with a sigh and renewed enthusiasm. “I’m glad not to be on the receiving end of all this attention, myself, not that I’ve gone without notice. Still this is a happy moment, and I’m proud of you.”“Alistair is dead, Wynne. What about this moment is happy?” Safir asked, cheeks flushed red as her heart pulsed unsteadily.“I know you loved the boy, Warden, but--”“Alistair!” Safir shouted, drawing more eyes to herself and Wynne, whose eyebrows flared up in surprise. “His name is Alistair!”“Please, try to calm down, dear,” she said, patting Safir’s shoulder with a hand that was quickly swatted away. “You knew this was a possibility from the start, Safir. I thought you would be ready to make the necessary sacrifices, and I tried to warn you against--”“And I’m warning you, Wynne,” Safir snapped, jabbing her finger into Wynne’s chest with enough force to push her back a half step and lowering her voice to a menacing quiver. “Don’t you say another word to me about what I should be feeling, you got that? You don’t know anything about what I’m feeling, and you are not my friend.”Retracting her finger, Safir tore her eyes away from Wynne’s and exited the hall as quickly as she could without running. The crowd outside cheered her name even as she cut through it like a knife, shoving aside anyone who got between her and the road to the alienage.
Safir ran forward, trampling the dead darkspawn that blocked her path to the smaller of the two corpses that were strewn in front of her. She knelt before Alistair, drawing her fingers over his eyes and remembering the words that had doomed him.
“The answer is no, Morrigan.”
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
Sidestepping a puddle of sick on the cobbled street, Safir weaved her way through the crowded docks in search of the only building in the area with a red lantern hanging above its door. The scent of dead fish hung over the district at every turn, though its residents did not seem to pay it much attention. Safir had always hated coming here. The docks represented the worst living conditions Denerim had to offer for an elf outside the alienage, especially for a young woman. Ugly human men with little regard for anything save their coin purses ruled here, and under their boots the elves worked tirelessly. Even the human women in this district were forced to endure the leering of rough men, but the elven ones stood a far greater chance of actually being abused. The swords hanging at her sides kept the hands off her, but she still felt the pigs’ eyes lingering on her curves with every step. Little wonder that the docks were home to the Pearl. She was close now, able to make out the brothel’s wordless sign billowing in the red light.Stepping into the dusky glow of the lantern, she swung the door open and entered the whore house, her eyes sweeping the place left and right. Few of the human dockworkers could afford to come here, and those that could were already in their rooms. Worse than them were the Pearl’s staff, none of whom were very good at taking no for an answer.Safir resorted to shoving two of the whores aside and taking a seat by the bar just to be left alone long enough to acclimate to the brothel’s stink. The central room was heavily perfumed in a feeble attempt to mask the stench of sex that filtered into it from the private chambers, and the whole floor bathed in the pink glow of the paper lanterns that hung on the walls. It was an altogether oppressive atmosphere for anyone not trying to fuck or get fucked, but she supposed there were not many of those in a place like this. Most of the people who came here willingly were seemingly always in heat, including the one she came to find. Thankfully, it took only a short while for his Antivan accent to float out from the hall to her left.“Zevran!” Safir called, not bothering to turn her head and look at him for fear of what she might be forced to see. She heard him mutter some parting words to the man or woman who had accompanied him in his room before his footsteps drew near and he took the seat next to hers.“If it is not my faithful Warden companion!” he exclaimed in his trademark cheery bravado. “As I said, here I am at the Pearl.”“You really didn’t have to tell me that, Zevran. This is the first place I’d have checked, anyway.”“Haha, and what a good guess it would have been! What brings you here, my dear? If it is company you desire, I am afraid I have become quite exhausted already. However, if I might suggest another for you, I can assure you that Nico’s talents are exceptional.”“I’m not here to fuck, Zev,” she answered, watching him order a drink at the edge of her sight. “I’m leaving.”“So soon? You have not even had a drink!”“I’m leaving Denerim,” she clarified, finally turning to face her friend. His face gleamed with sweat, framed by matted and unkempt hair that was normally tied back. “I said I’d let you know before I left. Are you coming?”“You do not give much warning, Safir,” he answered, pausing to take a sip of clear brown liquor from his glass before setting it down again. “But I would not dream of staying behind. Give me a moment to collect my things and, ah, bid farewell to a few treasured friends, will you?”“Fine,” Safir sighed, taking his glass and finishing its contents in one go. She grunted to clear her throat of the searing rash, her face twisting over the cheap swill. “But I’m waiting outside. Don’t be long.”Forcing her way through the brushing hands of the Pearl’s employees, she opened the door, leaving behind the stink of sex for that of the sea. The latter was far easier to stomach, in spite of the rude stares of men with unfortunate wives. Leaning back against the wall underneath the red lantern, Safir crossed her arms and stared at the ground in front of her, where only the bustling of cockroaches cluttered her vision.The door to the Pearl opened twice with no sign of Zevran before he eventually joined her once again, clad head to toe in leather armor and sporting a freshly washed face. “Where you lead, I follow, my friend.”Without a word, Safir set off towards the southern wall, much to the confusion of her companion.“Forgive me, but does the exit of the city not lie to the west?” he asked her, slowing his pace and pointing in the direction of the distant gate.“Sure does,” Safir confirmed, “but it would take us half an age to get there by the streets.”“I also thought you would have liked to say goodbye to your family in the alienage,” Zevran suggested.“Already taken care of. We’re taking the wall to the exit.”“The city wall? Surely I must have misheard you, Safir. Only guards are allowed up there.”Safir stopped and turned around to face him, one eyebrow bent skyward in exasperation.“Zev,” she began with mockingly slow speech, “I’m still a Warden, and everyone in this city thinks I stopped a Blight. I can do whatever I want.”“Good point,” he agreed, all traces of uncertainty having vanished from his expression. “Onward, then.”The direct path offered by the city wall saw them reaching the main gates within the hour, shaving off a great deal of time from the common route through busy and winding streets. Once they were outside the city and at the fork in the Imperial Highway, the time came to decide where in the Maker’s brown earth they were actually going.“You mean you do not know?” Zevran asked, bewildered by her sudden indecision. “I thought you were simply being coy about our goal!”“I said I would be traveling, Zevran. I didn’t say I knew where,” she answered, hands at her hips. One road would take them north, and the other west. All that remained was to decide which direction seemed less terrible than the other. “True enough, I suppose. Do you have no destination in mind at all?”“Not one,” she admitted. “But I do know it’ll be a long while before the Orlesian Wardens will get to Amaranthine, so that gives us time to wander.”“Interesting,” Zevran puzzled. “Most interesting indeed. In that case, might I suggest we visit Antiva?”“I don’t think we have that much time.”“Ah, well, that is probably for the best anyway. The Crows would have most of their agents stationed there, and I doubt they would take long to find me,” he sighed. “Of course, going straight back to Antiva would be sure to surprise them. I doubt they are even looking for me there! And I admit, I am rather homesick.”“We still don’t have time to go there. Any other ideas?”“None that are immediately at hand, no,” Zevran replied, tapping his finger to his chin. “I suppose it would be best to first decide what it is you would like to do. For example, if you wished to taste the best wine in all of Thedas, you would go to Antiva.”“It’s worth a shot, I guess,” Safir agreed, though she was unsure of how useful an attempt at that would be. “Nothing really comes to mind for me, though.” “Nothing? No little inkling of desire floating anywhere inside that pretty head of yours?”“No, I think this one’s on you, Zev.”“As you may have predicted, I cannot stop thinking of Antiva. And as you have repeatedly told me, we lack the time to make such a lengthy journey.” Zevran’s deflection of responsibility was a skillful one, and difficult to argue with. “Think hard, Safir. What do you want?”She bowed her head, eyes closed and brows wrinkled. Want was such an ugly word. “There must be something rolling around in there,” Zevran prodded.“Nothing’s coming to me.”“Then you are not trying hard enough!”Half-heartedly attempting to believe him, Safir desperately tried to make some sense of the hollow echoes in her mind. But for all her effort, she could only look back. “Nothing,” she said simply.“Everyone wants something, Safir,” Zevran argued. “There are no exceptions, at least not any that I have--”“You don’t get it, Zevran,” she interrupted, turning to face him. “I want nothing.”“You mean…?” he trailed off, lips still parted but with no more words to say. His playful eyes shone through with worry. She’d never seen him so unsure of himself.“Yes.”Closing his mouth, Zevran simply nodded. “I understand, Safir. You need not say any more. Perhaps we should be more practical in our search for a destination?”“What do you have in mind?” she asked, eager to follow him into another topic of conversation.“Well, there is no telling how long we will be gone, and the Wardens’ new fortress is only a short way from Denerim. I think it would be wise to stop by and let them know of our detour. We will have plenty of time to decide on a destination on our way there.”Safir sighed and turned back toward the fork in the road. Which path was less terrible was still unclear, but at least there was a sensible reason to go north.“Let’s get going, then,” she said, stepping off on the path to Vigil’s Keep.Decisions about where to go next would have to be made by the time they reached the Keep, but Safir did not relish the opportunity to make them. Instead she simply shuffled along the road, listening to Zevran’s stories as they inched closer to the fortress.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
