Kindred Spirits
Title: Kindred Spirits
Characters: Dagna, Marcus Amell, Morrigan, Wynne and Sten.
Summary: When the mage Marcus Amell escorts Dagna to the tower personally, Dagna discovers that she has a lot more in common with the Arcane Warrior than she thought.
Rating: T
Word Count: 4,009
Entry: #1 (Squeaking in an hour under the deadline, because that's just how I roll...)
Kindred Spirits
Dagna had a hard time adjusting to many things on the surface. Some she had anticipated. The enormous sky looming overhead was not a surprise, although the first time Dagna had walked under its vast openness she’d emptied her breakfast on the Grey Warden’s boots. Some she had not. The way the wind blew her loose notes from her open satchel, for instance, which had caused a half a day delay while the Warden’s companions chased down her coveted research notes with much resentful grumbling. But Dagna was nothing if not a quick study, and as the days passed on their journey from Orzammar to the Tower, Dagna learned not to look above the horizon and to keep her notes bound with string unless indoors.
But by the stone, she had never had anticipated how noisy the surface would be. Between birds squawking overhead and chirping insects at night, it seemed like the surface was never silent. And without the buffering of solid rock, sound carried across distances in surprising ways. Conversations or activities that should have remained private, such as the noises the apostate witch made on the nights the Grey Warden visited her tent, were constantly assaulting Dagna’s oversensitive ears.
So it was no surprise when she awoke one morning to the sounds of a private conversation. However, this time the conversation was about her.
“’Tis ridiculous! We have doubled our travel time because of that foolish girl.” Even from within the tent, Dagna could picture Morrigan’s disapproving scowl as she said the words. The witch had worn one ever since the warden agreed to petition the circle of mages on Dagna’s behalf.
It had all happened faster than Dagna could have ever hoped. One minute she was approaching the enormous mage and asking for his help, and before she knew it he’d sent a message with one of the lyrium caravans heading to the Tower. By the time the Warden and his companions emerged from whatever task had taken them into the deep roads, permission from the tower had arrived back and Marcus Amell was offering to escort her to the Circle Tower personally.
“Nonsense.” Senior Enchanter Wynne’s sensible voice cut through the apostate’s complaining. “We were traveling to Redcliffe anyway. It is not that much farther to go along the east lake road instead of the west and stop at the tower along the way.”
“Marcus finally has agreements to honor all of the treaties, and yet he takes us leagues out of our way as though we don’t have anything more important to do than escort one silly girl who dawdles as she walks.”
Dagna frowned, stung. It was true that she sometimes got distracted and fell behind, but that was because were so many new and exciting things to observe. Still, she was determined not to live up to the witch’s censure today, so she rose and began to dress and pack, carefully picking up the book the Warden had lent her a few nights before and wrapping it in soft oil cloth. Applications of Magic and Lyrium in Forged Weaponry was absolutely fascinating reading, and she had so many questions and theories that she thought she might burst if she didn’t share them soon.
The Qunari spoke next - another one of the Grey Warden’s companions who constantly frowned at her when he was not frustrating her endless curiosity with terse, monosyllabic answers to her burning questions. “The witch is right. This is a waste of time, especially in the middle of this blight.” Dagna heard the slick sound of a sword being sheathed. “The Warden does not usually make such impractical decisions.”
Dagna’s hands paused on her pack. She had not thought about how the Warden must be taking extra time from his duties to help her. For the first time since she left Orzammar, her enthusiasm was dampened with guilt.
“Thank you.” Morrigan said. “At least someone here is not a sentimental fool. I don’t understand why Marcus allowed her to travel with us in the first place. She follows him around and chatters like a magpie, and even he must be exhausted by the way she prattles on to him. I do not think she drew breath yesterday from sunrise to sunset. She is worse than both Alistair and Leliana combined!”
Wynne’s tone grew brisk. “Of course you don’t understand dear, because kindness is utterly foreign to you.”
“Pity, you mean,” Morrigan said. “He pitied the wretched thing, but did not anticipate how she would hinder us when he made his offer of help and now we all must put up with his fool indulgence.”
“If you are so bothered by his decision, then you should discuss it with him,” Wynne said.
“What good would that do? We’re leagues from anywhere and you know as well as I that he would not abandon her by the side of the road.”
“Then I suppose you will have to resign yourself to her presence.” Dagna heard bootfalls crunching on dry grass as they moved away, and if they spoke again Dagna could not hear them.
It was just as well because Dagna didn’t think she could bear to hear more. To discover that she was hindering the Grey Warden’s duties was bad enough, but she genuinely liked and respected the man. Marcus’s intellect was obvious to anyone who spoke to him, although many times it was difficult to tell what the mage was thinking behind his calm and stoic presence. Marcus didn’t talk that much, but Dagna thought that at least he wasn’t bothered by her constant questions and even maybe enjoyed telling her about the tower and listening to her theories. But the witch’s words must be true; the woman was his lover after all, and would know the man better than any in the party.
