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I. Sylaise, Hearthkeeper, though we wander far from home, we keep your fire alive in our most secret of hearts. Keep us warm.
It feels like a funeral.
(It may as well be.)
Guilt overwhelms Tamlen as he and Mahariel walk away from the clan for the last time. It clings to the soles of his boots, weighing him down.
(He wanted to explore the cave, he went to touch the mirror, he had to drag an unconscious, feverish Mahariel out of the cave and into the waiting arms of the shem Grey Warden with suspiciously impeccable timing—)
He feels everyone’s stares bore into his back as they part to make way. The clan is somber, silent but for Merrill’s soft sniffling.
Tamlen hesitates at the edge of camp, wrestling with the urge to look back. Only Mahariel’s touch gives him pause, her hand slipping into his, and when he glances over her eyes are trained ever forward, staring almost defiantly at the gloom of the dark forest beyond.
Her grip is fever-warm; sweat beads on her forehead as her breath hitches unevenly—signs, Duncan had told them, of the spreading Taint. It's in him, too—like a constant buzzing at the back of his head, reminding him of how he'd tipped the hourglass, and now time is running out for both of them.
And yet, the set of her shoulders is resolute, the gleam in her eyes the same dauntless fire he’s loved for years upon years. He'd follow her anywhere, if only to keep that fire burning.
So he stands at her side, looking forward with her at last, and her touch is his only comfort now.
(Honestly? It’s the only comfort he needs.)
---
II. June, Craft-master, we honor you with every blade that strikes true and every arrow that finds its mark. May we never be without their aid.
When every day you see horror upon horror, it all starts to blur together after a while.
Tamlen keeps thinking it couldn’t possibly get worse, but somehow he’s never really surprised when it does. From Ostagar to Lothering to the Brecilian Forest, from feral darkspawn out for tainted blood, to shem who hate them for their ears as much as their blue and silver armor, to werewolves hunting Dalish of any clan, it comes to a point where Tamlen stops wondering at the strangeness of it all—choosing instead to focus his limited energy on the fight, on making every blow count, on protecting the one thing that still matters in this upside-down world.
He focuses on the things he understands—he knows that blades need to be kept sharp, that fletching needs to be renewed, that camp needs to be made in a defensible location.
Mahariel needs to keep her eyes on the horizon, on the next mission, on the big picture, so Tamlen helps by keeping his eyes peeled in the now: Lethallan, he tells her, we can camp here, or, Give me your blade, I’ll sharpen it for you, or, in the heat of battle, Mahariel, duck! as he steps in with his shield raised between her and an arrow aimed for her heart.
It helps, too, that he knows the rhythm she dances to, knows how each strike and parry and feint are timed to the beat of her heart. Alistair is a formidable warrior in his own right, and Morrigan knows magic that would astound even the Keeper, but Tamlen knows Mahariel in a way that means he is always precisely where she needs him to be—whether it's at her back in battle, fending off a hurlock, or beside her in the cold Fereldan nights, sharing body heat, just listening to each other breathe and thanking the gods they're alive.
(Whether in battle or in love, Tamlen knows her heartbeat as well as his own.)
And he knows, too, how she looks by the firelight, sleepy and warm, he knows how her vallaslin stretch and curl when she laughs, and he knows how much and how messily she can eat after a long day of travel and fighting.
He knows how the nightmares that plague her are worse than even his and Alistair’s, and he knows how she kicks in her sleep when they begin. He rolls expertly out of the way, waiting for her to settle down before he gathers her into his arms, wrapping the thin blanket around them both as she seeks out his warmth even in her sleep.
And the next day he gets up, he takes down their tent as she looks over their route for the day, he sharpens her weapons, he makes sure she has enough potions.
Mahariel keeps him sane; it’s only fair he keep her safe.
(As if he could allow himself to do anything else. As if it’s even an option.)
---
III. Fen’Harel, Dread Wolf, my foe is wily and shrewd. Lend me your tricks.
“So,” Zevran says, sidling up to Tamlen as he’s sharpening his sword—and though Tamlen has doubts about letting an assassin tag along, he's not going to bring it up with Mahariel, because the last time he'd insisted on doing things his way, they ended up chugging darkspawn blood in Ostagar.
"So?"
“I have noticed that you and the Warden share a tent," Zevran says, flashing his teeth when he smiles. "Does this mean that you two are also lovers?”
He doesn’t know how to answer that. Back with the clan, it seemed almost a certainty—to the point that everyone assumed they would end up in that direction anyway without further prompting. As such, neither of them had seen any point to rushing things, content to just be Mahariel and Tamlen, Tamlen and Mahariel—their future bright and secure and always just waiting patiently for them to arrive.