Vigil’s Keep now a day behind them, Safir lay alone in her tent waiting for sleep to take her while Zevran took first watch outside. Soon, they would reach the northern coast of Ferelden and hire a ferryman to take them across the Waking Sea and into the Free Marches. Where they would go after crossing that border was left intentionally vague. Only one solid plan had been made, and all it required was that she be in Ostwick in a month’s time. There, she would await word from the keep letting her know that work was to be done as Ferelden’s new Warden-Commander.Until then, the world was hers. Or theirs, rather, she reminded herself upon hearing Zevran’s footsteps edge closer to where she lay.“Safir?” he called from just outside the tent’s entrance. “Are you still awake? “Are you trying to join me in my tent?” Safir asked him, wary of what he might want.“I certainly would not object if you were of a mind to have me, but no. I wish to speak to you for a time. Come, join me by the fire.”Safir rubbed her eyes after a sigh and sat up, still half tucked into her bedroll. She wouldn’t be able to get any sleep for a while anyway.“What’s this about?” she asked as she exited the tent to find Zevran sitting on a log by the fire. He patted the space next to him, inviting her to sit.“As we left the city, you and I had a short conversation about desire,” he said simply.“Sexual desire?”“For once, that is not the kind of desire I am talking about,” he answered with a chuckle. “No. It was before we took the road north to Vigil’s Keep. I asked you what you wished to do, and you replied with nothing.”“I remember, Zevran. Is there a point to this?”Picking up a nearby stick, Zevran set about stoking the fire, trying to keep its flames from shrinking away. The flickering light allowed her only brief glimpses of the expression on his face, but she saw in his pensive eyes that something heavy weighed on his conscience.“I told you that I understood what you meant,” he finally continued. “I believe I was correct in that assumption, but I did not wish to pry you any further. But now, with the keep behind us and many aimless weeks ahead of us, I want to share something with you.”“Okay,” Safir agreed, looking at him intently. “I’m listening.”“I was an Antivan Crow for a long time, Safir. As I’m sure you know, the life of a Crow is not often long, and it is never easy. I would not have survived it long if not for a few key friendships formed during my training,” he explained, looking away from the fire and into her eyes. “You recall Taliesen, yes? The Crow you killed in Denerim?”“Your best friend, wasn’t he?”“And more. But he was not my only friend in the guild. There was another. Rinna. She and Taliesen were my dearest friends, and the three of us were romantic.”“Romance?” Safir asked. “In the Crows? That doesn’t seem like the safest idea to me.”“You are right,” Zevran confirmed. “Romances among the recruits are common enough, but they never last. We were no exception. Rinna was the best of us.”“She’s dead, I take it.”“Right again, Safir. But that is not the worst of it,” he sighed, wringing his wrists uncomfortably. “I won’t bore you with many details, but suffice it to say that I loved her. And one day, as so often happens with assassin recruits, Taliesen and I were given a cruel task: someone in the guild was responsible for sabotaging a mission. We suspected Rinna.”Zevran looked away again, staring shamefully at the fire. Safir could guess what was coming next, but decided against interrupting.“She begged for her life, but we ignored her. Taliesen cut her throat even as she swore that she was no traitor. I laughed and spat on her as she died, staring into my eyes. It’s a funny thing, what blind loyalty can do to someone young and stupid. We later discovered that she had been telling the truth, and we had killed her pointlessly.”“Zevran, I…” Safir began, but he raised a hand to stop her.“It’s alright. You don’t have to say anything, my friend.” After a pause during which he did little but stare at the dancing flames, he continued. “I hated myself for what I’d done. My loyalty to the guild vanished, and Taliesen often had to cover for my lack of engagement. When I accepted the contract to assassinate the only two Wardens in Ferelden, I did not intend to succeed.”“You hoped that we would kill you?” Safir asked. She should have felt disgusted with him after a confession of murder like that. Somehow, she felt sympathy instead.“I, like you, wanted nothing. I was alive only physically, but could not bring myself to finish the job, as it were. Wardens are renowned for their legendary skill in battle. I thought you would make for an excellent method of committing suicide.”“I had no idea,” Safir said, almost breathless. “I hid it well,” he replied with a wave of his hand, regaining some semblance of his usual flair. “And I trust that by now you are aware of why I have told you this story.”Safir willed her thoughts inward and nodded. Zevran was not the only one to have killed a lover.“I don’t know what happened atop the tower when the archdemon was slain,” Zevran told her. “But I know a look of guilt when I see one, Safir. I know what it is like to want nothing. To feel nothing.”Safir clenched her jaw and averted her gaze from his. Solidarity was appreciated, but it did nothing to lessen the weight of her mistakes. “Loss spares no one in this life, my friend,” Zevran said, placing his hand on hers. “But I promise you, the pain is not always so strong. Once, I hoped that you would kill me, but today, I’m glad you did not. One day soon, you will feel the same.”Together they sat in the silence for a short while, listening to the crackling of the fire and whatever sounds were produced by the woods around them. “I should get to bed,” Safir said, withdrawing her hand and standing up from the log. Without looking back, she made for her tent. “I want to get an early start tomorrow. Wake me when it’s my turn to watch.”Back in her bedroll, Zevran’s words swam in her mind repeatedly, hoping to find something solid to cling to and become real. But try as she might, she couldn’t bring herself to believe in them. They had power enough to make her think, but not to inspire.Convinced of her inability to force belief, her mind wandered elsewhere to darker places, the words and promises replaced by empty rooms and red skies.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
Her brief visit at Kirkwall nearing its end, Safir’s steps carried her briskly forward through the city, dodging the groups of people who got in her way. Behind her, Zevran followed, his pace sluggish in comparison. She had an appointment to keep, and she wouldn’t let his reluctance end in her missing it. But still he lagged behind, enough that she considered leaving him there and heading off on her own.“You can go slow all you want, but I won’t let that stop me,” she warned him. She didn’t see what happened next, but the closeness of his voice upon responding was enough to confirm that the warning had at least some effect.“Are you certain I cannot convince you to stay, for even a day or two?” Zevran asked her as she led the way to the city’s port. “The Wardens need me again, Zevran,” she answered bluntly, not sparing a backward glance to look him in the eye. “Honestly, I wish they didn’t, but they do.”Weaving through the bustling streets of Kirkwall’s Lowtown was no easy task, especially at midday when the harbor was busiest. The crowds of people thickened the closer they got to the docks, until they seemingly merged into one writhing mass that jostled back and forth as a hundred commutes crossed paths. The stink was somehow worse than Denerim’s, too.“We have been traveling together for some months now, Safir,” Zevran pressed. “From what you have told me, you are not very fond of being a Warden. Why keep it up?”“As much as I would love to quit, that isn’t exactly an option. You don’t stop being a Warden just because a Blight ends.”“They say the same of leaving the Crows.”“Crows don’t save the world,” Safir replied, ducking under a wooden beam that two men were carrying in the opposite direction to get to a clearer patch of street. Zevran, trailing behind her, did not have access to the same shortcut and she watched him jog to catch up.