Utterly crushed, she continued to pack slowly, and by the time she emerged from her tent, there was nothing left of her usual buoyant enthusiasm. When the Grey Warden’s party assembled for the day, she followed along in uncharacteristic silence, determined not to make herself anymore of a nuisance than she already was.
To the west side, the sun sparkled and shimmered in the reflection of Lake Calanhad’s deep blue waters. The party headed down the dusty road the way they did most days, talking quietly amongst themselves. Dagna kept her eyes on the horizon and made sure not to fall behind, managing to keep the questions that seemed to burn endlessly on her lips unasked. She kept to herself for nearly half a day, speaking only when directly spoken to.
Eventually she realized that the Grey Warden walking at the front of the party was looking back at her with a frown. Dagna’s stomach dropped to her toes when he murmured something to Alistair and stopped, waiting for the others to pass him. The witch glared at him, rolled her eyes and muttered something as she passed that made the Warden’s frown deepen and his eyes narrow at his lover. But Morrigan jerked her chin up and continued walking and eventually the rest of the party passed. All except for Dagna.
Marcus fell into step beside her, shortening his stride quite a bit as she lengthened hers. He loomed above her, nearly as tall as the Qunari. The noonday sun glinted off of his plate mail and for the first time since she’d gathered the courage to approach him in Orzammar, she was intimated by the enormous human.
“I’m sorry,” she said breathlessly. “I’ll do better at keeping up.”
He looked down at her as he spoke. “No need to worry. You’re not slowing us down.”
“Oh.” She swallowed. “Good.”
She bit her lip in an effort to keep silent. It was hard, but she was determined not to bother the Warden with her questions. They quietly walked together for a few minutes, neither one speaking until he finally said, “You’re quiet today.”
She looked up at him, her head bobbing in an earnest, nervous nod. “I’m trying to be better about that.”
Marcus’s brows knit together. “You are?”
“Oh, yes!”
There was a pause as Marcus frowned down at her. “Why?”
“You’ve already helped me so much. It doesn’t seem right to make you listen to my prattling and bother you with all of my questions.”
His brows lifted toward the sky. “Dagna, you’re not -”
Whatever he was about to say died in his throat, as his attention snapped to the front of the party. His eyes glowed the eerie blue that meant darkspawn were about.
“Marcus!” Alistair shouted from the front of the group that had just crested the top of a hill he pointed to something Dagna couldn’t see on the other side. “Darkspawn ahead attacking a caravan.”
Marcus nodded and unsheathed his sword. “We’ll talk later,” he said.
The warden moved quickly to the forefront leaving Dagna behind. She hung back, the way she knew she was supposed to. Several of the Warden’s companions, Wynne especially, had taken it upon themselves to give her many lectures about the danger of getting in the way of fighting.
There were the slick sounds of weapons being drawn, and then the shrieks of the merchants up ahead. By the time Dagna reached the crest of the hill herself, the rest of the Warden’s companions were battling the darkspawn below. There were maybe two dozen darkspawn in all, enough to decimate the frightened merchants and their mercenary guards, but nothing to pose a genuine threat to the Grey Warden and his companions.
Dagna set her satchel down on the ground and pulled a scrap of vellum, a quill and a small bottle of ink from one of her many pockets, watching the mages launch their spells and noting the differences in the way they did battle, cataloging the spells they launched, the time it took to release them and the effects they caused. Both Morrigan and Senior Enchanter Wynne fought in the more traditional way, launching their spells from afar. The Grey Warden fought in a more unusual style, in full armor with a sword and shield, face to face with the darkspawn and shoulder to shoulder with the other Warden.
She was so busy taking notes that she didn’t see the pair of darkspawn dragging a human woman away until they were nearly into the tree line. Dagna dropped the ink bottle onto the ground, the black liquid seeping into the dirt of the road, and shouted to Marcus and his companions, but they didn’t hear her over the sounds of the battle.
Dagna had to do something. She knew that by the time Marcus and the others realized the woman was missing, the darkspawn would be long gone. So she grabbed her satchel off the ground and chased after the monsters as fast as her short legs would allow, digging into her leather pack for one of the vials as she ran.
Twigs snapped as she crashed into the brush after them, and when they heard the sound of pursuit, the darkspawn pair turned to look at her almost in eerie unison. For a few heartbeats, Dagna froze. This wasn’t the first time the party had fought darkspawn since she’d started travelling with the Warden, but it was the closest she’d ever come to one. Dagna had the oddest sensation of being torn between intellectual curiosity as her fingers itched for her dropped quill and complete horror as her knees turned to jelly.