And of course, Tamlen loved her—loves her, still—but now, with the Taint thrumming through their blood and a Blight at their heels, suddenly that future doesn’t seem quite as certain as he thought.
Not that he can disclose all these things to Zevran, so instead Tamlen asks, “What’s it matter to you?” as he swipes the whetstone along the blade with vicious force.
“Oh, it is simply that I have noticed the Warden—” She has a name, Tamlen thinks venomously, but he keeps it to himself as Zevran prattles on, “—has seemed rather more tense as of late, so I figured I could offer my services, if you were not already doing so.”
A pause.
“What services?” Tamlen asks, eyes narrowed.
“As a bedmate,” Zevran replies nonchalantly, and Tamlen chokes.
“Wha—!?” Tamlen sputters. “You—how dare—why would you even—!?”
“As you must be aware, the Warden is not unattractive,” Zevran says easily, “although exhaustion is not a good look on anyone, if I’m being honest. And seeing as we need her in, pardon the pun, fighting form, I was merely suggesting that I could help alleviate some stress by warming her bed.”
(Oh, Tamlen could kill him, just for that.)
“I can warm her bed just fine!”
“Oh,” Zevran says, seemingly unfazed but for the feline grin that stretches across his face. “Well, that is excellent news. I leave her then in your capable hands.”
And then he has the gall to just walk away, as if Tamlen has not just been subjected to the most embarrassing conversation in his life.
Dread Wolf take him, Tamlen thinks. He’s not getting any sleep tonight.
(And not in the fun way.)
---
IV. Falon'Din, Friend of the Dead, we fear not death with your hand to guide us. Keep us brave.
The rest of the party meanders back to their own haunts, the excitement of the sudden attack dying down, replaced with a wary calm.
But Tamlen and Mahariel linger at the edge of camp, where they’ve piled the bodies of the shrieks for burning, watching the flames lick the tainted corpses. The acrid smoke makes their eyes water, but not so much that Tamlen fails to note the pointed ears—a marked difference from hurlocks—and the long, lean frame—the opposite of the short, stout genlocks. He’s certain Mahariel’s noticed, too.
Her whispered words confirm it—a prayer he’s heard a handful of times in what seems like a different life altogether: “Falon’Din enasal enaste.”
As if in response, the fire crackles brighter. Tamlen hopes the gods have heard them.
“If Duncan hadn’t found us,” he begins haltingly, “do you think we—?”
The light from the fire flickers in Mahariel’s eyes, making them glow in the darkness, feline and eerie.
“Best not to think about it,” she says, in that tone that Tamlen knows means she can’t think about anything else.
(Prayers for the dead have never tasted so bitter in his mouth.)
“Do you hate it?” he asks her quietly. “This life?”
She blinks.
“What brought this on?” she says, glancing over at him with a curious look.
He thinks of the way things are—bleak and danger-fraught; he thinks of the way things could have been—the both of them mindless ghouls as the Taint consumed them faster than it currently was, or dead.
“I wish we’d never found that cave," he sighs quietly. “I never should have touched that mirror.”
“What,” Mahariel says, a smirk playing at the corner of her mouth, “you’re only realizing this now?”
He looks away, shame leaking out of every pore, until he hears a quiet “Oh, Tamlen.”
And then Mahariel is there in front of him, holding his face in her hands, forcing him to meet her eyes.
“The only life I would hate,” she whispers, eyes at once fierce and tender in the dim firelight, “is one without you in it.”
He feels his expression crumble; his eyes soften as he presses his forehead to hers. “Ar lath ma,” he says. It seems like the only appropriate response.
“I know,” she says, rubbing the tip of her nose against his. “Ma vhenan.”
(For one moment, that word drowns out everything else; he can’t hear the crackling of the fire or the lonely wind in the trees or the ever-present hum of the Taint in his blood—only the echoes of that beloved word falling from her lips: vhenan.)
---
V. Mythal, All-Mother, though we bind our hearts in the secret night, our love is true and bright as day. Bless our marriage.
The night before they begin the long trek to Orzammar, Tamlen is kept awake by thoughts of uncertain futures and not enough time. He’s still awake when Mahariel crawls into their tent after her watch, and though she’s surprised when he turns and hooks an arm around her waist, she relents easily, pressing back against him for warmth.
“You should be asleep,” she chides him, and it’s such a familiar and ordinary thing to say that he snorts, though a bit ruefully. He nuzzles into her neck, matching his breathing to hers and taking comfort in the familiarity of her earthy scent.
“I was thinking,” he admits after a time, tracing patterns up the bare skin of her arm.
“Oh no,” she says, and he can hear the teasing smile in her voice. “Sounds like trouble to me.”