“And the world does not always need saving, does it? The Orlesians sent many Wardens to occupy the keep. Are none of them capable of leadership?”Tiring of the stilted talk, Safir ducked out of the street and into an alley, tugging Zevran along by his arm to quicken his pace.“Look, Zev, I get it,” she told him, her hands squaring his shoulders with hers. “I don’t want to go to Vigil’s Keep any more than you want me to. But I have to.”“Why?” he asked. It was a simple question, but the sternness of his eyes told her he wasn’t looking for simple answers.“Duty? Honor? Patriotism?” she tried, stepping away from him and waving a hand in the air. “Pick one.”“The day you begin caring about any of those is the day I take a vow of chastity. Give me a real answer,” he demanded, crossing his arms impatiently. “There are many Wardens who could take command of Vigil’s Keep, Safir. Why does it have to be you?”Still pacing, Safir ran her hands roughly through her hair, loosening the ribbon that kept it tied back so that her ponytail fell awkwardly to one side. Its lack of balance tugged at the roots above her right ear and, annoyed, she ripped the ribbon out and let her hair fall freely.“Zev, I know I’m not the only Warden in the world. But I’m the only one left who knows Ferelden. The only one who knows what really happened during the Blight.” She ended her pacing, stopping just a few steps in front of Zevran to look him in the eye as she spoke. “That on its own is important, but even if it wasn’t, I can’t… I can’t just stop.”“You can’t stop being a Warden?” Zevran asked, unimpressed. “Your blood can’t stop being tainted, my friend. You are free to do as you please.”“That’s not what I meant.” “And are you going to make me guess what you did mean, hm?”“Why shouldn’t I?” she asked him, turning around again to keep his eyes from searching hers. “My business is my business, isn’t it? It’s not your concern.”“I have known you for far too long for that to be true,” Zevran declared, grabbing her arm in an attempt to get her to face him. She reflexively wrenched her arm from his grip and took a few hastened steps away from him.“Look, I appreciate the whole ‘worried friend’ thing you’re doing, Zev, but I don’t need a fucking shoulder to cry on.”“And I am not offering you one!” he snapped in response, raising his voice. “I am just tired of watching you deny yourself the space you need to heal!”“To heal?“ she mocked him. “You don’t think I’d have done that already if it was possible?”“In four months? No, of course not. But I expected that you would have at least started by now.”“Yeah, well, I haven’t,” she bit. “So just leave it.”Safir stared down the alley, her unsteady eyes picking out detail after detail to keep from staying still. There was an overturned barrel of fish near other end with half of its contents spilled onto the ground. Next to it, a broken ladder leaned against a wall. Behind her, she still heard the bustle of the street over her own labored breaths.“So your plan is to just move from place to place?” Zevran asked, his voice soft with concern again. “Why won’t you at least try to take care of yourself?”“Because it’s my fault!” she yelled back at him, her voice straining into a harsh rasp. “Why do you think I followed you around half of Antiva in three months?!”Zevran’s eyes widened a touch and he stepped back from her. Clearly the sudden outburst had surprised him. “The Wardens did not have any work for you at the time, Safir. I assumed that was why we left Ferelden.”“And why might I have been so eager to leave? You never wondered why Morrigan disappeared before the battle?” she asked, closing the distance between them. “Everything that happened at the end of the Blight was my fault, Zev. All of it.”“What do you mean?”“Wardens always die when they kill archdemons. You know that, right?” Safir looked up and around herself for a moment, trying in vain to settle her buzzing nerves. “Well, d’you wanna know what Morrigan told me the night before we marched to Denerim? She said she had a way out. A way for none of us to have to die to end the Blight, and all she had to do was perform some creepy ritual.”The news crashed upon Zevran’s face in waves, raised brows slowly twisting into sympathy. “And you know what I did?” Safir continued. “I told her no. Not because it was immoral, or because it was dishonorable, but because saying yes meant she would have to fuck Alistair, and I couldn’t let that happen! I thought, fuck it, Riordan’s still here, and if he doesn’t kill the dragon, I will. I was ready for that. I was prepared to do that if I had to. And right when I was about to, Alistair pulled me back and did it himself.”“Safir…” Zevran began, his eyes flitting back and forth between hers.“I never even told him what Morrigan had offered. He died because of me, never even knowing that he might have lived,” she interrupted, her breaths quickening with step she took towards her friend. “And you ask me why I won’t heal? I can’t heal, Zevran. Not from that. So no, you know what I’ll do? I’ll go, and I’ll be a Warden again, and I’ll hate every fucking minute of it, but even that will be better than doing nothing! At least then I can still make myself useful! And if I die, then at least…”Safir finally relented and withdrew from Zevran, drawing her closed fist under her nose and walking towards the nearest wall. Pressing her back against it, she let herself slide down its rough surface and into a sitting position with her elbows on her knees.“When I close my eyes, I see him. When I go to sleep, I dream about him. Every second I’m not working, all I can think is that he’s dead because of me. Do you know what that’s like?”The air around her hung thick and quiet despite Kirkwall’s busy streets being only a few yards away. “Yes, Safir, I do,” Zevran answered after several moments’ hesitation. “I wouldn’t wish it on anyone.”“Then you know why I can’t just say no to the Wardens and keep wandering Thedas. You know why I can’t just drop everything and quit.”Zevran slowly made his way towards where Safir was sitting, picking her ribbon up from the ground on his way. Then he knelt in front of her, tucking loose hair behind her ear and offering the ribbon to her on his open palm.“I still think you should stay here, my friend, or go somewhere else. Anywhere other than Vigil’s Keep.”She looked up at him after taking back her ribbon, thanking him with her voice but pleading with her eyes. “I can’t do that, Zev.”“I understand,” he said, rising up and extending a hand to help her do the same. “If you should change your mind as I hope you will, I think I will be staying in Kirkwall for a time.”“How can you stand it here?” she asked him on her way up. “I’ve been in this city for two days and I’m already sick of it.”“Ah, this city is a cesspool, Safir, full to bursting with crime, scandal, and prostitution.”“So a dream come true for you?”“Pretty much.”Tying her hair back up as she followed Zevran out of the alley, she was swallowed once more by the masses around the docks. Slowly, walking a path that was forced into winds and twists about the feverish crowds, she made her way to the ship that was to take her back to Ferelden. Its captain was a somewhat rotund human with long, scraggly and salt-encrusted hair that betrayed his love of sailing. “It’s about time you showed up!” he shouted upon seeing her approach. Then, pointing a fishing rod at Zevran, he asked, “and who’s this, then? I’ll not have any stowaways. If he’s coming, he’ll have to pay his way.”“Do not trouble yourself on my account, ser,” Zevran answered. “I am just seeing my friend off.”“You sure about that?” Safir asked him. “Not gonna try to get me to stay again?”“I don’t care if he’s sure or not, miss,” the boatman interrupted. “I’m leaving in a few minutes, that’s what I’m sure about. If you’re coming, get aboard, and if you’re staying, fuck off for all I care. I still got your money.”Safir rolled her eyes at the captain, tempted to tell him where he could stick her money, but Zevran’s voice spoke up before she got the chance.“He is not very polite, is he?”“No,” she agreed, “but he doesn’t charge much.”“So, I guess this is it, then, Warden.” Zevran’s tongue was sharp, but in his eyes lingered sadness. “I hope to see you again someday. The sooner the better.”“I won’t make any promises, Zev.”“I didn’t expect you to. I think perhaps you should board now, lest the good captain leave you behind,” he finished, extending an arm to gesture towards the gangplank.“Yeah, I guess I should.” She made to walk toward it, but was stopped by a sudden hug from Zevran. Her chin ended up on his shoulder, his head next to hers. For a moment he didn’t speak, and she halfheartedly wrapped one arm around his back.“Please, Safir, try to be well,” he whispered. “If not for yourself, then as a favor to your loyal companion.”He pulled back from the hug, letting his hands linger on her shoulders. Smiling sadly, he nudged her on her way. Safir watched him shrink into the distance from the top deck of the ship as it left the harbor to begin the crossing. He stood at the end of the dock until she was too far to see him properly.The sea air whipped around her, spraying salty mist across the deck while she gave thought to his parting words. Waves crashed one after the other into the ship’s hull, desperate to breach the walls and soak the interior. But for all their effort, they managed only to splash against the boards, too tightly were they sealed against the water.
