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Chapter Text

Aeducan was preparing dinner when it started. He was skinning and cleaning hares when Mahariel joined him, sitting directly beside Aeducan on the log. He was still for just a single moment before turning to face him.

“This one time, when my clan was staying near the coast, I ate these weird barnacles and my cheeks puffed up and my face got all red and the swelling didn’t go down for two days”

“Err” said Aeducan.

“And then the keeper said I wasn’t allowed to eat those anymore.”

“She sounds like a wise woman” Aeducan said. “But lad, we’re not staying anywhere near a sea tonight. Just rabbit for dinner.”

“Oh.” Mahariel said, despondently. He stared at Aeducan for a moment more, and then sighed, got up without another word, and returned to the corner of the camp he shared with Morrigan. Aeducan stared after him, shook himself, and returned to his work.

Three days later, Mahariel caught up to him again on the road.

“A forest we were passing through when I was eight” he started, without so much as a good morning, “Had the biggest trees I’ve ever seen in my life. I think they were oaks. I climbed one and stayed up there a whole afternoon with my friend Tamlen.” Aeducan glanced around at their surroundings. Nothing but well cultivated farmers’ fields and orchards, as far as the eye could see.

“I- Alright” Aeducan said. When no further response seemed forthcoming, he turned to look at the boy beside him. Mahariel was looking at him brightly, staring down expectantly at his travelling companion.

“Was that all you wanted to tell me, then?” Aeducan asked

“I-“ Mahariel’s ears drooped. “Yeah. I guess so.” And then he walked up ahead on the road, leaving Aeducan staring at his back.

The next night, as the two of them were setting up tents, Mahariel piped up

“The biggest bug I’ve ever seen was nearly the size of my fist. I was turning over rocks looking for embrium root and I found a dozen millipedes, an ant nest and a bright blue beetle. I think it-“

“Lad” Aeducan said wearily “Is there a point to this story?”

Mahariel’s ears drooped, and it was still hard to tell with the taller members of their party, but Aeducan though he looked hurt.

“It’s a story.” Mahariel said, as if that should mean something.

“I know that” Aeducan said. “I was just wondering why you saw fit to tell them, is all.”

Mahariel stared at him, definitely hurt, and then simply walked away, leaving Aeducan holding a half-erected tent. It was time, he thought, to seek an outside opinion.

***

 “So, Tabris” Aeducan said, sitting beside her where she was sharpening her sword at the fireside “You’re an elf.”

Her whetstone paused on the blade of her sword, and then she finished the stroke with an extra flourish.

“This promises to be good.”

“Nothing bad!” Aeducan hurriedly reassured her “It’s just- your ears move, yeah?”

She peered at him in the firelight.

“You’ve been travelling with four elves for eight months, and you’re just noticing now that our ears move?”

“I’d noticed before! It’s just-“ Aeducan sighed, and then put his hands up on either side of his face “When they do this” He flicked his fingers down, mimicking Mahariel’s ear-twitch “That means you’re sad, yes?”

“Yes?”

“Ah.” Aeducan sighed, and then let his hands drop. “I’ve definitely been putting the boy off, then.”

Tabris put her sword aside altogether “What did you do to him?”

“Nothing! Nothing I swear!” He said “At least, nothing I’ve done to him with intent! He’s been… odd. Over the past few days. I thought you might have some insight into the matter.”

“I’m hardly close with him, you know” Tabris said. “We get on well enough, but we’re only barely friends.” She grimaced “I can’t tell if he thinks of me as his boss, his big sister or some half-literate, pitiable city elf. I’m not sure if he knows, either. I’m not the best person to ask about this.”

Aeducan frowned. “You’ve been spending some time with him recently, have you not?”

“Sure” she agreed. “Been teaching me a bit of Elvish. Found out I barely knew four words and was horrified. Telling me the stories. ‘S been good, actually. We get along fine when we’re doing that. It’s all the other stuff that’s hard. Again, I’m really not that close to him.”

“Well I’m not going to the she-witch for help with this.” Tabris gave him a look. Aeducan was a seasoned warrior, he reminded himself, and a one-time candidate for the throne of Orzammar. There was no reason for a single glance from a woman nearly a decade and a half his younger to make him feel like an insolent child. “I’m not” he said, trying not to sound surly. “She only tolerates him and the two younger mages, and you know it. I can’t ask her about this.”

“Alright” Tabris said “You must’ve been doing something. Not on purpose, but still. What’ve you been doing when this happens?”