Survival instinct trumped both as she tossed the flask in her hand at the closest one’s chest. The darkspawn howled as the acid splashed across their torsos, eating through their armor. The one dragging the thrashing woman by her hair loosened its grasp enough for the screaming woman to scrabble away. Dagna pulled the startled woman to her feet and shoved her back towards the caravan. The woman didn’t need more encouragement and ran screaming without a backwards glance. Dagna tried to follow her, but claws dug into her shoulder. She cried in pain as the darkspawn spun her around, flanking her and lifting her under her arms, half carrying, half dragging Dagna through the woods. The smell of acid and burned flesh choked her as the darkspawn crashed through the brush, heedless of the thorny brush scraping her skin and tangling in her hair.
Heart hammering in her chest, Dagna kicked and clawed and shouted, but she wasn’t strong enough to squirm free of the darkspawn’s grasp. She didn’t know how long they dragged her along, but eventually they lurched into a small clearing. In the middle of the grass a large gaping pit lead down into the earth. Dagna was already frightened, but when she saw the hole her fear became full blown terror. Instinct told her that if they dragged her down into the earth she would disappear forever, but there wasn’t anything she could do to stop them. Her kicking feet just glanced off of the monster’s sides and there wasn’t anyone around to hear her sobbing yells.
And then something swooped down into their path, something with sharp talons, white feathers and Marcus Amell’s eyes. Just as the part of her mind that wasn’t overrun by terror recognized it as an Owl, the Owl became a man. A very large, dangerous man, in full plate mail standing between the darkspawn and the hole. In one slick movement, he drew the curved blade from his back and swept down, the terrible blow cleaving and cracking through bone and grey matter. The darkspawn didn’t even have time to shriek. It simply fell in its tracks, releasing the grip on her left arm.
As Marcus rounded on the other one, the darkspawn shoved her toward the hole. Dagna stumbled forward past Marcus, to her knees, the rocks tearing through her skirt, but managed to keep herself from toppling over the edge into the darkness below.
She didn’t see what happened behind her, only heard the sound of weapons clashing and felt a blast of ice cold wind, because she was face to face with more darkspawn coming up from below, gibbering and howling as they skittered up the rocky sides of the shaft. Another claw shot out, grabbing her wrist, pulling her forward. Dagna grit her teeth and scrabbled with her free hand, clutching a nearby rock, fighting a losing battle against the strength of the darkspawn and gravity.
She lost her grip, falling almost over the edge, when Marcus’s strong arm wrapped around her waist so tightly that she couldn’t breathe, hefting her back and jerking her against his chest as his blade cut the darkspawn’s hand off. It shrieked in shock as it lost its grasp and fell back, colliding with the one right below, sending them both into a free fall in the darkness below.
More were still climbing up, some nearly to the edge of the hole. Marcus tossed his blade to the dirt, and stretched out a hand. She heard the words charged with terrible power rumbling from his chest, and then the air heated in front of her. The ball of fire careened into the hole and Marcus threw his weight backwards, falling onto the grass with a grunt. Dagna fell on top of him, her body colliding with his plate mail, and then the ground shook as the fireball exploded. There was a woosh of scorching heat and a deafening explosion punctuated by darkspawn shrieks, followed by an abrupt and eerie silence. Dazed, Dagna couldn’t move, her mind still struggling to process everything that had just happened. Underneath her Marcus sat up, nudged her to the side so that he could crawl over and peer down the edge of the hole.
He sat back with a sigh. “They’re gone.”
Dagna nodded, speechless for the first time in her life due to the lump in her throat. She hated that couldn’t seem to do anything except sit in the dirt and cry. Marcus didn’t say anything further, he simply offered comfort by placing a hand on her shoulder as she sobbed. A soothing, cooling tingle came from his hand, chasing away some of the bruises and aches. She was just starting to get her embarrassing burst of emotion under control when another bird, this time a black raven, landed next to them.
A heartbeat later, Morrigan was glaring down both of them with a face even paler than usual, hands on her hips. “Marcus, you fool! I told you that the silly girl would only be trouble.” She focused her glare on Dagna. “All you had to do was stay back from the fighting, but you couldn’t even do that.”
Marcus’s tone was even, but his eyes narrowed at his lover. “Morrigan -”
“How difficult can it possibly be for you to stay out of the way for one small skirmish?” She threw her hands up. “Oh, I forget. You are the most ridiculous creature to ever walk the surface. Of course it would be difficult for you to do the sensible thing and stay out of the way. I should not expect it from someone who has dawdled and prattled her way across half of Ferelden!”
Dagna blinked and tried to explain. “I-”
She pointed a finger to the smoking hole in the ground. “You nearly got him killed, you twit!”
The words combined with the way Morrigan’s voice went shrill made Dagna realize that the apostate’s wrath was born not just out of the general disapproval that had been simmering as they traveled but fear for her lover.