Tamlen pouts, nipping at her shoulder and pinching playfully at her waist, eliciting a squeal that he answers with a laugh. He maneuvers them both, evading her flailing legs until he’s crouched over her, taking in the sight of her hair spilling across the bedroll and the soft smile she’s only ever reserved for him.
It comes out in a rush, then: “Bond with me.”
She blinks. “What, now?”
He blushes, but he loves her, and he knows what he wants, and there’s not enough time. “When else?”
She laughs. “I hope you didn’t plan on doing this in the tent, at least.”
He grins, then leads her out, light-footed and light-hearted, sneaking out of camp and into the woods. They always make camp near water, and this late at night the nearby lake is quiet—a still, calm mirror shaded by gently swaying trees. Perfect.
(As is she, and thus she deserves no less.)
Tamlen leads her into the shallows, letting the waves lap softly around their legs, and there, with Mythal’s moon as witness, he binds his heart to hers with the ancient words he’s long since dreamed of saying.
(When she says them back, it’s a boyhood dream come true at last—a pinpoint of light in this otherwise living nightmare.)
He kisses her, and with each press of his lips he pledges himself to her again, and again, and again, in a handfasting lit only by the flicker of fireflies and the reflection of the moon on the water.
---
VI. Elgar’nan, All-Father, a slight has been committed against me, and I seek recompense. Grant me your strength.
He’s heard of alienages, has met flat-ears like Pol and heard his stories of its cramped structures, of how shadows cling to its edges even in daylight, of the stench and suffering that pervade its alleys.
He’s never expected this.
Elves—hollow-eyed, hollow-souled, backs bent under the weight of shame and shemlen derision. The tree at the center of the alienage droops just as much as the elves that tend to it, its leaves a sickly kind of green that Tamlen knows—down to the very marrow of his forest-raised bones—is wrong.
Everything here is wrong, and it puts him on edge, so much so that when the Tevinter healers grab hold of Mahariel, he barely reigns in the savagery they assume all Dalish possess, lunging for them with such ferocity that it takes both Zevran and Wynne to hold him back. He barely registers the smirk Mahariel throws at him just before the door to the hospice closes behind her with an ominous thud.
(His heart is well on its way to thudding out of his chest—just as in the hospice, his heart is probably sinking her blade into whatever fools dared underestimate her.)
And Tamlen is afraid—so, so afraid—but he trusts Mahariel, and so he waits, uneasiness welling in the pit of his stomach, until the door opens once more with a soft creak.
The guards turn, suspicious, but before they can draw their swords Tamlen’s already struck them down. Mahariel exits the hospice with several bruised elves in tow, blood-splattered but looking none the worse for wear. Reunions immediately erupt all around them—tearful embraces between families who thought they’d never see their loved ones again. Tamlen, too, joins in, pulling Mahariel into a crushing hug and burying his nose in her hair.
“Never do that again,” he whispers fiercely, and she laughs and throws her arms around him to squeeze tight, her heartbeat a steady rhythm against his chest to remind him she’s alive.
But for every tearful reunion, there’s a dozen elves still searching, still waiting for a relative or a friend or a lover to come home. This victory is only a spark—the beginning of a wildfire that will stir the elves into action. Tamlen and Mahariel pull apart when a trembling voice reaches their ears.
“So . . .” Shianni begins, and already Tamlen can see that the tangled ball of bitterness and hate she clings to so tightly has started to unravel. Hope is seeping in through the cracks in her skin, flickering to life in her eyes. “What do we do now?”
He and Mahariel share a look, and he knows she’s seen what he sees.
In a proud voice, Mahariel begins, stoking the fire that’s starting to burn in the heart of every alienage elf here: “We are all of us elvhen.”
“And we never submit,” Tamlen finishes, and watches the embers of hopeful rebellion surge into a blazing roar.
---
VII. Dirthamen, Secret-keeper, you know well how Fear and Deceit conspire to keep two people apart. Teach us to keep faith in each other.
“We don’t—” Mahariel gasps out between breathless kisses, “—have time.”
“Mm.”
“Tamlen.”
He pulls back to look at her—breathless and disheveled, a bright flush creeping down from her cheeks to her chest, heaving under her half-open tunic. He remembers the night he’d kissed her at the lake, binding himself to the only girl he’s ever loved, and he remembers, too, one late afternoon a lifetime ago, when he’d peeled away armor from supple skin for the very first time and knew—with every lungful of air and every beat of his heart—that she’d be the only one he’d ever wish to look upon like this.
He’s never wanted anyone else.
He’s never going to want anyone else, and yet here he is, and here she is, asking him to—
“Tamlen,” she says, interrupting his thoughts. She’s always read them on his face far too easily. “It’ll be alright.”