“Darndest thing” Aeducan said “He just comes up, out of nowhere, and tells me anecdotes about his life, stares at me, and then walks off again. No rhyme or reason to them, as far as I can discern. Just-“

“Quick, two or three line stories” Tabris added “And then he stops. Looks at you, and leaves.”

They had a moment of understanding, staring at each other by the fireside.

“So you don’t know what he’s on about either, then?” Aeducan asked

“Not a blighted clue.”

“Ah.” He sighed, and readjusted by the campfire as Tabris resumed sharpening her sword. “That’s good then.”

***

“Hey, Aeducan” Brosca said, as they were scrubbing dishes two nights later “Did you know Mahariel can’t swim? Apparently a friend just tossed him in the river once to teach him and he nearly drowned.”

Aeducan dropped the wooden bowl he was washing, heedless of both the wave of sudsy water it sent at Brosca, as well as the curse that the wave prompted.

“He’s been at it with you too, then?”

“What, the story telling thing?” She said, scowling at the wet patch on her shirt “Sure. Started about a week ago.”

“Does he always leave looking all-“ Aeducan gestured vaguely, and hoped Brosca would grasp his meaning.

“Looking like someone kicked his favourite puppy, you mean” She shrugged. “Bit of a toss-up. Half the time, looks at me like I’ve hung the moon, and leaves with a spring in his step. Other half, looks at me like I’ve just sold him down the river. No idea what the difference is.”

“But sometimes he reacts well?”

“I mean, sure. Not always, like I said, about fifty-fifty. Wait-“ she pointed at him with one soapy finger, realization dawning on her face “You always make him sad?”

At his lack of response, Brosca let out a sharp ‘Hah!’ and returned to the dishes, still chuckling.

“Get it together, princeling” she told him. “Even the mages have a better record than you on that front.”

Aeducan sighed, and restrained himself from telling her that he was bloody well trying.

***

“Cousland!”

The young man turned to look at Aeducan, pausing in taking care of the mule.

“Yeah?”

“You and the elf, last night”

Cousland winced “Ah. Sorry about that. Zev said everyone had gone to sleep already. Was second your watch then?”

“I-what?”

“We were a little loud, but I didn’t think-“

“No!” Aeducan said, desperately trying to forestall any more explanation “By the stone, no! The other elf.”

Cousland scowled at him. “If Tabris hears you calling her that, she’s going to kick your ass into next week, and I’m not going to stop her.”

“No the- Mahariel. I’m talking about Mahariel.”

“Oh.” Cousland shifted the packs around on the mule’s back, but was much more affable when he replied “Why didn’t you just say so?”

“I was trying-“ Aeducan gave up on that tack. “You two get on well enough, correct?”

“Me and Mahariel?” Cousland shrugged. “Sure. Never thought we were that close, but ever since we helped him kill Morrigan’s mom, he’s been much friendlier. We talked last night when we were taking care of Lightning here.” He patted the mule on the neck. Aeducan decided it would be politic not to mention how little the animal’s name reflected anything about the animal itself.

“He seemed happy, when he left the conversation with you.”

“I mean, I guess? Bit of an odd duck, but he’s friendly enough. Why?”

“I cannot” Aeducan said “end a conversation with him without him storming off.”

“Wait, seriously?” Cousland looked at him over one shoulder, hands still occupied securing the tents to Lightning. “You’re kidding me, right? He’s pricklier than a hedgehog, but he’s easy enough to please.” He grunted, pulling a knot tight on the mule’s back. “Look, next time he tells you a story, just say thanks and tell him one of your own, alright? Doesn’t have to be involved or anything; he seemed just as happy when I told him an hour long story about my brother as when I told him offhand about a stray cat that used to live in the barn.”

“Just like that?” Aeducan asked “Just- Tell the boy something?”

Cousland shrugged one shoulder, before scratching Lightning between the ears “It’s worked for me so far.”

Children, Aeducan thought despairingly. He was surrounded by children.

***

This was it, Aeducan told himself, as he stared at Mahariel collecting greens for their dinner. He steeled himself, and then went to join the elf by the side of their camp.

Mahariel looked up at the company, but his face fell slightly when he saw who it was.

“Once, when I was young” Aeducan said, “Me and my older brother snuck up to the palace roof and spent an entire afternoon pelting passers-by with pebbles.”

Mahariel’s entire demeanour changed. His ears perked up, his eyes brightened, and a grin threatened to split his face.

“Thank you for the story!” He said, and nearly dropped his bundle of dandelion greens in his haste to greet Aeducan “I didn’t think- Thank you!”