Marcus pushed himself to his feet. “Morrigan, enough.” Morrigan turned her glare from Dagna to him and opened her mouth, but Marcus cut her off. “Go find the others. Tell them we are well, and that we will be rejoining them shortly.” Morrigan’s lips thinned. She held his gaze and didn’t move until he said, “Now.”
Both Morrigan and Dagna started. In the few weeks she’d travelled with the warden, she’d never heard his ire leak into his tone that way. Morrigan’s face twisted in anger as she turned away. And a few seconds later she was a black raven again flying back to their companions.
Marcus turned his attention back to Dagna. “Are you alright?”
Dagna pushed the wetness from her cheeks with her dirty, bloody fingers. “I’m okay. I’m just… I’m so sorry, Marcus.”
Marcus held out a hand and pulled her to her feet. “For what?”
All of the worries she’d been carrying since the morning spilled from her lips. “For not listening and staying back from the fight, and prattling too much, and slowing the group down and wasting your time when you have more important things to do. I don’t really mean to be a bother and I’ll try harder to stay out of the way. You can even leave me in the next town. I can find my way to the tower from there.”
Marcus held up one of his large hands to quiet her, before picking his sword up out of the dirt. He crouched down and wiped the blade on the tattered rags of one of the dead darkspawn.
“Okay. Let’s take these one at a time. First of all, you have nothing to apologize for. You saved that woman from…” his face darkened and hardened in a way that made Dagna shiver, “…something much worse than death. We wouldn’t have known she was missing until it was much too late if you hadn’t gone after her. It was a very brave thing to do.” He paused, for a moment, his intense gaze seeming to spear right through her. “But then, I’m not surprised because I already knew you were fearless.”
Her eyes widened at the shock of his words. “You did?”
His lips twitched as he rose and sheathed his sword. “You left your family and everything that you know behind to go after what you want. That’s not the choice of a coward, Dagna.”
Dagna didn’t know what to say she was so honored by his words.
“As far as you slowing us down. Even with the few…” Marcus’s lips twitched and his voice turned wry, “…mishaps in the beginning, you haven’t delayed us or wasted my time anymore than my other companions. Including Morrigan.” He frowned and looked in the direction to where she’d flown off. “Especially Morrigan.”
He turned his attention back to her, his broad shoulders bobbing up and down in a shrug. “And as for the rest - I enjoy listening to your theories and answering your questions. I don’t think you prattle at all.”
“You didn’t help me out of pity then?” she said as they started walking back to the other companions.
He shook his head. “I helped you for a lot of reasons, none of which have anything to do with pity.”
“Then why?” she asked. “I mean, I am really grateful, and I don’t want to change your mind, but I just don’t understand why someone like you would go out of your way to help someone like me.”
“Because it is nice to do something that doesn’t revolve around death and blood and killing,” he said. He paused for a bit, and the silence stretched as the look on his face grew thoughtful. “And because you remind me of myself.”
Dagna shook her head, thinking that she must have heard him wrong. “No way.”
He didn’t meet her eyes, instead keeping his thoughtful gaze on the tree line ahead. “Most who come to the tower are forced to go there as children, but my magic didn’t manifest until I was fifteen. Our farm was out in the middle of nowhere, and I probably could have found a way to stay undetected by the Templars and become an apostate like Morrigan, but I chose to go.” A sad smile tugged at the corners of his lips. “Not even because I wanted to be a mage, really. I just wanted the chance to study, be around books, and get an education. So one day, I bought a map and walked halfway across Ferelden until I reached the tower.”
“What about your family?”
When she saw the look on his face, she knew the answer before he even spoke. “My parents didn’t want me to go because they were afraid of how people would treat me once I became a mage. They were even more afraid of I would become, I think, and they never forgave me for leaving.”
The knot that had been in Dagna’s stomach ever since she told her father she was leaving tightened. Her gaze dropped to the dirt. “I don’t think my father will either,” she said softly. They lapsed into silence again, each thinking about the families they’d left behind. Eventually she looked up at the enormous Warden.
“Do you regret your choice?”
“No. Being a farmer is a respectable thing, but it’s not who I am. Staying on the farm and following my parent’s wishes instead of following my own would have made me less than I could be.”
The unequivocal way that he said it loosened the knot in her gut, not because she felt less sad for leaving her father behind, but because it was comforting to know that she wasn’t the only one compelled to follow a frowned upon path.
“Yeah.” She smiled up at the large mage. “Thanks, Marcus.”
His lips turned up at the corners as he smiled back. “You’re welcome, Dagna.”
They reached the edge of the field where the trees and brush started, and Marcus cut through the brambles with his sword. “So have you had the chance to read chapter seven of Applications of Magic and Lyrium in Forged Weaponry yet?”
“Oh yes! And I had some ideas about the origins of your sword…”
Enthusiasm regained, Dagna talked all of the way back to the caravan to the stoic mage who absorbed her words with encouraging nods and thoughtful silence.
