[fic] ferro comitante [7/?]
Title: Ferro Comitante 7/?
Words: 3749 words (wut)
Rating: Teen
Summary: There's a lot of things wrong in the land of Ferelden -- little, little things. When Alistair discovers why, he will not be alone in his choice between the reality that is and the reality that ought to be.
In this chapter: Jowan runs across two strangers in a distant wood whom he makes an arrangement with against his better moral judgment, which make this chapter just like all the other chapters in his life. Also, Jacinta dreams of a pair of Dalish elves, while Alistair always volunteers first watch because he cannot stand his dreams anymore, and we learn what's different about Leliana in this borked world.
ferro comitante
my sword as my companion
7.
When two children burst through the copse, Jowan nearly died.
He'd grown certain, over the past few days, that he was being followed. And who would be following him but the Chantry's sinister sons? And if the Templars had finally caught up with him, phylactery or no phylactery, then Jowan's lifespan was measured out on some celestial abacus in days now instead of years. With every leap over some muddy little creek, with every small beast of prey that he guiltily yanked by its blood to his feet so he could eat, he expected a legion of intent, prepared, and relentless silverite goons to jump him.
Instead of sleeping, Jowan had taken to cat naps with his back up against a tree and his dagger resting lightly against his wrist, hands loose in his lap. Just in case. And now-
“You two?” he shouted once he finally recovered some shaking semblance of composure, his hands out-flung in a sort of furious supplication. “You're the kids from the forest! A week ago!”
He recognized them, of course, as he'd never expected to come across unleashed children out in this benighted blue yonder. He'd asked if they were Dalish; they'd asked his name, and then the girl had giggled once, abruptly, and pulled the boy away, neither of them answering his damn question. Jowan had almost chalked it down to some bizarre trauma-induced hallucination at this point. “Come on, what are you?” he said plaintively. “If your clan comes after you - why would you...”
He ran down, because the kids were nearly vibrating with pleasure at having induced this level of panic in a grown-up. The girl of the pair grinned at the boy of the pair - clearly her brother, for all that her long plaited hair shone reddish gold and his, cut shorter at the shoulders, was a glossy blue-black. They had the same expressive eyes, a rich hazel hue flecked with amber, and the same high cheekbones, though their faces still retained the soft roundness of youth. The girl's features were delicate and sharp, the boy's bold and broad. They were astonishingly beautiful children, even if Jowan did want to strangle them.
They must have been at least eight years old, no more than ten. The Tower was crawling with apprentices their age, little magelets who still hadn't had the raw magic stamped out of them by years of circumscribed Circle learning. Jowan had been pretty good with the Circle kids, a lot better than his best friend, anyway, who'd avoided them religiously (about the only religious trait she'd ever demonstrated).
He took a deep breath, but the boy spoke before Jowan could, chin lifted with bravado that rang only slightly false. “We are not Dalish.” The child pulled back a hank of long crow-black hair to show Jowan his small, quite human ears. “See? We are perfectly human. Stop carrying on about elves.”
“So you two are the ones who've been following me this whole time?”
“Not the whole time,” said the girl, precociously disdainful. “No one is that interesting.”
“But some of the time,” the boy put in. “Much of the time.”
“You needn't tell him,” the girl muttered.
“Ah.” Jowan took a deep breath, collecting his composure as one might collect the scattered pieces of a game board after the losing party upended it. “You haven't noticed any Templars about, right?”
“No.” The boy wandered over to a nearby tree with roots like a gnarled hand clawing the earth and perched himself atop a bark knuckle, regarding Jowan with open interest. “Where are you going?”
“Why do you ask?”
The boy raised an eyebrow quizzically, kicking his feet a moment before hopping off the root. “Because I wish to know.” The 'duh' was unspoken, but evident.
“Well, no offense, but I'm not telling a pair of random children my affairs.” Not least because Jowan had no real idea where he was going, except in the opposite direction of Lake Calenhad as rapidly as possible. “Look, where are your parents? Have you lost them somehow?”
“We are not random!” the girl huffed, narrowing her eyes. She jabbed at her chest. “I am Cerridwen.” She pointed towards her brother, wrinkling her nose as though she'd caught some faint unpleasant whiff. “'Tis Mordred.”
“Hello,” Mordred called, oblivious to his sister's disgust as he investigated beneath one raised root-knuckle nearly as tall as he was.
“We are not in the least bit lost, either. We know what we're doing.” Cerridwen stared up at Jowan. “I bet you've no idea where you are. Do you?”
Jowan scowled, refusing to be baited. “We're not far from Lake Calenhad.”
Cerridwen eyed him. “And I bet you want to get more far. You ran away, did you not?”
The girl was too sharp for her own good. Jowan hesitated.