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The ground beneath her feet was soft, giving way to the plant of her boots with each of her heavy steps. The rain had given little respite to this area of Ferelden, it seemed. Well, it wasn’t called the Storm Coast for nothing. She kept her eyes forward, constantly scanning back and forth for any signs of threat. Vigilance was a gift given to her by a Blight-ridden year on the road. Darkspawn attacks weren’t as frequent now as they’d been then. She guessed that the last time she’d killed one was two weeks past, when a pair of genlocks crossed her path.At the time, they didn’t seem particularly interested in her. With so few darkspawn in their company, that was odd. Surely they’d have detected a Grey Warden in their midst. Not that it mattered. They certainly detected her mother’s dagger as it plunged through their necks.What was odd was the fact that they seemed driven, somehow. Driven toward a cause. A goal, maybe? Headed north… north… Not much was there. Just the plains, really, and maybe a few cliffs and mountains. Again, it didn’t matter. Wherever they were headed, if indeed they were headed anywhere, they didn’t make it. She made sure of that.Eyes still forward, still scanning. Two weeks since the last sighting, it wouldn’t be much longer until the next. The road bent to the right, around a tree line. A blind corner. Perfect spot for an ambush. Perfect spot to counter one, too. She slowed her pace, quieting her footsteps and listening for conversation. Her eyes narrowed as she picked up on a few words here and there, in a man’s voice. Then a woman’s. Something about a trap. Perfect. She crouched down, drawing her mother’s dagger from the loop in her belt and sneaking into the small wood around which the road bent. They wouldn’t catch her off guard. Not like the darkspawn at the tower had done. Not like the bitch Cauthrien had done. Not like he’d done. She was through getting caught off guard.She prowled like a shadow through the underbrush, making her way forward at an angle so as to get out on the other side behind the bandits. Or whoever it was that wanted to trap her. They wouldn’t catch her off guard, oh no. She would catch them. Ducking under a branch, she finally made it to the other side of the wood and found her targets with their back to her, standing in the middle of the road. Two of them. One man, one woman, both human. The man was struggling with a trap. A leghold, of all things. She hated those.Onward. She crept out of the tree line and into the road, about ten paces behind the woman. Tightening her grip on the dagger’s hilt, she stepped forward. Just a few more steps and…“Oh, Maker, I think the sun will have set by the time you fix that damn thing,” cried the woman in frustration, turning around and locking eyes with her. She was holding a baby, and she looked haggard. “Maker save me! I didn’t hear you approach! Are you leaving the city as well?”The man turned as well, just as confused as the woman. They were refugees. Parents. And she’d almost killed them.“Oi, why are you lookin’ at me all confused?” the woman continued. Then her eyes found the dagger in her hand, and her face fell from confusion into fear. She wrapped the baby tighter in her arms, and the man did the same to her. “Oh, Maker, please don’t hurt us! We’re only trying to escape the city! Take whatever you want, please, just don’t hurt us!”She’d almost killed them…The white of her knuckles glared across the space between them. Her eyes flit back and forth from the mother to the father and then to the baby. Her breaths were heavy and her lips parted, but she couldn’t speak. Didn’t dare to explain to the mother that she’d nearly been murdered over a suspicion. She just stared at them all with as much horror as her face could bear to show. The mother’s fear warped slowly back into confusion in response to the silence.Without a word, Safir broke eye contact and started down the road, not looking back at the family she’d nearly slaughtered unprovoked. She tucked the dagger back into her belt and stopped scanning the sides of the road. Constant vigilance had kept her alive this long. It was a Blight-ridden gift given to her by a Blight-ridden year.Curses, she’d learned, often disguise themselves as gifts.
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The muddy road ahead danced to the tune of distant thunder, droplets of rain pockmarking the dirt and adding to the quickly expanding puddles that filled the larger depressions. The rain beat loudly upon her leather vest, failing to seep through to the gambeson underneath. With the three-way junction in the highway just an hour’s march to the east, she’d arrived at the nameless hamlet wherein she would meet her escort to Vigil’s Keep.Walking among its buildings in the deserted paths that connected them, she wiped the rain from her forehead and eyes to better look for the tavern’s sign. Tired feet carried her through the village until she finally saw the inn at the end of a short road and stepped onto its veranda and took refuge from the relentless storm. After wringing the rainwater out of her ponytail, she pushed open the wooden door and strode inside, muffling the sound of rain into an echoing drone pierced by clinking mugs.She swept the room with narrowed eyes, hoping that the couriers from Starkhaven had sent word to the keep on time. It wasn’t long before that hope was fulfilled by the excited wave of an ironclad arm from across the room.“Warden-Commander Tabris!” the young woman cried, catching the attention of nearly everyone else in the quiet place. “Over here!”Safir answered the call, moving forward on mud-caked boots and laying a trail of dirt and water in her wake. The young knight was very young, indeed, it seemed; she couldn’t have seen more than twenty winters, and the numerous braids that adorned her short hair made her look even younger.“It’s an honor to finally meet you, Warden-Commander,” the girl said with a bow, nearly touching her face to the floor. “You’re my escort, then?” Safir asked, arms crossed.“Er, yes, that’s me,” she answered, awkwardly rising from the bow upon realizing that her formality was not shared. “My name is Mhairi. I was told to brief you on your way back to Vigil’s Keep.”“Alright,” Safir accepted, figuring that a march was not too much to ask of a young woman, after all. “Let’s get going.”“You wouldn’t prefer to stay the night?” Mhairi asked, cocking her head to one side. “It’ll be getting dark before long, and we could wait for the rain to pass.”“There’s still three hours before sunset. I don’t want to waste the time.”Without looking to make sure Mhairi was following, Safir turned and headed back toward the tavern’s door, doubling the muddy prints she’d made upon entering. She opened the door and held it, letting the roar of rainfall flood the tavern while she waited for Mhairi to cross the threshold. Stepping out behind her, Safir set off into the curtain of water and made for the highway at once, keeping a pace as quick as the mud would allow.The girl caught up with her before long, and together they walked side by side along the road, making their way through the village with only frogs for company. Mhairi seemed to do her best to avoid stepping in the puddles that Safir plowed through without a second thought, and was clearly uncomfortable in wet weather. Pity she’d accepted a post in the rainiest part of Ferelden. “What’s the situation at the keep?” Safir asked as they crossed the town’s gate and turned left onto the highway.“Well, the necessary repairs have been made, and it’s a fitting base of operations now,” the young knight answered promptly, bobbing alongside her with each step. “It could still use a lot of work, though.”“Any darkspawn activity in the area?”“Some, but nothing to be concerned about,” she said, visibly grateful. Safir wondered what made her so sure of herself.“How long have you been a Warden?” she asked, unable to stay her curiosity.“Me? A Warden?” Mhairi gasped, her eyebrows halfway to her hairline. “I’m glad you thought I was a Warden already, but they haven’t yet made me a full member. I volunteered, but the others at the keep were waiting for you to come back before they let the recruits join up officially.”Safir thought back to her own Joining, to watching Daveth writhe on the ground in agony while the taint did away with him. Duncan hadn’t told them the Joining could be lethal until it was time to drink the blood. If the rest of the order kept those secrets as closely as he’d done, there was little chance Mhairi even knew what she’d signed up for.“Oh.”“Is everything alright?”“Sure, it’s fine, I just thought you’d already joined up. Good luck,” Safir answered, hoping more questions wouldn’t follow. “You’ll do fine. What have the darkspawn been doing?”“Thank you, Warden-Commander. It’ll be an honor to serve,” she answered.“The darkspawn,” Safir insisted. “And don’t call me that.”“Oh, sorry Wa…” she cut herself off, twiddling her thumbs. “I’m sorry, I’m just not sure how I should address you.”“Safir is fine. The darkspawn?”“Right, well, they’ve been moving in small groups, but none too big for us to handle.”“Did they look like they were going anywhere?” Safir asked, remembering the genlocks she’d killed before.“North, I think. They haven’t told me much.”North. Just like the genlocks. Not wanting to alarm the young girl, Safir simply acknowledged the answer and set about fitting the puzzle pieces together in her head. Darkspawn didn’t typically organize themselves after Blights, instead fleeing blindly to the Deep Roads and killing anything unfortunate enough to cross their path. She wondered if there was a large entrance to the roads somewhere up north. With any luck, that would be where the darkspawn were going and they could simply plug the hole.Safir returned her attention to the road ahead, spying a break in the clouds a mile or two on. Tiring of the rain, she quickened her pace, betting that Mhairi could follow. Two hours of near-silent marching brought them to drier lands, just in time to set camp in the light of the setting sun. Safir volunteered to take first watch as night fell and Mhairi entered her tent to sleep. A day’s march would see them return to Vigil’s Keep and bring months of travel to a resentful end.