Characters: Dagna, Marcus Amell, Morrigan, Wynne and Sten.
Summary: When the mage Marcus Amell escorts Dagna to the tower personally, Dagna discovers that she has a lot more in common with the Arcane Warrior than she thought.
Rating: T
Word Count: 4,009
Entry: #1 (Squeaking in an hour under the deadline, because that's just how I roll...)
Kindred Spirits
Dagna had a hard time adjusting to many things on the surface. Some she had anticipated. The enormous sky looming overhead was not a surprise, although the first time Dagna had walked under its vast openness she’d emptied her breakfast on the Grey Warden’s boots. Some she had not. The way the wind blew her loose notes from her open satchel, for instance, which had caused a half a day delay while the Warden’s companions chased down her coveted research notes with much resentful grumbling. But Dagna was nothing if not a quick study, and as the days passed on their journey from Orzammar to the Tower, Dagna learned not to look above the horizon and to keep her notes bound with string unless indoors.
But by the stone, she had never had anticipated how noisy the surface would be. Between birds squawking overhead and chirping insects at night, it seemed like the surface was never silent. And without the buffering of solid rock, sound carried across distances in surprising ways. Conversations or activities that should have remained private, such as the noises the apostate witch made on the nights the Grey Warden visited her tent, were constantly assaulting Dagna’s oversensitive ears.
So it was no surprise when she awoke one morning to the sounds of a private conversation. However, this time the conversation was about her.
“’Tis ridiculous! We have doubled our travel time because of that foolish girl.” Even from within the tent, Dagna could picture Morrigan’s disapproving scowl as she said the words. The witch had worn one ever since the warden agreed to petition the circle of mages on Dagna’s behalf.
It had all happened faster than Dagna could have ever hoped. One minute she was approaching the enormous mage and asking for his help, and before she knew it he’d sent a message with one of the lyrium caravans heading to the Tower. By the time the Warden and his companions emerged from whatever task had taken them into the deep roads, permission from the tower had arrived back and Marcus Amell was offering to escort her to the Circle Tower personally.
“Nonsense.” Senior Enchanter Wynne’s sensible voice cut through the apostate’s complaining. “We were traveling to Redcliffe anyway. It is not that much farther to go along the east lake road instead of the west and stop at the tower along the way.”
“Marcus finally has agreements to honor all of the treaties, and yet he takes us leagues out of our way as though we don’t have anything more important to do than escort one silly girl who dawdles as she walks.”
Dagna frowned, stung. It was true that she sometimes got distracted and fell behind, but that was because were so many new and exciting things to observe. Still, she was determined not to live up to the witch’s censure today, so she rose and began to dress and pack, carefully picking up the book the Warden had lent her a few nights before and wrapping it in soft oil cloth. Applications of Magic and Lyrium in Forged Weaponry was absolutely fascinating reading, and she had so many questions and theories that she thought she might burst if she didn’t share them soon.
The Qunari spoke next - another one of the Grey Warden’s companions who constantly frowned at her when he was not frustrating her endless curiosity with terse, monosyllabic answers to her burning questions. “The witch is right. This is a waste of time, especially in the middle of this blight.” Dagna heard the slick sound of a sword being sheathed. “The Warden does not usually make such impractical decisions.”
Dagna’s hands paused on her pack. She had not thought about how the Warden must be taking extra time from his duties to help her. For the first time since she left Orzammar, her enthusiasm was dampened with guilt.
“Thank you.” Morrigan said. “At least someone here is not a sentimental fool. I don’t understand why Marcus allowed her to travel with us in the first place. She follows him around and chatters like a magpie, and even he must be exhausted by the way she prattles on to him. I do not think she drew breath yesterday from sunrise to sunset. She is worse than both Alistair and Leliana combined!”
Wynne’s tone grew brisk. “Of course you don’t understand dear, because kindness is utterly foreign to you.”
“Pity, you mean,” Morrigan said. “He pitied the wretched thing, but did not anticipate how she would hinder us when he made his offer of help and now we all must put up with his fool indulgence.”
“If you are so bothered by his decision, then you should discuss it with him,” Wynne said.
“What good would that do? We’re leagues from anywhere and you know as well as I that he would not abandon her by the side of the road.”
“Then I suppose you will have to resign yourself to her presence.” Dagna heard bootfalls crunching on dry grass as they moved away, and if they spoke again Dagna could not hear them.
It was just as well because Dagna didn’t think she could bear to hear more. To discover that she was hindering the Grey Warden’s duties was bad enough, but she genuinely liked and respected the man. Marcus’s intellect was obvious to anyone who spoke to him, although many times it was difficult to tell what the mage was thinking behind his calm and stoic presence. Marcus didn’t talk that much, but Dagna thought that at least he wasn’t bothered by her constant questions and even maybe enjoyed telling her about the tower and listening to her theories. But the witch’s words must be true; the woman was his lover after all, and would know the man better than any in the party.