“We saw you using blood magic!” Mordred said, straightening from his inspection of some species of scuttle-beetle by the tree. A smile broke across his face like starlight across water. “When you got the rabbit yesterday! 'Twas truly something. If we come with you, will you show us?”
Jowan self-consciously pulled his sleeves down, the fabric rough against last night's tender scar. “I absolutely will not.” He glanced around cautiously at the trees around him as though a Templar lurked behind one, listening for catchphrases like blood magic and Circle Tower and Andraste's frilly knickers. “It's not a toy.”
“We shall help you if you do,” Mordred wheedled. Cerridwen shot her brother a look; he returned it, instead of quailing beneath it as was the girl's clear wish. “We know a great deal of magic. We can help. Please?”
“You're mage children?” Jowan blinked. “How did you escape being taken away?”
Cerridwen snorted. “Mother would never let that happen, and neither would we.”
“Mum said, she said if anyone ever tried to grab us and take us away, we had permission to do anything we wanted.” Mordred bounced on his heels in excited recitation, taking on clearly parental cadences. “Because if anyone is stupid enough to try to take her children away, they bloody deserve what they get.”
The children of an apostate, then - one powerful enough to ensure that she could bear and raise her children in safety, hidden from the Chantry's vigilant eyes, and fearless enough to teach them her magic, ensuring they could defend themselves. Mordred and Cerridwen were clearly cherished children, their native confidence nurtured and their curiosity encouraged. Their clothing, now that Jowan looked at it more closely, was handmade by someone with an eye for such things. Mordred had not cut his own hair to fall loose just so, nor Cerridwen braided hers. “And, ah,” Jowan said carefully, “where is your mother now?”
“Probably looking for us,” Cerridwen said, the first flash of something hesitant crossing her fine features. “But we are looking for our father, so she must needs wait.” She took her long plait in her hands and began to play with the end of it. “She said one time that he was in Denerim, so we want to go there.”
So the girl had decided to trust him, then. Or, more likely, she'd decided Jowan, jumping at shadows and shadow-Templars, posed no sort of threat. In all his unshaven, hungry shabbiness, Jowan supposed he presented all the threat of a starveling gopher - sure, there was a risk it might bite off your fingers in a snit, but fling it hard enough across the room and presto, threat eliminated. “But you don't know where your mother is? I mean, I'm sure she's very worried about you and wants you both home safe.”
“We want to find our father,” Mordred said, his easy, open expression shuttering abruptly. “All Mother ever says about him is that he works in Denerim and he wishes never to see us. But we want to see him, so too bad.” Cerridwen nodded, silent confirmation that Mordred spoke for them both.
“I'll tell you what, then.” Cerridwen reached for her brother's hand as Jowan spoke; Mordred took it, and the twins stood watching Jowan hopefully. “I'll do my best to see you both to Denerim - by the route I determine most fit,” Jowan began.
“But the,” Mordred began in protest, just as Cerridwen exclaimed, “You said-”
“And I'll show you some of what I know.” Teaching children blood magic, oh Maker above, he was a bad man, Jowan thought bleakly, although the children's eyes lit with excitement. Maybe he could get by with simply demonstrating the principle. “In return - will you take me to your mother?”
Mordred and Cerridwen glanced at one another. Mordred frowned a little, thoughtfully, a small furrow between his dark brows; Cerridwen laughed, out of nowhere, and squeezed his hand. “Yes,” she said, turning her gaze up to Jowan. “We shall.”
In her dreams, her name was Tamlen and she was Dalish born, bred, and raised. Her hands when she looked down at them were a man's hands, strong and well-shaped with clean square fingernails, flexible enough to be very, very good at firing a bow and arrow very, very fast. The heft of the long-range bow in her hands was as familiar in her dreams as that of her staff when she was waking.
And there was Idris, Tamlen's compatriot, his partner in crime, his clanmate, his best friend, his brother.
Before they could even walk, they were tossed together as age-appropriate playmates, and before they could even speak, they were inseparable. Idris's jokes left Tamlen howling with laughter, and Idris never once turned down one of Tamlen's dares. When it came time to take the vallaslin, Idris gave over half his face to Fen'harel unflinching, and after it was done, his dark eyes gleamed through the intricate ink like the eyes of a wolf through a web of brambles.
Idris had carried daggers as a teenager, but switched to longswords on a bet from Tamlen and liked the style enough to stay with it. One time Tamlen and Idris had gone hunting one of Maren's mother's lost halla and been gone for three days, and upon their return Ashalle had been torn between the desire to ground them to camp for life or fall upon them weeping with relief. When Tamlen's father died, Idris kept fast with Tamlen by the river the whole day and night, and neither of them ever said a word. Idris broke his arm climbing a tree when they were thirteen, and Tamlen set it for him, and the tears of pain standing in Idris's eyes never fell. Though Idris's irreverence drove Paivel to distraction, Idris never interrupted when it was Tamlen sitting at the storyteller's feet, soaking up the story of another ancient elven marvel the shems had taken in their greedy hands and shattered.