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“This chamber was once used for dinner parties,” the seneschal explained, his gravelly voice bouncing off the walls. “We’ve removed the dining tables, and the central fireplace will make this a fitting room in which to hold a Joining. Are the recruits ready?”Safir looked around at the small chamber, scanning its every feature until finally, her eyes came to rest at the firepit in the center. A large, circular wall of stone enclosing a mass of unlit charcoal, it was the only thing in the room save for the support pillars that held the ceiling aloft.“Warden-Commander?” Varel asked again. “The recruits?”“No one is ever ready for their Joining,” she answered, crossing her arms and planting her boot on the rim of the fireplace. “They’re as ready as they’ll ever be,” she added with a nod.“Very well,” he sighed. “Shall I go and fetch them?”“No, I can do that,” Safir said, raising a hand to stop him leaving. “Get this fire lit, and make sure the blood is ready. I’ll be back soon.”Pushing herself off from the fireplace, she marched across the room over lavish red carpets and dark wooden floorboards, hoping her quick pace and steady gait would be enough to mask her guilt. No one who’s been through the Joining themselves would ever relish the opportunity to put someone else through it, and tonight there were three someones all lined up to drink. She pushed open the door, noticing the iron keyhole in its side, and made her way back to the keep’s central hall. Captain Garevel stood at attention, as he always did, near the hall’s throne, staring with steeled eyes at the main entrance as though daring it to swing open and allow enemies into the keep. Detouring from her path to the recruits, she approached him with a question on her tongue.“You and Varel have the only two skeleton keys in the castle, right?”“That’s correct, Warden-Commander,” he confirmed, wresting his attention from the double doors to her with suspicion in his eyes. “What is your interest?”“Can I borrow yours for a few moments?” she asked him, clumsily attempting to bat her eyes at him and appear innocent. “I’ll have it back to you within the hour.”“I’m not saying no,” he began, fishing the key out of one of his pockets, “but what do you need it for?”Once he’d pulled it free of its ring, Safir made to grab it without giving a straight answer. He withdrew just before she could wrap her hand around the key, forcing her back into eye contact.“Warden business,” she dodged with a wave of her hand. “My order has so many secrets. You know how it goes.”Clearly unimpressed with the obvious lie, Garevel simply sighed and handed over the key, apparently unwilling to make a mountain of whatever mole hill was floating around in his head. Safir snatched the key from his grasp before he could change his mind and bade him farewell with a hollow smile.“One hour!” he reminded her as she took her leave.Stuffing the key into her shirt pocket, she continued down the hall on her way to the kitchen, where a lack of proper accommodations had forced the Wardens-to-be to wait. She stopped just short of the kitchen door, bowing her head to ready herself for the task that awaited her. One deep breath later, she was in the room with three recruits and a very spoiled mabari.“Go on, Anders,” Mhairi pleaded, “let him have a bite.”“Yeah, that dog’s killed more darkspawn than you ever will, pretty boy! He deserves a taste of that mutton!” Oghren agreed.“No! Get your slobbering face away from my robes, you mutt!” yelped the mage, shoving Pork’s drooling snout away from his knees. “The others may be content to share with you, but my dinner is my dinner, fool dog!”“Don’t fuck with my mabari,” Safir barked across the kitchen.“This smelly beast is yours?” Anders asked incredulously, still attempting to shoo away the persistent dog. “Tell him to piss off and let me eat!”“Actually, Anders, I think you’d rather have an empty stomach for now,” she cautioned. “Maybe you should just give it to him.”Pork whined excitedly at the prospect of getting the entire mutton, his hind legs quivering in anticipation.“What? Why should I?” Anders protested.“It’s time for your Joining,” she began, rubbing her temples with one hand. “And you’ll want an empty stomach. Trust me.”“It’s time already?” Mhairi asked, her eyebrows shooting up like arrows. She looked almost as excited as Pork. “I thought it would be hours yet!”Safir simply nodded her confirmation.“It’s about sodding time!” Oghren shouted, slamming a now empty tankard of ale onto a countertop. “Let’s have this Joining done, then!”Anders looked longingly at his mutton before resigning himself to Safir’s advice and addressing Pork. “Enjoy this now, dog. It won’t happen again.” Handing over the mutton, which Pork nearly inhaled in only a few seconds, he stood from his table and faced Safir. “Why do I want an empty stomach, now?”“You’ll see,” Safir answered, turning around and beckoning the three recruits to follow. The four of them walked through the halls as slowly as Safir thought was reasonable towards what was now the Joining chamber. Safir bit her lip anxiously, hoping this ritual would be more successful than her own.“So, what is the Joining ceremony actually like?” Mhairi asked, barely able to contain the giddiness in her voice. “I heard there would be tests.”“Normally you’d have to go and get some darkspawn blood by yourselves with a junior Warden,” Safir explained. “It’s supposed to prove that you’re a capable fighter and all that. But seeing as I’m both the newest and oldest Fereldan Warden, and I’ve already seen the three of you fight darkspawn, we went ahead and skipped that step. No tests.”“And the darkspawn blood we were meant to collect?” the young girl pressed. “Is it symbolic?”Safir waited too long before answering. Mhairi’s face fell into confusion in response to the silence, which hung ominously in the air as they finally reached the door to the Joining chamber. Opening it, Safir stepped inside and held it for the others.“Line up side by side in front of Varel,” she ordered, speaking over the now roaring fire that stood in the center of the room. “He’ll set you up for the rest.”The recruits did as instructed, each of them sidling up to the fire and showing their nerves in their own way. Mhairi, surprisingly enough, looked the most anxious, shifting her weight from one foot to the other and glancing about the room looking for clues about what the ritual would entail. Oghren, on the other side of Anders, merely tapped his foot impatiently.Safir pushed the door closed behind them and pressed her fist into its frame. After a resigned sigh, she retrieved the key from her shirt, thumbing it for a moment before inserting it into its hole. She held the key steady in the lock, memories of her own Joining swimming in her head and reaching out across what felt like a lifetime of bitter war. Daveth’s death could not be avoided, but Jory’s was a senseless waste. She hated having to force others to endure the same trial. It was pure luck that she’d managed to convince Varel to take charge of the ritual itself, but the Wardens’ secrets were still her responsibility and not his. The recruits would not leave this room unless they’d survived their Joining, but she would be damned if she was going to kill any of them herself except in self-defense. Turning the key in its slot, she locked the door and joined the others at the fireplace.