Utterly crushed, she continued to pack slowly, and by the time she emerged from her tent, there was nothing left of her usual buoyant enthusiasm. When the Grey Warden’s party assembled for the day, she followed along in uncharacteristic silence, determined not to make herself anymore of a nuisance than she already was.
To the west side, the sun sparkled and shimmered in the reflection of Lake Calanhad’s deep blue waters. The party headed down the dusty road the way they did most days, talking quietly amongst themselves. Dagna kept her eyes on the horizon and made sure not to fall behind, managing to keep the questions that seemed to burn endlessly on her lips unasked. She kept to herself for nearly half a day, speaking only when directly spoken to.
Eventually she realized that the Grey Warden walking at the front of the party was looking back at her with a frown. Dagna’s stomach dropped to her toes when he murmured something to Alistair and stopped, waiting for the others to pass him. The witch glared at him, rolled her eyes and muttered something as she passed that made the Warden’s frown deepen and his eyes narrow at his lover. But Morrigan jerked her chin up and continued walking and eventually the rest of the party passed. All except for Dagna.
Marcus fell into step beside her, shortening his stride quite a bit as she lengthened hers. He loomed above her, nearly as tall as the Qunari. The noonday sun glinted off of his plate mail and for the first time since she’d gathered the courage to approach him in Orzammar, she was intimated by the enormous human.
“I’m sorry,” she said breathlessly. “I’ll do better at keeping up.”
He looked down at her as he spoke. “No need to worry. You’re not slowing us down.”
“Oh.” She swallowed. “Good.”
She bit her lip in an effort to keep silent. It was hard, but she was determined not to bother the Warden with her questions. They quietly walked together for a few minutes, neither one speaking until he finally said, “You’re quiet today.”
She looked up at him, her head bobbing in an earnest, nervous nod. “I’m trying to be better about that.”
Marcus’s brows knit together. “You are?”
“Oh, yes!”
There was a pause as Marcus frowned down at her. “Why?”
“You’ve already helped me so much. It doesn’t seem right to make you listen to my prattling and bother you with all of my questions.”
His brows lifted toward the sky. “Dagna, you’re not -”
Whatever he was about to say died in his throat, as his attention snapped to the front of the party. His eyes glowed the eerie blue that meant darkspawn were about.
“Marcus!” Alistair shouted from the front of the group that had just crested the top of a hill he pointed to something Dagna couldn’t see on the other side. “Darkspawn ahead attacking a caravan.”
Marcus nodded and unsheathed his sword. “We’ll talk later,” he said.
The warden moved quickly to the forefront leaving Dagna behind. She hung back, the way she knew she was supposed to. Several of the Warden’s companions, Wynne especially, had taken it upon themselves to give her many lectures about the danger of getting in the way of fighting.
There were the slick sounds of weapons being drawn, and then the shrieks of the merchants up ahead. By the time Dagna reached the crest of the hill herself, the rest of the Warden’s companions were battling the darkspawn below. There were maybe two dozen darkspawn in all, enough to decimate the frightened merchants and their mercenary guards, but nothing to pose a genuine threat to the Grey Warden and his companions.
Dagna set her satchel down on the ground and pulled a scrap of vellum, a quill and a small bottle of ink from one of her many pockets, watching the mages launch their spells and noting the differences in the way they did battle, cataloging the spells they launched, the time it took to release them and the effects they caused. Both Morrigan and Senior Enchanter Wynne fought in the more traditional way, launching their spells from afar. The Grey Warden fought in a more unusual style, in full armor with a sword and shield, face to face with the darkspawn and shoulder to shoulder with the other Warden.
She was so busy taking notes that she didn’t see the pair of darkspawn dragging a human woman away until they were nearly into the tree line. Dagna dropped the ink bottle onto the ground, the black liquid seeping into the dirt of the road, and shouted to Marcus and his companions, but they didn’t hear her over the sounds of the battle.
Dagna had to do something. She knew that by the time Marcus and the others realized the woman was missing, the darkspawn would be long gone. So she grabbed her satchel off the ground and chased after the monsters as fast as her short legs would allow, digging into her leather pack for one of the vials as she ran.
Twigs snapped as she crashed into the brush after them, and when they heard the sound of pursuit, the darkspawn pair turned to look at her almost in eerie unison. For a few heartbeats, Dagna froze. This wasn’t the first time the party had fought darkspawn since she’d started travelling with the Warden, but it was the closest she’d ever come to one. Dagna had the oddest sensation of being torn between intellectual curiosity as her fingers itched for her dropped quill and complete horror as her knees turned to jelly.