Tamlen loved him, and in her dreams she could not look at Idris, could not think of him without that love and pride unfurling in her breast like a great warm rose. And always, at the end of the dream, that great warm rose dissolved in a flurry of rending bereskarn claws, because always, at the end of the dream, she knew Idris was dead. Tamlen didn't weep, because where love had bloomed once there was now a hard and painful knot of feeling she could not untangle and dared not touch, but she huddled in her bedroll in the hushed gray mornings, her heart contorted with the trembling of a grief and guilt not her own and yet absolutely hers.
They were a week and more on the road to the Brecilian Forest, avoiding the towns and any people as the terrain grew wilder and the roads ever more vestigial. Having Leliana's trained Bardic memory and encyclopedic knowledge of Fereldan geography around was as good as carrying a map. And one night, when Jacinta shuddered awake from a terrible dream of Idris's body limp and unbreathing in her arms, she saw that Alistair also sat awake, rubbing his face vigorously with his bare hands as if nightmares could be somehow exfoliated.
“Are you all right?” she asked quietly, mindful that Leliana lay sleeping not too far from them.
Alistair's head shot up. He blinked at her, his face pale in the shadowed moonlight. “I, uh, yeah. What are you doing awake?”
She shrugged. “Bad dream.” She could still feel that wild, foreign sorrow, like an electric storm.
“I guess you've enough reason for it.” Alistair hesitated, digging a thumb into his other palm as as though working out a muscle cramp. “I, uh. I have them too. It's why I always ask for first watch. Figure if I get tired enough, I won't dream.” He chuckled a little, shaking his head. “How melodramatic does that sound?”
“Pretty melodramatic.”
There was a shocked pause. “You weren't supposed to agree, you know,” Alistair said, his arid tone not quite disguising his hurt.
She blinked. “I was joking. I'm sorry.” Jowan had always said Jacinta's humor was vile, though he'd also always dissolved into frilly snuffles whenever she delivered some scathing aside in class, so what did that make him? She pushed her hair up off her face, the strands fine and slippery against her fingers, to center herself in this night, this campsite, this conversation, this cold wind. “Honestly, it's a sound enough idea that I'd steal it from you if you weren't already using it.”
“Now there's something I don't hear a lot.”
“What, that you've a sound idea?”
“Yeah.” A small, self-deprecating laugh slipped from Alistair's lips. “Got to say, that's reeeeeally not something I was known for back in the Chantry.”
“So what were you known for?”
Alistair considered the question a moment. “A surprising affinity for fitting into the Chantry's pantries, actually.”
Jacinta laughed despite herself, and Alistair lifted his head in companionable inquiry. “Sounds like me and Jowan,” Jacinta explained, the memory warm and painful, though this pain was all her own. “We used to ditch class to play hide-and-seek. It's a pretty serious pastime in the Tower. ”
“Huh,” said Alistair reflectively. “One time, the other boys locked me in a cabinet, and I was stuck there for hours, and when Brother Milo finally let me out, I swore revenge on the leader, this one brat named Shelton. I put ants in his stew and he refused to touch another bowl of the stuff ever again. My first of many pathetic victories, I assure you.”
“My congratulations, General.”
“At your service, Arlessa.” He cocked the brim of an imaginary hat her way, looking gratified by the smile she didn't realize she wore until he answered it with another of his own.
Jacinta considered the former Templar before her, and how, despite her expectations, he had contained any hidden anti-mage sentiment, controlled the comments he made before her, and done his part at camp uncomplainingly. Alistair talked a lot, but said little of substance, and when no one was looking his face fell into distant, sad lines. King Maric's son. And now he confessed to bad dreams. “Do you mind, Alistair... may I ask what you dreamed?”
Just like that, his smile fell away, and Jacinta was sorry she had asked, for without it, there was something so sad on his face; a face, Jacinta thought, for laughing and merriment, though how she felt this with such certainty she could not say. His broad shoulders sagged a little. “I...” He glanced up at the high ripe moon, his eyes catching the silver light. “It just always sounds so stupid, y'know?” His glance at her was apologetic. “When you say it out loud.”
“I don't think so.” But then, Jacinta allowed, mages were naturally minded to take dreams seriously. “Try me.”
“I...” Alistair's head drooped as he stared at his hands, digging a thumb along the palm line again. “They're ugly dreams,” he said lowly. “Sometimes I dream about my brother... about Prince Cailan, but he's strung up on this battlefield that's all - burnt, and covered, I mean covered in corpses. Like, if you could make a bedsheet out of horrifically mutilated bodies and tuck a whole blighted meadow in...” He laughed, but the laugh cut off. “It's absurd, there are no darkspawn anymore, and I'm sure nothing can be that ugly. Aside from Brother Bedivere, that is.