Aeducan looked up at the beaming elf. “You’re quite welcome, lad.”

“Can I tell one?”

“Go right ahead, Mahariel.” Aeducan said, and couldn’t help but smile at him bemused as the younger man launched right into a tale about his clan fording a river. He didn’t really understand why the boy was telling these stories, but it clearly made him happy, so Aeducan was more than happy to be carried along by them. When he thanked Mahariel after he finished his tale, he decided that the ensuing smile was well worth something as simple as thanking the boy for talking.

***

A few weeks later, in a Dalish camp in the Brecilian Forest, Aeducan finally got clarification. By this point, the wardens had all gotten into the habit of thanking one another for small stories, even when Mahariel himself wasn’t around to hear them. The gratitude had stopped feeling like clumsy patches on the end of their sentences, and now dripped as easily from their lips as punctuation; simply another expected part of speech. This was perhaps the only reason that they discovered what it meant at all.

Mahariel had told them that he was going to spend some time with the Clan’s halla, and babbled briefly about an illness one of his clan’s halla had, and how he had been the one to find the herbs to cure it. Aeudcan thanked him absentmindedly as the younger boy ran off, and returned to examining the iron bark the clan’s craftmaster was showing to him.

The absolute silence from the man and his apprentice was enough to make him look up at them.

“Durgen’len, what did you just say to him?”

Aeducan peered at them, and rattled about in his memory for the exact words of the now-automatic phrase. The two elves looked nearly white in the light filtering through the trees as he thought.

“… Thank you for the story, now be off with you?” he tried.

The crafstmaster made a brief choking noise.

“What?”

“Why did you do that?”

“Why did I think him?” Aeducan asked. The craftsmaster nodded. “Makes the boy happy. There was a time when I didn’t realise what he wanted from me, when he told them, but ever since I’ve made a point to thank him.”

“He has been telling you stories, and you have been thanking him, and you do not know what it means?”

“Neither do any of us” Aeducan replied, a touch defensively

“He has been telling stories to all of you?”

“Near as I can tell. Why?”

The craftsmen made another noise low in his throat, and walked away, leaving Aeducan and his apprentice behind at the stall.

“Ir abelas.” The apprentice said. “Varathorn’s just shocked. He’ll come back when he’s finished with his moral outrage.”

Aeducan had the distinct impression that people were talking over his head again.

“Shocked about what, exactly?”

“That he’s taken you in, of course!” the apprentice exclaimed. “Surely you’ve noticed”

“What is it, exactly,” Aeducan said “that gives you impression that the boy’s ‘taken me in’.”

The apprentice looked at him as though he couldn’t believe his ears.

“He’s been telling you stories.” He said, as if that explained anything. “About his life.”

When it was clear that this was all the explanation that he was going to get, Aeducan made a ‘go on’ gesture. The apprentice sighed, and leaned across the stall, pitching his voice lower as if he was telling a secret.

“I would not” he started “tell this to anyone who was not one of the people under usual circumstances. But you have been taken in by one of our own. Varathorn’s disapproval aside, that means something.” He seemed accepting, if not happy about it.

“Please tell me what it means” Aeducan said.

“We Dalish live in the same clans their whole lives” the apprentice started, and Aeducan couldn’t help but notice that this didn’t sound anything like an explanation. “With the same people, from birth to death, the Dalish do not abandon their own. Very rarely do we interact with anyone not of our own blood, our own clan. When one of us, for whatever reasons, marriage or destruction of a clan or magic, runaways from the cities or by any other circumstance, is forced to join a new one, they have none of the history that the rest have grown up with. In order to help them feel like part of the clan, we tell them what they have missed. It’s an incredible gesture of trust; that you will not use these stories against them, and that you in turn will start to tell them yours, and you thank them for telling you. It’s a poor substitution for living with a clan your whole life, but there’s nothing that can replicate that perfectly.”

“The lad was trying to make me part of his clan?”

“If he was telling you his stories” the apprentice said, frowning slightly, “He considers you as such. If you do not, you should tell him now.”