Survival instinct trumped both as she tossed the flask in her hand at the closest one’s chest. The darkspawn howled as the acid splashed across their torsos, eating through their armor. The one dragging the thrashing woman by her hair loosened its grasp enough for the screaming woman to scrabble away. Dagna pulled the startled woman to her feet and shoved her back towards the caravan. The woman didn’t need more encouragement and ran screaming without a backwards glance. Dagna tried to follow her, but claws dug into her shoulder. She cried in pain as the darkspawn spun her around, flanking her and lifting her under her arms, half carrying, half dragging Dagna through the woods. The smell of acid and burned flesh choked her as the darkspawn crashed through the brush, heedless of the thorny brush scraping her skin and tangling in her hair.
Heart hammering in her chest, Dagna kicked and clawed and shouted, but she wasn’t strong enough to squirm free of the darkspawn’s grasp. She didn’t know how long they dragged her along, but eventually they lurched into a small clearing. In the middle of the grass a large gaping pit lead down into the earth. Dagna was already frightened, but when she saw the hole her fear became full blown terror. Instinct told her that if they dragged her down into the earth she would disappear forever, but there wasn’t anything she could do to stop them. Her kicking feet just glanced off of the monster’s sides and there wasn’t anyone around to hear her sobbing yells.
And then something swooped down into their path, something with sharp talons, white feathers and Marcus Amell’s eyes. Just as the part of her mind that wasn’t overrun by terror recognized it as an Owl, the Owl became a man. A very large, dangerous man, in full plate mail standing between the darkspawn and the hole. In one slick movement, he drew the curved blade from his back and swept down, the terrible blow cleaving and cracking through bone and grey matter. The darkspawn didn’t even have time to shriek. It simply fell in its tracks, releasing the grip on her left arm.
As Marcus rounded on the other one, the darkspawn shoved her toward the hole. Dagna stumbled forward past Marcus, to her knees, the rocks tearing through her skirt, but managed to keep herself from toppling over the edge into the darkness below.
She didn’t see what happened behind her, only heard the sound of weapons clashing and felt a blast of ice cold wind, because she was face to face with more darkspawn coming up from below, gibbering and howling as they skittered up the rocky sides of the shaft. Another claw shot out, grabbing her wrist, pulling her forward. Dagna grit her teeth and scrabbled with her free hand, clutching a nearby rock, fighting a losing battle against the strength of the darkspawn and gravity.
She lost her grip, falling almost over the edge, when Marcus’s strong arm wrapped around her waist so tightly that she couldn’t breathe, hefting her back and jerking her against his chest as his blade cut the darkspawn’s hand off. It shrieked in shock as it lost its grasp and fell back, colliding with the one right below, sending them both into a free fall in the darkness below.
More were still climbing up, some nearly to the edge of the hole. Marcus tossed his blade to the dirt, and stretched out a hand. She heard the words charged with terrible power rumbling from his chest, and then the air heated in front of her. The ball of fire careened into the hole and Marcus threw his weight backwards, falling onto the grass with a grunt. Dagna fell on top of him, her body colliding with his plate mail, and then the ground shook as the fireball exploded. There was a woosh of scorching heat and a deafening explosion punctuated by darkspawn shrieks, followed by an abrupt and eerie silence. Dazed, Dagna couldn’t move, her mind still struggling to process everything that had just happened. Underneath her Marcus sat up, nudged her to the side so that he could crawl over and peer down the edge of the hole.
He sat back with a sigh. “They’re gone.”
Dagna nodded, speechless for the first time in her life due to the lump in her throat. She hated that couldn’t seem to do anything except sit in the dirt and cry. Marcus didn’t say anything further, he simply offered comfort by placing a hand on her shoulder as she sobbed. A soothing, cooling tingle came from his hand, chasing away some of the bruises and aches. She was just starting to get her embarrassing burst of emotion under control when another bird, this time a black raven, landed next to them.
A heartbeat later, Morrigan was glaring down both of them with a face even paler than usual, hands on her hips. “Marcus, you fool! I told you that the silly girl would only be trouble.” She focused her glare on Dagna. “All you had to do was stay back from the fighting, but you couldn’t even do that.”
Marcus’s tone was even, but his eyes narrowed at his lover. “Morrigan -”
“How difficult can it possibly be for you to stay out of the way for one small skirmish?” She threw her hands up. “Oh, I forget. You are the most ridiculous creature to ever walk the surface. Of course it would be difficult for you to do the sensible thing and stay out of the way. I should not expect it from someone who has dawdled and prattled her way across half of Ferelden!”
Dagna blinked and tried to explain. “I-”
She pointed a finger to the smoking hole in the ground. “You nearly got him killed, you twit!”
The words combined with the way Morrigan’s voice went shrill made Dagna realize that the apostate’s wrath was born not just out of the general disapproval that had been simmering as they traveled but fear for her lover.