“But I have nightmares where I see him hanging there, and there's always this other man with these two huge swords - and he's a Grey Warden, right? Tall as the Maker, eyes like a prophecy, and he turns and looks at me and I feel like, like there's something he's telling me to do, but I'm too - too blasted thick to pick up on it, even though it's bloody important.”
Alistair's words sent a slow, liquid chill down Jacinta's spine, like too much lyrium potion in too short a time. “And sometimes I dream of that Jowan of yours,” Alistair added, his brow wrinkled in bewilderment. “Those aren't so bad.”
“You dream of Jowan?”
Nearby Leliana stirred with a murmur of soft Orlesian. Jacinta and Alistair exchanged abashed glances, and Alistair lowered his voice. “Yeah,” he said. “Nothing horrible, pretty boring dreams, actually. Just a tall bloke with an awkward beard and a purple shoulder muff figuring out what's for dinner.”
“Dark hair, and stubble so stupid you just want to shake it off him?”
Alistair snorted. “Yeah, nothing at all like this manly beast I've got lurking on my chin.”
“That's him,” Jacinta said blankly, and Alistair looked at her with 'well yes, I know, I just said it was' written all over his face. She shook her head, leaning forward. “Alistair, you don't understand. You've never met him, have you? But that's him to a T.”
“What, like, he actually looks like that?”
“Yes.”
“Maker's breath.” Alistair looked like he got it now, and it made him sick. “And he's a blood mage - he can't be in my head if he's never met me, right?”
“Right, it's not possible,” Jacinta said at once, though she didn't rightly know, and it didn't seem to ease the panic on Alistair's face. The former Templar muttered a curse and put his face in his hands, and across from them, Leliana sleepily sat up, raking a hand through her mussed auburn locks.
“Leliana! I'm so sorry we woke you,” Jacinta whispered, chagrined.
“No, it is all right,” the Bard said, and yawned luxuriously, stretching as though she'd embrace the world. “What are we talking about?”
“Dreams,” Alistair muttered into his palms. “Horrible, bizarre, wholly creepy dreams with blood mages who control your minds and mounds of bodies.”
Leliana smiled drowsily. “Oh, I am not troubled by dreams. I do not have any. Or if I do, I never remember them.”
At this, Alistair looked up, half-envious, half in disbelief. “Don't tell me you don't know any weird stories about people with, say, absurdly accurate dream-visions.”
“Oh, I do.” The Bard shrugged. “But they are only stories, fables. I do not believe in such things, and I do not believe anyone should trouble themselves with such superstitious nonsense. This is an enlightened age, and we are civilized peoples, not Chasind dream-catchers.”
“I'm dreaming about her best bloody friend, Leliana,” Alistair argued. “I've never met the fellow and Jacinta said I described him perfectly. Didn't you? Didn't I?”
“Down to the awkward beard,” Jacinta confirmed.
“What, that he has dark hair and unfortunate facial hair and a purple component to his Circle robes?” Leliana's tone was gently skeptical. Next to her, Jacinta could hear Alistair mutter, “You were awake for that?” as Leliana asked, “Truly, how many apprentices currently at the Tower fit that description?”
“There are a few,” Jacinta admitted. “The Circle robes are pretty standard - they've all got that stupid-looking purple thing on the shoulders for the men.”
“And men past adolescence do grow hair on their chin, provided they aren't eunuchs, and I assume the Templars don't go that far in ensuring mages don't produce children, right?”
Alistair blanched. “Egad. No. Or at least, I became a full Templar without ever encountering tantric sterility rituals... The mind boggles. In fact, I think the mind just threw up some.”
“So then,” Leliana said soothingly, though her brows twitched in amusement. “The man you saw in your dream was an anonymous creation of your tremendous imagination, Alistair, who happened to fit a vague description of Jacinta's wayward friend. There is no cause for alarm and no reason for panic.”
Jacinta thought of Tamlen, of how his grief rang down her bones, and said nothing. Alistair said in a small voice, “You really think it's nothing, then?”
“I am certain,” Leliana promised, smothering another yawn behind her milky hand. “Why don't you go back to sleep? I'll take the next watch.”
Alistair just shook his head, and Leliana didn't pursue the question, snuggling back into her bedroll. Jacinta pulled hers up, stared at the stars as they winked and glittered through the clouds, then shifted onto her side.
Alistair's face fell quickly into those distant, melancholy lines when he thought no one was looking. He was like an apprentice who would rather be made Tranquil, Jacinta thought, and the thought wrung at her exhausted heart.
Alistair didn't want to dream anymore.