“So,” she began, taking a relaxed seat on the rim of the firepit and dispensing at once with the ritual’s expectation of formality. “Here’s the thing about the Joining. It can kill you.”Safir waited a moment or two for the gasps and reservations of her collected recruits to fill the air. “That’s why we keep it a secret,” she went on after the unease had quieted itself. “Otherwise no one would join. Because it’s such a secret, there’s no going back. Each of you is going to undergo the ritual whether you’ve changed your mind or not. Any questions?”“I’ve got one, if you don’t mind,” Anders began, raising his hand. “When you say it can kill us, how likely is it that it’ll kill us? Is it a matter of skill, or something?”“It’s a toss up,” Safir shrugged. “When I joined, I was the only one of three recruits to survive, but one of us didn’t actually perform the Joining.”“And the third? What happened to them?” the mage asked, bracing himself for an ugly answer.“He tried to kill the Warden who recruited us. That was a mistake.”“Ah, lovely,” he answered, his voice trembling wildly. “Let’s get on with it then, shall we?”“Yes, let’s,” Safir agreed, turning her attention to the seneschal. “Varel?”“The time has come to begin the Joining,” Varel started, content to stand on ceremony where Safir was not. “I shall speak the words that have been said since the first…”Eager to tune out the ritual’s proceedings, Safir stared at the ground and allowed her mind to wander elsewhere, hoping to distract herself with thoughts of food or sex or some other indulgence. Try as she might, however, her thoughts only drifted among a sea of campside memories to the conversations she’d had with Alistair following her Joining. He’d always been so damn eager to help, trying desperately to be her pillar of comfort and warmth. Maker, how she’d scoffed at him, far too reluctant to accept the consolation of a human. What foolish days those were, trying to drive him away at the start of the Blight. In the end, she supposed, she’d succeeded. Just not in the way she’d hoped.“And should you perish, know that your sacrifice will not be forgotten, and that one day, we shall join you.” The seneschal, having finished his speech, produced the Joining chalice from where it sat on the firepit wall and solemnly presented it to Oghren. “You are each called upon to submit yourselves to the taint. From this moment forth, Oghren, you are a Grey Warden.”The dwarf inspected the goblet for a moment, furrowing his brows and complaining about its size before emptying its contents and handing it lazily back to Varel. The excess blood trickled down his beard, winding along its braids as his eyes flashed white with the magic of the Blight.“Not bad,” he burped, miraculously staying on his feet. Safir shook her head and rolled her eyes, figuring she shouldn’t be surprised at his constitution. Then Varel refilled the goblet and brought it to the mage.“From this moment forth, Anders, you are a Grey Warden.”“So we need to drink darkspawn blood?” he asked, exhaling deeply. “That’s it?”“That is it,” Varel assured him. “Alright, but Maker help you if I wake up two weeks from now on a ship bound for Rivain wearing nothing but my smallclothes and--”“Just fucking drink it,” Safir complained, resting her head on her fist.Doing as instructed, Anders swallowed the blood and fell onto his back after a few moments of swaying on his feet. Safir wondered if she’d looked as silly when she became a Warden herself.“He lives, Commander,” Varel informed her, kneeling down to check on him. Safir locked eyes with Mhairi as Varel prepared the goblet one last time. The girl blinked anxiously, still trying to steel her nerves while waiting her turn. The usual brightness that shone in her eyes was replaced now by something dark, and Safir wondered what it was. Perhaps the girl felt lied to. Betrayed by someone she thought a hero. Sensing that her own expression was softening, she quickly corrected herself and gave Mhairi a firm nod just as Varel returned to present her the chalice. The young knight steadied herself while he approached.“From this moment forth, Mhairi, you are a Grey Warden. Good luck.”“I have awaited this moment,” she said, taking one last breath before bringing the goblet to her lips and drinking.It wasn’t long after she’d swallowed that the choking began. She fell to her knees, dropping the chalice and letting it roll across the floor to stain the brown planks with crimson. Varel’s face twisted as he averted his eyes, but Safir kept watching. She saw the taint lay waste to Mhairi’s body, her face sinking into a gaunt and gray scowl. She writhed on the floorboards, still fighting to stand back up, but her fate was inevitable. With a final gurgle, Mhairi finally collapsed and gave in to the taint, the color never returning to her eyes.“I am sorry, Mhairi,” Varel whispered, drawing her eyelids closed. “We will remember you.”Safir stared unblinking at Mhairi’s corpse. She sighed deeply, clenched her jaw, and turned her attention to Oghren, who was looking in Mhairi’s direction with an uncharacteristic sadness in his eyes.“Here,” she said, holding up the skeleton key for Oghren to take it. “Unlock the door. Give the key to Captain Garevel.”“Alright, Warden… you sure you don’t want my help with... all this?” he asked her, gesturing to the two bodies on the ground.“Just give the key to Garevel, Oghren.”The dwarf set off to deliver the key after a moment’s hesitation. Safir waited for the door to shut behind him before approaching Anders and dragging him to the firepit to lean him against its stone wall.“Poor Mhairi,” Varel sighed, shaking his head. “So young…”“I’ll find someone to get her out of here,” Safir answered, uninterested in sharing his grief. “What’s next?”“For pity’s sake, Commander!” he growled, resting a hand on Mhairi’s arm. “She isn’t a sack of refuse.”“Wardens die, Varel. That’s what we’re for.”“I… How can you…” he began, tripping on his words and resigning himself to the truth of what Safir had said. “That may be, Commander, but Fereldans treat our dead with honor. We will give Mhairi a pyre.” “Fine by me,” she relented, throwing her hands in the air and stepping away from the scene. “Carry her out yourself if you like. I’ll stay here and wait for Anders to wake.”“As you wish, Warden,” he muttered through gritted teeth, not bothering to hide his resentment. Old as he was, Varel managed to lift Mhairi’s body off the ground with surprising ease, and in another moment he was gone.Safir sat back on the rim by Anders’ side, staring at the spot where Mhairi had stood only moments prior. Then she found the Joining chalice, halfway to the wall, with blood still dripping from its rim. She stared at it for several moments as though frozen in place, listening only to the crackling of the fire behind her, and then buried her face in her hands.