He sighs. “You really want me to do—that—with Morrigan?”
She laughs, but it’s a desperate, unhappy sound. “What I want is for us to have a chance at . . . something after all of this. And I don’t want anyone to have to die for that to happen.”
A chance at something. That’s all this is. No promises that it’ll work, and no promises of happy endings afterwards.
Just an uncertain chance for an uncertain something.
(But if it’s something that includes her, he’ll take any chance he can get.)
“Ar lath ma,” he says simply, pressing his forehead to hers.
She smiles. “Ma vhenan,” is all she says in reply, before drawing him down closer still into a kiss.
The world is set to burn, and they don’t have time, but when he kisses her he can almost believe that tomorrow will never come.
---
VIII. Andruil, Lady of the Hunt, our prey is in our sights, and we cannot falter. May our strike be swift and true.
His sweat tastes like ash and fear.
He wipes it from his brow as he follows ever on Mahariel’s heels—a habit neither of them have bothered to break since simpler days in sunlit forests.
(Mahariel and Tamlen, Tamlen and Mahariel, never one without the other, even now.)
Especially now, on the precipice of the end, as they sprint past charred buildings instead of mossy trees, blue and silver wrapped around them instead of Master Ilen’s craft, a human Warden and a Circle mage at their backs instead of Fenarel and Merrill.
Tamlen of a year ago would have been bitter. He’d have despised these shem and their walled cities and the way they thrust the burden of salvation onto his shoulders.
It doesn’t matter anymore.
This matters: pushing through the market and the alienage, cheers of support at their backs as they repel waves of darkspawn and chase the fiends further into the city.
This matters: Mahariel teetering on her feet, blood staining her armor, and Tamlen all but shoving a bottle against her mouth and forcing her to swallow a potion, only stopping when her hand forces his away with renewed strength.
This matters: the archdemon is strong, but they are Dalish and they are not bred to submit; dragons fall just as quick as any wild bird if you know where to strike, and they fall twice as hard if you know how to strike well.
This matters: Mahariel rushing past him as he hacks down darkspawn after darkspawn, a stranger’s sword in her hand as she leaps—
This matters: locking eyes with her just before she strikes and seeing the fear there, the uncertainty, all the questions and what-ifs that she shoves aside as her mouth forms the words, Ar lath ma—
Bright, blinding light. A sound like thunder, stone crashing upon stone, and then silence—
And in the stillness, her voice reaches him at last, ushering him into unconsciousness as he finishes her sentence in his mind:
—vhenan.
---
IX. Ghilan’nain, Halla-mother, guide these wayward souls. Bring us home.
"Lethallin!”
A blur of black and green barrels into Tamlen’s chest, just as Mahariel is yanked into another woman’s tearful embrace.
“Da’len,” Ashalle sobs, arms tightening around Mahariel. “Da’len, thank the Creators you’re safe.”
A squeeze around his waist elicits a chuckle from Tamlen, drawing his gaze down from the smile he’d been sharing with Mahariel over Ashalle’s shoulder.
“Aneth ara, lethallan,” he greets her.
Merrill grins toothily at him, and a little ways behind her stand Fenarel and Junar, a little more reserved but looking no less pleased. Tamlen only now realizes how much he’s missed this—clanmates, and familial affection, and the familiar warmth of home.
“Will you be coming back to the clan now that the Blight’s over?” Merrill asks, green eyes wide and hopeful.
He looks at Mahariel only to find her already looking back. She bites her lip—chapped from the elements, a bruise at the corner where a dimple should be.
Still beautiful, he thinks. Still kissable.
Mahariel looks away, toward the throne, then down at her boots, then back at Tamlen. There’s already been talks of hunting down the remaining darkspawn, and rebuilding the Wardens, and something or other about Amaranthine. She shakes her head.
Tamlen nods, understanding.
Blue and silver armor doesn’t feel quite so strange, now, or so heavy.
(But then, it has never been as heavy as the duty it entails.)
“No,” he tells Merrill, feeling a pang of guilt at the way her face falls. “I don’t think we will.”
“Oooh,” Merrill whines, “but—”
“But you’ll stay together,” Ashalle interrupts, “won’t you? You’ll look after each other?”
“Yes,” Mahariel answers this time, nothing but certainty in her voice as she comes to stand beside him. “Of course.”
“Always,” Tamlen adds, twining his fingers with hers. He presses a kiss to her temple to prove his point, grinning when Merrill squeals and Ashalle gives a motherly chuckle.
Mahariel only smiles sideways at him, squeezing his hand, but it says enough. Wherever this life might take them—to Amaranthine or the Deep Roads or even the farthest reaches of the Fade—as long as he can reach out and take her hand, then he knows: he’s home.