Exclusively on SiB@LJ: Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4 | Chapter 5 | Chapter 6
On Archive of Our Own: Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4 | Chapter 5 | Chapter 6
On Fanfiction.Net: Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4 | Chapter 5 | Chapter 6
Words: 3749 words (wut)
Rating: Teen
Summary: There's a lot of things wrong in the land of Ferelden -- little, little things. When Alistair discovers why, he will not be alone in his choice between the reality that is and the reality that ought to be.
In this chapter: Jowan runs across two strangers in a distant wood whom he makes an arrangement with against his better moral judgment, which make this chapter just like all the other chapters in his life. Also, Jacinta dreams of a pair of Dalish elves, while Alistair always volunteers first watch because he cannot stand his dreams anymore, and we learn what's different about Leliana in this borked world.
ferro comitante
my sword as my companion
7.
When two children burst through the copse, Jowan nearly died.
He'd grown certain, over the past few days, that he was being followed. And who would be following him but the Chantry's sinister sons? And if the Templars had finally caught up with him, phylactery or no phylactery, then Jowan's lifespan was measured out on some celestial abacus in days now instead of years. With every leap over some muddy little creek, with every small beast of prey that he guiltily yanked by its blood to his feet so he could eat, he expected a legion of intent, prepared, and relentless silverite goons to jump him.
Instead of sleeping, Jowan had taken to cat naps with his back up against a tree and his dagger resting lightly against his wrist, hands loose in his lap. Just in case. And now-
“You two?” he shouted once he finally recovered some shaking semblance of composure, his hands out-flung in a sort of furious supplication. “You're the kids from the forest! A week ago!”
He recognized them, of course, as he'd never expected to come across unleashed children out in this benighted blue yonder. He'd asked if they were Dalish; they'd asked his name, and then the girl had giggled once, abruptly, and pulled the boy away, neither of them answering his damn question. Jowan had almost chalked it down to some bizarre trauma-induced hallucination at this point. “Come on, what are you?” he said plaintively. “If your clan comes after you - why would you...”
He ran down, because the kids were nearly vibrating with pleasure at having induced this level of panic in a grown-up. The girl of the pair grinned at the boy of the pair - clearly her brother, for all that her long plaited hair shone reddish gold and his, cut shorter at the shoulders, was a glossy blue-black. They had the same expressive eyes, a rich hazel hue flecked with amber, and the same high cheekbones, though their faces still retained the soft roundness of youth. The girl's features were delicate and sharp, the boy's bold and broad. They were astonishingly beautiful children, even if Jowan did want to strangle them.
They must have been at least eight years old, no more than ten. The Tower was crawling with apprentices their age, little magelets who still hadn't had the raw magic stamped out of them by years of circumscribed Circle learning. Jowan had been pretty good with the Circle kids, a lot better than his best friend, anyway, who'd avoided them religiously (about the only religious trait she'd ever demonstrated).
He took a deep breath, but the boy spoke before Jowan could, chin lifted with bravado that rang only slightly false. “We are not Dalish.” The child pulled back a hank of long crow-black hair to show Jowan his small, quite human ears. “See? We are perfectly human. Stop carrying on about elves.”
“So you two are the ones who've been following me this whole time?”
“Not the whole time,” said the girl, precociously disdainful. “No one is that interesting.”
“But some of the time,” the boy put in. “Much of the time.”
“You needn't tell him,” the girl muttered.
“Ah.” Jowan took a deep breath, collecting his composure as one might collect the scattered pieces of a game board after the losing party upended it. “You haven't noticed any Templars about, right?”
“No.” The boy wandered over to a nearby tree with roots like a gnarled hand clawing the earth and perched himself atop a bark knuckle, regarding Jowan with open interest. “Where are you going?”
“Why do you ask?”
The boy raised an eyebrow quizzically, kicking his feet a moment before hopping off the root. “Because I wish to know.” The 'duh' was unspoken, but evident.
“Well, no offense, but I'm not telling a pair of random children my affairs.” Not least because Jowan had no real idea where he was going, except in the opposite direction of Lake Calenhad as rapidly as possible. “Look, where are your parents? Have you lost them somehow?”
“We are not random!” the girl huffed, narrowing her eyes. She jabbed at her chest. “I am Cerridwen.” She pointed towards her brother, wrinkling her nose as though she'd caught some faint unpleasant whiff. “'Tis Mordred.”
“Hello,” Mordred called, oblivious to his sister's disgust as he investigated beneath one raised root-knuckle nearly as tall as he was.
“We are not in the least bit lost, either. We know what we're doing.” Cerridwen stared up at Jowan. “I bet you've no idea where you are. Do you?”
Jowan scowled, refusing to be baited. “We're not far from Lake Calenhad.”
Cerridwen eyed him. “And I bet you want to get more far. You ran away, did you not?”
The girl was too sharp for her own good. Jowan hesitated.