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The prison’s walls were streaked with rainwater, a sign of both the relentlessness of the season and the keep’s state of disrepair. Inside, on the other end of a short hall, was a solitary jail cell with rusted iron bars and only one prisoner.“Here he is, Commander,” the guard told her, pointing to the man in the cell. “We caught him poking around the estate three nights ago, but we have no idea why he was here. We’ve been waiting for you to arrive and decide what to do with him.”“Who is he?” Safir asked him. “He refuses to say. I’d call him a common thief, but it took three of our best men to catch him.”“Did he hurt anyone?”“Not badly, and he only fought to get himself free,” he explained, sounding impressed. “If he had violent intentions, he didn’t act on them.”“Alright,” Safir said, asking for the cell’s key and waving the guard off. “Let me deal with him.”“As you wish, Commander. I’ll let the seneschal know you’re here.”Safir moved her attention from the guard to his charge, stepping forward to peer through the cell’s iron wall. The prisoner sat on the far side of the cell with his back against the wall and his arms on his knees. His head hung low, covering his face with a curtain of greasy black hair. Sitting motionless as he did, he would look dead if not for the rising and falling of his sweaty chest.Impatient, Safir kicked at the cell door, filling the room with a loud, echoing rattle. The prisoner flinched upon hearing the sudden noise, but still refused to look up.“Don’t give me that bullshit,” she chided. “I’ve been a prisoner before. I don’t buy the stoic act.”“It’s not stoicism keeping me silent,” grunted the prisoner in a raspy growl of a voice, eyes steadily trained on the floor. He curled his fingers into fists and stretched them out again several times, apparently attempting to settle his nerves.“No? Then what?”“I haven’t got anything left to lose,” he explained. “What’s the use?”Crossing her arms, Safir sighed. “Everyone’s got something to lose.”“Not me. You made sure of that,” he said, finally raising his head to look into her eyes from behind the strands of hair that covered his. “You took everything from my family.”“You’re a Howe.”“Aye. And that used to mean something. But now?” he asked, raising his arms to gesture to the room. “A prisoner in my own estate! All thanks to the Wardens.”“The Wardens didn’t force you to trespass here,” Safir rebutted, still unimpressed. “No, but they’re the reason my being here is trespassing at all.”Fitting the key into its hole, Safir unlocked the door and pushed it open.“Not anymore.”“Excuse me?” he asked, staring perplexed at the open door. “This is a trap, isn’t it? If I step through that door, you’ll gut me where I stand, like you did my father.”“I doubt you’ll believe me if I say no, but you’re free to test that theory of yours,” she answered. “No, I opened the door so you’d stop being an asshole. Now tell me why you really came.”“You are not what I expected,” the Howe said, standing up after a pause. He made no indication that he was planning on leaving the cell, however, and instead leaned back against the wall. Despite his circumstances, his stature was proud. “I thought you were supposed to be ten feet tall, with lightning shooting from your eyes.”“That’s only when I’m angry. Answer the question, and you might not have to see it.”“My name is Nathaniel Howe. I was in the Free Marches during the Blight, or we might have met already, and I doubt I would be drawing breath.” Brushing the hair from his face with both hands, he stepped forward to stare down his nose at her. Even as a prisoner, his former station was obvious. “When I first got here, I thought I would try to kill you. Lay a trap, perhaps, or shoot you from afar.”“Well, at least you’re honest,” she said, moving her hands closer to the hilts of her swords in case he thought to try again.“But you weren’t here,” he continued, “and I realized I just wanted to reclaim some of my family’s things. It’s all I had left. And now I don’t even have that.”“I believe you,” Safir told him, studying his sunken eyes. “You look like shit. Proud shit, maybe, but still shit. So tell me, Nathaniel, what would you do about this, if you were me?”“If I were you, I’d have killed me already,” he said, crossing his arms over his bare chest. “What are you waiting for?”“A good enough reason. So far I have none,” she explained, pausing expectantly to see if he would offer one. She took his silence for an answer.Calling for the seneschal, she prepared to give the prisoner Howe his sentence. With nothing left to say, they squared off in the silence while waiting for Varel to arrive. Safir kept her expression flat, careful not to betray a hint of her intentions, while watching the uncertainty grow in his. Before long, the Howe broke eye contact, biting his lip as his fear grew. Once upon a time, she’d have admonished herself for taking satisfaction in his discomfort. Now, she had no reason not to relish in it. She curled the corner of her lip into a cool grin and watched as he began pacing in his cell.“Warden-Commander?” asked Varel upon opening the door to the jail. “Have you decided what to do with the prisoner?”“I have,” she answered, still looking at Nathaniel, who by then had stopped pacing and regained his composure. “Did you know this was Nathaniel Howe?”“I didn’t, but it makes sense now that I do. What will we do with him?”“Joining.”“What?” cried Nathaniel from within the cell, eyes wide and mouth agape like the victim of a bad joke. “You can’t be serious! I wanted you dead!”“Some of my best friends have wanted me dead,” Safir teased, savoring his bewilderment.“Are you sure about this, Commander?” Varel asked, apparently as surprised by the sentence as its recipient. “Do you really want your prisoner for an ally?”“I’m sure, Varel. Get the chalice ready.”“Very well, Commander. I hope you know what you’re doing.” With that, Varel left the room to prepare for the ceremony.“No! I won’t do it!” Nathaniel shouted, retreating to the back wall of the cell and sitting back down. “I would rather hang!”“So would I, in your shoes,” Safir answered. “That’s why I’m doing it.”“This can’t be happening. It’s not enough for you Wardens to destroy my family? Now you would force me to become one?” he gasped, fresh sweat already beading on his brow. “No. I refuse.”“Con-scrip-tion,” Safir taunted, reminding Nathaniel that he had little choice now besides how he wished to die. “On your feet, recruit. We’ve got a Joining to perform.”Staring into her eyes from behind newly disheveled hair, he rose slowly, breathing heavily and clenching his jaw. “On with it, then,” he growled as he walked past her toward the jail’s exit. “Maker have mercy.”Following him outside into the pitter-patter of rainfall, Safir found herself half regretting her decision. The Joining wasn’t a guaranteed death. She’d survived hers, after all. If the Howe survived, she would actually have to deal with him, and with his temperament that could prove to be quite the hassle.Still, she supposed, watching his rain-soaked hair crawl across his bare shoulders, at least he was nice to look at.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
Nathaniel stretched his muscles as he prepared to go to bed. Ever since his Joining, he’d got the sense that they tensed up at nights after calm days without much exercise. Part of the added strength that comes with being a Warden, he supposed. Sit idly by and your muscles will ache with restlessness. He resolved to begin doing a routine in the morning to keep limber from now on, grimacing as he worked out a sore spot in his shoulder. He dragged his eyes across the sheets that lined his four-poster bed. The same exact bed he once slept in as a child, which Safir was kind enough to give back to him now that he was in her service. He paused a moment before drawing the covers back and slipping underneath them, pondering the peculiarity of the word. Service. That was how it had felt, at the beginning. But now, several months into his career as a Warden, calling it service seemed just a touch disingenuous. All things considered, he’d been having a wonderful time of it, or at least as wonderful a time as any Warden could. These days, honor was the more appropriate choice of words. He noticed a satisfied grin break across his mouth just as he reached forward to grab the sheet, only stopping when he heard the door open behind him.“You’re not even going to knock?” he asked, not yet turning to face whoever had barged in on him. “Do you have no manners?”Then, whipping around to see just who was important or insolent enough to open a bedroom door without so much as a warning, his eyes flared open in shock. Speak of the devil herself.“Warden-Commander,” Nathaniel breathed, bowing his head. “Forgive my rashness, I did not know it was you.”Safir sidled into the room slowly as would a suspicious cat, her eyes piercing his before flicking away to inspect the vanity to her left. She approached it wordlessly and began picking up objects at random, turning them over in her hands before setting them back down and moving on to the next. Nathaniel cleared his throat, unsure what to make of this display.“Am I in trouble?” he wondered, his thumbs making circles around each other just in front of his belly. “Whatever I’ve done, I assure you that I did not mean to upset you, nor break any rule.”The elf glanced lazily in his direction, her eyes scanning him up and down but betraying no sign of her intentions. Her attention broke from him almost as soon as she’d given it, and she crossed the room to investigate the wardrobe instead, running her fingers along its carved wooden surface. Luckily, her nosiness had its limits, and she did not pull its doors open.