Aeducan opened his mouth to speak, and then shut it abruptly with a ‘clack’ he was sure was audible and thought about it. Thought about the dozens and dozens of fights in which he and Mahariel had taken the high ground together, raining arrows and crossbow bolts at their foes, sniping for their comrades on the ground. Thought about the day several weeks ago that Brosca had asked Alistair to teach her and Mahariel to swim in a river by their campsite. Thought about him teaching Tabris elvish late at night by the fireside, the usually aggressive and fiery warrior stumbling over pronunciation, and Mahareil’s endless patience with her. Thought about Surana and Amel teaching Mahariel to play diamondback, and Brosca teaching all three of them how to cheat at it. Thought about Mahariel helping Wynne mix poultices and salves for the group, to keep them all safe. Thought about how pale he was, after encountering the ghoul the blight had made of his old friend, and how hard he was shaking as Morrigan sat him by the fire with a mug of tea, and the way all of them had stayed on watch until sunrise.

“That” Aeducan finally said "Will not be necessary."

Chapter Text

It started with Amell and Surana. The two of them, Brosca had noticed, were far too observant for the cloistered scholars she had initially taken them for. Between Amell’s cheerful, seemingly harmless inquiries into their pasts and lives, and Surana’s densly packed and well maintained notebook, she had little doubt that the two mages enough about every member of their ragtag group to blackmail them out of the shirts on their backs if the mood ever struck them. It was decidedly in their favour, Brosca thought with no small measure of relief, that the two women were too good natured and naïve for any such thought to occur to them. A bit odd, the pair of them, yes, and terrifying in a potential sort of way, but ultimately mostly harmless to anything that wasn’t immediately trying to kill them.

They also spoke to each other in a code she had so far had absolutely no luck deciphering. She honestly wasn’t sure if they were aware they were doing it, thought the rest of them could understand it, or if the two of them were doing it intentionally in order to keep their thoughts private from the rest of the wardens and the wider group. That didn’t seem to be the case though, she thought to herself, as she peered at them across the campfire. Amell’s cheerful

“1:5 you two!” at Zevran and Cousland’s retreating backs was good natured enough; just a remark that the rest of the wardens didn’t understand.

The odd citations were a reoccurring part of their conversation, to the extent that an entire sentence seemed to be reduced to just a quick series of numbers. Early in their journeys, out in Honnleath looking for a golem, Surana had to correct her brief question of “8:28” to “Has anyone checked the basements yet”. Whatever the code was, Brosca certainly couldn’t deny that at least between the two of them, it was extremely effective. It was between the two younger circle mages and the rest of the group that the system broke down, either by accident or by design.

*

Of all their companions, Wynne seemed to be the only one able to decipher her fellow mages codded communication, or at least understand it. When Brosca asked her about it, the older woman only chuckled.

“It’s just a holdover from the circle dear” Wynne told her. “Maker knows I was much the same on my first trip outside, using references and citations that everyone from the tower knew inside and out. Why, I remember asking what time dinner was by asking when I should wake my bunkmate!”

Brosca stared at her blankly.

“It will pass in time” Wynne said softly. “They are simply still unused to conversing with anyone who is not a mage or a Templar. Have patience with them as they adjust.”

That was not, Brosca thought, why she had brought it up. Something as useful as a code even a former Crow couldn’t crack was too valuable to be tossed aside for the ease of fitting in, and would be a fantastic asset in their collective back pocket, if only the rest of them could learn it.

*

It is, of all people, Alistair that helps her begin to understand their code. It was a cold, frosty morning heading East out of Denerim when Surana came bolting back down the road at the rest of them, from where she had been walking ahead with a smaller advance party. She skidded to a halt in front of Amell and hissed at her

“4:10, 4:10, grab Morrigan and go!”

At her words, Amell yelped, grabbed Morrigan, and promptly turned into a wolf. Morrigan followed her lead, and the two shapeshifters quickly disappeared into the underbrush. Surana was clutching a stitch in her side, trying to catch her breath and rummaging in her belt pouch when and a pair of Templars rounded the bend in the road ahead of them, and, upon seeing the pair of women with staffs strapped to their backs, drew their swords.

“Honestly” Wynne huffed, “No respect whatsoever” as she went forward to meet the armoured men and present them with her travel papers, trying to stall them as Surana made herself presentable.  

“I think I know that one” Alistair said, as they watched Wynne try to convince the Templars that no, really, that burst of magical energy had just been her relieving her arthritic knees, that was all.

“What are we talking about?” Brosca asked him, still watching the unfolding drama.

“The thing Surana said, 4:10” He said. “4:10 Bennedict? Bennedictions? It’s a chant verse, at any rate, I’m nearly sure of it. One of the ones they made veeeery sure to teach the Templar recruits.”

“D’you remember it?”