“We saw you using blood magic!” Mordred said, straightening from his inspection of some species of scuttle-beetle by the tree. A smile broke across his face like starlight across water. “When you got the rabbit yesterday! 'Twas truly something. If we come with you, will you show us?”
Jowan self-consciously pulled his sleeves down, the fabric rough against last night's tender scar. “I absolutely will not.” He glanced around cautiously at the trees around him as though a Templar lurked behind one, listening for catchphrases like blood magic and Circle Tower and Andraste's frilly knickers. “It's not a toy.”
“We shall help you if you do,” Mordred wheedled. Cerridwen shot her brother a look; he returned it, instead of quailing beneath it as was the girl's clear wish. “We know a great deal of magic. We can help. Please?”
“You're mage children?” Jowan blinked. “How did you escape being taken away?”
Cerridwen snorted. “Mother would never let that happen, and neither would we.”
“Mum said, she said if anyone ever tried to grab us and take us away, we had permission to do anything we wanted.” Mordred bounced on his heels in excited recitation, taking on clearly parental cadences. “Because if anyone is stupid enough to try to take her children away, they bloody deserve what they get.”
The children of an apostate, then - one powerful enough to ensure that she could bear and raise her children in safety, hidden from the Chantry's vigilant eyes, and fearless enough to teach them her magic, ensuring they could defend themselves. Mordred and Cerridwen were clearly cherished children, their native confidence nurtured and their curiosity encouraged. Their clothing, now that Jowan looked at it more closely, was handmade by someone with an eye for such things. Mordred had not cut his own hair to fall loose just so, nor Cerridwen braided hers. “And, ah,” Jowan said carefully, “where is your mother now?”
“Probably looking for us,” Cerridwen said, the first flash of something hesitant crossing her fine features. “But we are looking for our father, so she must needs wait.” She took her long plait in her hands and began to play with the end of it. “She said one time that he was in Denerim, so we want to go there.”
So the girl had decided to trust him, then. Or, more likely, she'd decided Jowan, jumping at shadows and shadow-Templars, posed no sort of threat. In all his unshaven, hungry shabbiness, Jowan supposed he presented all the threat of a starveling gopher - sure, there was a risk it might bite off your fingers in a snit, but fling it hard enough across the room and presto, threat eliminated. “But you don't know where your mother is? I mean, I'm sure she's very worried about you and wants you both home safe.”
“We want to find our father,” Mordred said, his easy, open expression shuttering abruptly. “All Mother ever says about him is that he works in Denerim and he wishes never to see us. But we want to see him, so too bad.” Cerridwen nodded, silent confirmation that Mordred spoke for them both.
“I'll tell you what, then.” Cerridwen reached for her brother's hand as Jowan spoke; Mordred took it, and the twins stood watching Jowan hopefully. “I'll do my best to see you both to Denerim - by the route I determine most fit,” Jowan began.
“But the,” Mordred began in protest, just as Cerridwen exclaimed, “You said-”
“And I'll show you some of what I know.” Teaching children blood magic, oh Maker above, he was a bad man, Jowan thought bleakly, although the children's eyes lit with excitement. Maybe he could get by with simply demonstrating the principle. “In return - will you take me to your mother?”
Mordred and Cerridwen glanced at one another. Mordred frowned a little, thoughtfully, a small furrow between his dark brows; Cerridwen laughed, out of nowhere, and squeezed his hand. “Yes,” she said, turning her gaze up to Jowan. “We shall.”
In her dreams, her name was Tamlen and she was Dalish born, bred, and raised. Her hands when she looked down at them were a man's hands, strong and well-shaped with clean square fingernails, flexible enough to be very, very good at firing a bow and arrow very, very fast. The heft of the long-range bow in her hands was as familiar in her dreams as that of her staff when she was waking.
And there was Idris, Tamlen's compatriot, his partner in crime, his clanmate, his best friend, his brother.
Before they could even walk, they were tossed together as age-appropriate playmates, and before they could even speak, they were inseparable. Idris's jokes left Tamlen howling with laughter, and Idris never once turned down one of Tamlen's dares. When it came time to take the vallaslin, Idris gave over half his face to Fen'harel unflinching, and after it was done, his dark eyes gleamed through the intricate ink like the eyes of a wolf through a web of brambles.
Idris had carried daggers as a teenager, but switched to longswords on a bet from Tamlen and liked the style enough to stay with it. One time Tamlen and Idris had gone hunting one of Maren's mother's lost halla and been gone for three days, and upon their return Ashalle had been torn between the desire to ground them to camp for life or fall upon them weeping with relief. When Tamlen's father died, Idris kept fast with Tamlen by the river the whole day and night, and neither of them ever said a word. Idris broke his arm climbing a tree when they were thirteen, and Tamlen set it for him, and the tears of pain standing in Idris's eyes never fell. Though Idris's irreverence drove Paivel to distraction, Idris never interrupted when it was Tamlen sitting at the storyteller's feet, soaking up the story of another ancient elven marvel the shems had taken in their greedy hands and shattered.