“You have my sincerest apologies, Warden-Commander, if you are looking for them.”She balled her hand into a fist as he spoke, stopping its motion across the wardrobe a moment and letting it hang at her side. Then she turned around and took a pair of steps in his direction so that he stood across from her at the side of his bed. Her brows were knit slightly, though not with anger. She simply stared at him as though she bore ill tidings and was hesitating on their delivery. Nathaniel took what solace he could in the fact that he did not seem to be in trouble as he feared.“Is there something you need to tell me, Safir?” he asked her, softening his voice and reaching out to place a hand on her shoulder. “If there’s something you’d like to discuss, I’d be ha—mmm!”Without warning, Safir had closed the distance between them and pulled her lips into his. She pressed herself into him as she kissed him with one hand on his neck and the other on his arm. This was a moment he’d considered several times already, but it had both arrived and progressed much more rapidly than he’d ever imagined. He allowed his body to react on instinct, wrapping his arms around her slim waist and pulling her tightly toward himself as he pedaled backwards to lean against the mattress. Safir followed eagerly with her hands on his cheeks and her nails digging into the space behind his ears. Together they fell onto the bed, where she straddled him and slowly moved her kisses from his lips to his neck.Nathaniel pulled her face back towards his own, sinking his fingers into her hair and undoing the ribbon that held it tied in place. A curtain of her silver hair fell around his face, framing their kisses and trapping the hot air of their breaths between them. He ran his hands along her sides, letting them linger slightly at her breasts before they moved down to her hips. When they reached her backside, she pushed herself off of him into a sitting position, her weight putting more pressure on his growing excitement. There, she stripped free of her padded jacket to reveal a loose shirt of linen underneath. It was only then that it occurred to Nathaniel that he had no earthly idea why this was happening.“Wait,” he breathed as she leaned forward to kiss him again. Her lips sealed his before he could say more, and despite his hesitance he found himself unable to resist her for very long. His hands wandered back up to her chest to take advantage of the gambeson’s absence, their skin separated only by thin fabric.Safir sat up again at his touch, her arms crossed at the hem of her shirt in position to remove it.“Wait,” he said again, placing his hands over hers to slow her progress. She stared into his eyes from behind stray white locks of hair with furrowed brows that scolded his interruption. Without letting him speak again, she leaned back in to plant more kisses on his neck. Supporting herself on one hand, she ran the other down his front until it reached his groin. Almost in spite of himself he pushed her away when she began to massage him. “Wait!” he repeated once more.Safir backed off of him in a huff, standing at the edge of the bed with her arms crossed and her sharp eyebrows pointed angrily. “What is it, Nathaniel?” she hissed. “Do you want to do this or not?”“I have been thinking of this for some time,” he admitted as he sat up. Pausing to catch his breath, he combed back a few bothersome strands of his onyx hair while he straightened himself to address her. “It’s not that I’m unwilling. Believe me, Safir, I want this.”“Good,” she returned, closing the distance again and planting her hands on his cheeks. Before she reached him, he pulled her hands away and held them in his.“But I only want this if you’re sure it’s what you want,” he clarified, searching her eyes for some indication of her thoughts. “You did not seem whole when you entered.”“Are you asking me to leave?” Safir asked, her voice raspy and thin.“Of course not!” he assured her, pulling her in slightly and squeezing her hands. “The idea of having you to myself tonight is very alluring, and your enthusiasm is much appreciated. I suppose I just want to know why this is happening. Why now? Why so suddenly?”He finished the question with the hint of a smile on his lips, eager to hear her answer and resume the more pleasurable activity. But what he found instead of a clear explanation was a wide look in the eyes and a set of parted lips. Safir panted before him, her eyes flitting back and forth between himself and their surroundings.“I’m sorry,” she whispered in an instant before speeding off toward the door. She was gone before he could say another word, having left behind her gambeson. He picked it up off the floor with the intention of giving it back to her, but soon thought it better to return it to her in the morning. Hopefully then he’d understand what in the Maker’s good name had just happened, and offer some kind of help to Safir if she needed him to. He sat back down on the mattress with a flustered sigh and an excess of energy with no available outlet.****Safir raced through the halls of Vigil’s Keep with disheveled hair and fewer clothes on than she’d started with. Suffocated by walls spaced too narrowly apart, she passed by the few guards who were still awake this late into the night without daring to look any of them in the eye. Her nerves were still alight with the excitement of her encounter with Nathaniel, but the rush and tension from his bedroom had warped themselves into anxiety and unrest as her mind turned inward with endless accusations of shame and guilt.“Why is this happening?” he’d asked her. Maker, but what a deadly question that had been.She rounded a corner, going right and ignoring a guard’s dutiful greeting as she passed him. A short walk away, the door to her quarters stood slightly ajar, just as she’d left it when she embarked upon that stupid exercise. She pushed it open and slammed it shut in one fluid motion, locking herself in the room and throwing herself onto the bed with a grunt. Even here the air pressed in around her as she collapsed in on herself and sought shelter from the shrinking corners.“Why is this happening?” she heard again.Maker damn him. Why, of all the men in the keep, did she choose the only one who’d be likely to give a damn about the feelings of a woman offering him sex? Never in her life had she given herself so freely, and the bastard couldn’t just sit back and say yes.Safir sat up on her mattress and rubbed her temples, trying and failing to will the answer to his question to disappear from her mind. Instead it hung before her, heavier than her shoulders and taunting her from the past like a child bully. She knew it from the moment Nathaniel had asked it of her. She would have known it ahead of time, too, had she simply not been so ignorant as to think her affection for him was genuine. Alistair, that selfless fool. The better part of a year had passed since his death already, every last night of it lonely.Her lungs struggled to keep steady as she cast her mind back to the Blight, back to days spent in camp and in battle. Gritting her teeth, she relived the war’s events in sequence until her mind stopped at a dark room, a red sky, and an apology that never was. If only she’d taken his place, he would be the one sleeping in a castle with a legion of Wardens under his command. The duty would have suited him far more than it did her, and he’d have smiled through every minute. That same stupid smile that… that…Safir’s heart sank into her gut the instant it dawned on her that Alistair’s face, his smile, was lost to her. She scoured her memories feverishly to find some trace of it but came up empty each time. Her breathing grew quick and erratic with each moment that passed in the absence of a clear picture in her mind’s eye. Tensely shaking fingers combed through matted hair as her desperation increased and the room pressed ever inward. First his smile, now his eyes. With each moment that passed, another detail of Alistair’s face disappeared from just within the grasp of her mind, his image threatening to vanish in its entirety. She sprang up from her seat on the bed and made for the nightstand to pull open the drawer where blank sheets of parchment rested in messy stacks. Ripping the topmost sheet away from its twins, she slammed it roughly onto the smooth wooden surface of the furniture and produced a stick of charcoal from beside the stack. Underneath the flickering candle light she put it to paper at once, creating lines and smudges of black that slowly formed the features of Alistair’s face. She studied her work with upturned brows and moistened eyes. Staring up at her, expressionless, was the face of the man she’d loved. The face that now existed only on parchment because of her.The drawing was hasty and certainly not her best, but it was him. Thank the Maker, for it was him.His death was bad enough, she thought, but she would not lose him a second time. She hugged the parchment tightly to her chest, swearing to herself that for as long as she lived, she would keep him with her. Anything less would be an insult to his memory.Safir’s breaths slowed gradually, still deep but no longer frantic. She collapsed into a sitting position on the floor, leaning against the bed frame with her legs splayed out in front of her. Rubbing the charcoal dust between her fingers, she let a quarter of an hour pass her by in the sole company of her own condemnation and pity. Once the fear and shock’s physical symptoms had worn away, a sudden wave of cold reminded her of her jacket’s absence. She’d left it with Nathaniel, of course. She lingered on that jacket a while, dreading the conversation that was surely to follow her visit to the Howe’s quarters. She’d made a mistake by getting close to him, and now in correcting it she was sure to cause yet more harm. But that was the least of her worries, all things considered. She had become quite well-practiced at that by now.