Marcus pushed himself to his feet. “Morrigan, enough.” Morrigan turned her glare from Dagna to him and opened her mouth, but Marcus cut her off. “Go find the others. Tell them we are well, and that we will be rejoining them shortly.” Morrigan’s lips thinned. She held his gaze and didn’t move until he said, “Now.”
Both Morrigan and Dagna started. In the few weeks she’d travelled with the warden, she’d never heard his ire leak into his tone that way. Morrigan’s face twisted in anger as she turned away. And a few seconds later she was a black raven again flying back to their companions.
Marcus turned his attention back to Dagna. “Are you alright?”
Dagna pushed the wetness from her cheeks with her dirty, bloody fingers. “I’m okay. I’m just… I’m so sorry, Marcus.”
Marcus held out a hand and pulled her to her feet. “For what?”
All of the worries she’d been carrying since the morning spilled from her lips. “For not listening and staying back from the fight, and prattling too much, and slowing the group down and wasting your time when you have more important things to do. I don’t really mean to be a bother and I’ll try harder to stay out of the way. You can even leave me in the next town. I can find my way to the tower from there.”
Marcus held up one of his large hands to quiet her, before picking his sword up out of the dirt. He crouched down and wiped the blade on the tattered rags of one of the dead darkspawn.
“Okay. Let’s take these one at a time. First of all, you have nothing to apologize for. You saved that woman from…” his face darkened and hardened in a way that made Dagna shiver, “…something much worse than death. We wouldn’t have known she was missing until it was much too late if you hadn’t gone after her. It was a very brave thing to do.” He paused, for a moment, his intense gaze seeming to spear right through her. “But then, I’m not surprised because I already knew you were fearless.”
Her eyes widened at the shock of his words. “You did?”
His lips twitched as he rose and sheathed his sword. “You left your family and everything that you know behind to go after what you want. That’s not the choice of a coward, Dagna.”
Dagna didn’t know what to say she was so honored by his words.
“As far as you slowing us down. Even with the few…” Marcus’s lips twitched and his voice turned wry, “…mishaps in the beginning, you haven’t delayed us or wasted my time anymore than my other companions. Including Morrigan.” He frowned and looked in the direction to where she’d flown off. “Especially Morrigan.”
He turned his attention back to her, his broad shoulders bobbing up and down in a shrug. “And as for the rest - I enjoy listening to your theories and answering your questions. I don’t think you prattle at all.”
“You didn’t help me out of pity then?” she said as they started walking back to the other companions.
He shook his head. “I helped you for a lot of reasons, none of which have anything to do with pity.”
“Then why?” she asked. “I mean, I am really grateful, and I don’t want to change your mind, but I just don’t understand why someone like you would go out of your way to help someone like me.”
“Because it is nice to do something that doesn’t revolve around death and blood and killing,” he said. He paused for a bit, and the silence stretched as the look on his face grew thoughtful. “And because you remind me of myself.”
Dagna shook her head, thinking that she must have heard him wrong. “No way.”
He didn’t meet her eyes, instead keeping his thoughtful gaze on the tree line ahead. “Most who come to the tower are forced to go there as children, but my magic didn’t manifest until I was fifteen. Our farm was out in the middle of nowhere, and I probably could have found a way to stay undetected by the Templars and become an apostate like Morrigan, but I chose to go.” A sad smile tugged at the corners of his lips. “Not even because I wanted to be a mage, really. I just wanted the chance to study, be around books, and get an education. So one day, I bought a map and walked halfway across Ferelden until I reached the tower.”
“What about your family?”
When she saw the look on his face, she knew the answer before he even spoke. “My parents didn’t want me to go because they were afraid of how people would treat me once I became a mage. They were even more afraid of I would become, I think, and they never forgave me for leaving.”
The knot that had been in Dagna’s stomach ever since she told her father she was leaving tightened. Her gaze dropped to the dirt. “I don’t think my father will either,” she said softly. They lapsed into silence again, each thinking about the families they’d left behind. Eventually she looked up at the enormous Warden.
“Do you regret your choice?”
“No. Being a farmer is a respectable thing, but it’s not who I am. Staying on the farm and following my parent’s wishes instead of following my own would have made me less than I could be.”
The unequivocal way that he said it loosened the knot in her gut, not because she felt less sad for leaving her father behind, but because it was comforting to know that she wasn’t the only one compelled to follow a frowned upon path.
“Yeah.” She smiled up at the large mage. “Thanks, Marcus.”
His lips turned up at the corners as he smiled back. “You’re welcome, Dagna.”
They reached the edge of the field where the trees and brush started, and Marcus cut through the brambles with his sword. “So have you had the chance to read chapter seven of Applications of Magic and Lyrium in Forged Weaponry yet?”
“Oh yes! And I had some ideas about the origins of your sword…”
Enthusiasm regained, Dagna talked all of the way back to the caravan to the stoic mage who absorbed her words with encouraging nods and thoughtful silence.