Tamlen loved him, and in her dreams she could not look at Idris, could not think of him without that love and pride unfurling in her breast like a great warm rose. And always, at the end of the dream, that great warm rose dissolved in a flurry of rending bereskarn claws, because always, at the end of the dream, she knew Idris was dead. Tamlen didn't weep, because where love had bloomed once there was now a hard and painful knot of feeling she could not untangle and dared not touch, but she huddled in her bedroll in the hushed gray mornings, her heart contorted with the trembling of a grief and guilt not her own and yet absolutely hers.
They were a week and more on the road to the Brecilian Forest, avoiding the towns and any people as the terrain grew wilder and the roads ever more vestigial. Having Leliana's trained Bardic memory and encyclopedic knowledge of Fereldan geography around was as good as carrying a map. And one night, when Jacinta shuddered awake from a terrible dream of Idris's body limp and unbreathing in her arms, she saw that Alistair also sat awake, rubbing his face vigorously with his bare hands as if nightmares could be somehow exfoliated.
“Are you all right?” she asked quietly, mindful that Leliana lay sleeping not too far from them.
Alistair's head shot up. He blinked at her, his face pale in the shadowed moonlight. “I, uh, yeah. What are you doing awake?”
She shrugged. “Bad dream.” She could still feel that wild, foreign sorrow, like an electric storm.
“I guess you've enough reason for it.” Alistair hesitated, digging a thumb into his other palm as as though working out a muscle cramp. “I, uh. I have them too. It's why I always ask for first watch. Figure if I get tired enough, I won't dream.” He chuckled a little, shaking his head. “How melodramatic does that sound?”
“Pretty melodramatic.”
There was a shocked pause. “You weren't supposed to agree, you know,” Alistair said, his arid tone not quite disguising his hurt.
She blinked. “I was joking. I'm sorry.” Jowan had always said Jacinta's humor was vile, though he'd also always dissolved into frilly snuffles whenever she delivered some scathing aside in class, so what did that make him? She pushed her hair up off her face, the strands fine and slippery against her fingers, to center herself in this night, this campsite, this conversation, this cold wind. “Honestly, it's a sound enough idea that I'd steal it from you if you weren't already using it.”
“Now there's something I don't hear a lot.”
“What, that you've a sound idea?”
“Yeah.” A small, self-deprecating laugh slipped from Alistair's lips. “Got to say, that's reeeeeally not something I was known for back in the Chantry.”
“So what were you known for?”
Alistair considered the question a moment. “A surprising affinity for fitting into the Chantry's pantries, actually.”
Jacinta laughed despite herself, and Alistair lifted his head in companionable inquiry. “Sounds like me and Jowan,” Jacinta explained, the memory warm and painful, though this pain was all her own. “We used to ditch class to play hide-and-seek. It's a pretty serious pastime in the Tower. ”
“Huh,” said Alistair reflectively. “One time, the other boys locked me in a cabinet, and I was stuck there for hours, and when Brother Milo finally let me out, I swore revenge on the leader, this one brat named Shelton. I put ants in his stew and he refused to touch another bowl of the stuff ever again. My first of many pathetic victories, I assure you.”
“My congratulations, General.”
“At your service, Arlessa.” He cocked the brim of an imaginary hat her way, looking gratified by the smile she didn't realize she wore until he answered it with another of his own.
Jacinta considered the former Templar before her, and how, despite her expectations, he had contained any hidden anti-mage sentiment, controlled the comments he made before her, and done his part at camp uncomplainingly. Alistair talked a lot, but said little of substance, and when no one was looking his face fell into distant, sad lines. King Maric's son. And now he confessed to bad dreams. “Do you mind, Alistair... may I ask what you dreamed?”
Just like that, his smile fell away, and Jacinta was sorry she had asked, for without it, there was something so sad on his face; a face, Jacinta thought, for laughing and merriment, though how she felt this with such certainty she could not say. His broad shoulders sagged a little. “I...” He glanced up at the high ripe moon, his eyes catching the silver light. “It just always sounds so stupid, y'know?” His glance at her was apologetic. “When you say it out loud.”
“I don't think so.” But then, Jacinta allowed, mages were naturally minded to take dreams seriously. “Try me.”
“I...” Alistair's head drooped as he stared at his hands, digging a thumb along the palm line again. “They're ugly dreams,” he said lowly. “Sometimes I dream about my brother... about Prince Cailan, but he's strung up on this battlefield that's all - burnt, and covered, I mean covered in corpses. Like, if you could make a bedsheet out of horrifically mutilated bodies and tuck a whole blighted meadow in...” He laughed, but the laugh cut off. “It's absurd, there are no darkspawn anymore, and I'm sure nothing can be that ugly. Aside from Brother Bedivere, that is.
“But I have nightmares where I see him hanging there, and there's always this other man with these two huge swords - and he's a Grey Warden, right? Tall as the Maker, eyes like a prophecy, and he turns and looks at me and I feel like, like there's something he's telling me to do, but I'm too - too blasted thick to pick up on it, even though it's bloody important.”
Alistair's words sent a slow, liquid chill down Jacinta's spine, like too much lyrium potion in too short a time. “And sometimes I dream of that Jowan of yours,” Alistair added, his brow wrinkled in bewilderment. “Those aren't so bad.”
“You dream of Jowan?”
Nearby Leliana stirred with a murmur of soft Orlesian. Jacinta and Alistair exchanged abashed glances, and Alistair lowered his voice. “Yeah,” he said. “Nothing horrible, pretty boring dreams, actually. Just a tall bloke with an awkward beard and a purple shoulder muff figuring out what's for dinner.”
“Dark hair, and stubble so stupid you just want to shake it off him?”
Alistair snorted. “Yeah, nothing at all like this manly beast I've got lurking on my chin.”
“That's him,” Jacinta said blankly, and Alistair looked at her with 'well yes, I know, I just said it was' written all over his face. She shook her head, leaning forward. “Alistair, you don't understand. You've never met him, have you? But that's him to a T.”
“What, like, he actually looks like that?”
“Yes.”
“Maker's breath.” Alistair looked like he got it now, and it made him sick. “And he's a blood mage - he can't be in my head if he's never met me, right?”
“Right, it's not possible,” Jacinta said at once, though she didn't rightly know, and it didn't seem to ease the panic on Alistair's face. The former Templar muttered a curse and put his face in his hands, and across from them, Leliana sleepily sat up, raking a hand through her mussed auburn locks.
“Leliana! I'm so sorry we woke you,” Jacinta whispered, chagrined.
“No, it is all right,” the Bard said, and yawned luxuriously, stretching as though she'd embrace the world. “What are we talking about?”
“Dreams,” Alistair muttered into his palms. “Horrible, bizarre, wholly creepy dreams with blood mages who control your minds and mounds of bodies.”
Leliana smiled drowsily. “Oh, I am not troubled by dreams. I do not have any. Or if I do, I never remember them.”
At this, Alistair looked up, half-envious, half in disbelief. “Don't tell me you don't know any weird stories about people with, say, absurdly accurate dream-visions.”
“Oh, I do.” The Bard shrugged. “But they are only stories, fables. I do not believe in such things, and I do not believe anyone should trouble themselves with such superstitious nonsense. This is an enlightened age, and we are civilized peoples, not Chasind dream-catchers.”
“I'm dreaming about her best bloody friend, Leliana,” Alistair argued. “I've never met the fellow and Jacinta said I described him perfectly. Didn't you? Didn't I?”
“Down to the awkward beard,” Jacinta confirmed.
“What, that he has dark hair and unfortunate facial hair and a purple component to his Circle robes?” Leliana's tone was gently skeptical. Next to her, Jacinta could hear Alistair mutter, “You were awake for that?” as Leliana asked, “Truly, how many apprentices currently at the Tower fit that description?”
“There are a few,” Jacinta admitted. “The Circle robes are pretty standard - they've all got that stupid-looking purple thing on the shoulders for the men.”
“And men past adolescence do grow hair on their chin, provided they aren't eunuchs, and I assume the Templars don't go that far in ensuring mages don't produce children, right?”
Alistair blanched. “Egad. No. Or at least, I became a full Templar without ever encountering tantric sterility rituals... The mind boggles. In fact, I think the mind just threw up some.”
“So then,” Leliana said soothingly, though her brows twitched in amusement. “The man you saw in your dream was an anonymous creation of your tremendous imagination, Alistair, who happened to fit a vague description of Jacinta's wayward friend. There is no cause for alarm and no reason for panic.”
Jacinta thought of Tamlen, of how his grief rang down her bones, and said nothing. Alistair said in a small voice, “You really think it's nothing, then?”
“I am certain,” Leliana promised, smothering another yawn behind her milky hand. “Why don't you go back to sleep? I'll take the next watch.”
Alistair just shook his head, and Leliana didn't pursue the question, snuggling back into her bedroll. Jacinta pulled hers up, stared at the stars as they winked and glittered through the clouds, then shifted onto her side.
Alistair's face fell quickly into those distant, melancholy lines when he thought no one was looking. He was like an apprentice who would rather be made Tranquil, Jacinta thought, and the thought wrung at her exhausted heart.
Alistair didn't want to dream anymore.
Exclusively on SiB@LJ: Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4 | Chapter 5 | Chapter 6
On Archive of Our Own: Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4 | Chapter 5 | Chapter 6
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