Alistair’s face scrunched up. “Maybe? Sort of? I just mumbled along to the chant, honestly. I remember 4:10 and 4:11 being some of the angrier verses, but that’s about all. It’s all judgement and damnation, ‘Blessed are they who… somethingsomethingsomething Do not falter. Blessed are they who, mumblemumble, of the just. Blessed are the yaddayaddayadda, In their blood the Maker’s will is written.”

“And you said that was one of the more important verses?” Brosca asked incredulously

“Oh absolutely. Part of the whole foundation of the Templar order.”

Brosca stared at him. “How’d you get away with that?”

“The beginning and ending are the important bits!” He protested, but without any venom “The rest of it, you can just look sincere and mumble righteously, and nobody will know.” Alistair looked down at her and smiled cheekily “Have I mentioned recently that I wasn’t a very good Templar?”

*

There was only one member of their band that Brosca had any confidence whatsoever could actually tell her what verses the two mages were referencing meant, and would be willing to do so, that night had her finding a seat beside Leliana at the fireside after dinner. Leliana smiled at her as she did, and Brosca resolutely ignored the way her stomach flipped in response.

“So” Brosca said, making herself comfortable on the tarp beside Leliana “Could I ask you something? About the Chant of Light?”

Leliana’s face, which was beautiful even after battle covered in gore and viscera, and nothing less than spectacular now that they were all clean at camp, became absolutely radiant in the firelight. Oh. Brosca thought. Oh.

*

“7:19, you son of a bitch!” Amell hollered, caving in a genlock’s head with the top of her staff.

“I know that one!” Brosca yelled back at her, hamstringing a hurlock that had been approaching the mage from behind “Andraste 7:19! That’s the whole ‘wrath of heaven’ bit, right!”

She turned back to look at Amell, but she had used the last of her mana to turn herself into a bear, and there would be no talking to her until the battle was over.

*

“They’re all Chant canticles?” Brosca asked Surana later that day, after they had cleaned up after the battle. Wynne and Zevran, at least, had finally convinced Cousland that letting his dog lick him clean was not adequate post-battle maintenance, and he had joined the rest of them in the river. The Wardens and their hangers-on were now scattered around a small clearing, checking their weapons and armor over after the battle.

“What?” Surana replied.

“Your numbers.” Brosca clarified “The ones you use with your girl.”

“Oh!” Surana exclaimed, grasping the conversational thread. “Yes. Why do you ask?”

“Why?”

“I- well.” Surana shot a glance at her Amell, sleeping off the battle by her side, still 350 pounds and covered in fur. “There wasn’t really a lot to do in the circle. Especially if you were in trouble. For most of the Templars, Bran and Drass in particular, the preffered method of punishment for minor transgressions was to lock the offender in a closet with nothing but a copy of the chant for a day or four. I got a full week, once.” She shrugged against the fur of her slumbering lover. “We got deeply familiar with it.”

“You’re not using them out of reverence, then?” Brosca asked

“Oh! No, not really.” Surana’s brow furrowed in thought before she continued “Maybe it started that way at first, I think someone probably got the idea from the chanters. But no, it’s just shorthand. Just a way to communicate that the Templars couldn’t evesdrop on, mostly.”

“The Templars don’t know the chant?” Brosca asked, frowning. Maybe Alistair was a better indicator of the order than he thought.

“Of course they do.” Surana said “But not quite the same way. They read it as religious instructions, we read it because there was nothing else to do. Same text, different meanings.” Surana rubbed the bridge of her nose as she thought. “Warnings about the dangers of magic are very different from opposite sides of the armour. Just about everything else is too, from the perspective of bored versus reverent. Canticles using metaphors become literal, and literal ones become metaphors.  A verse about Andraste on the Pyre is used as shorthand for ‘you’ve left your candle lit’. A little blasphemous, but the Templars took our citations at face value, and never read anything into them.”

“You’re not Andrastian, then?” Brosca asked.

“I didn’t say that, exactly.” She answered “I Respect the Maker and his Prophet well enough, we just…  We’re not overly found of the chant or the chantry itself. But it’s something we know. I’m not about to throw out something useful just because I don’t believe in it.” Surana grimaced slightly, as if expecting admonishment.

“I can respect that” Brosca said

“Wait, really?” Surana asked “Even though Leliana’s got you all…” she trailed off, and gestured at the chantry amulet around Brosca’s neck. Brosca shrugged.

“Nah. I don’t think the maker’d look too fondly on all the crap I’ve done either. Knifing your best friend is pretty solidly on the bad end of that spectrum. I’ve spent enough of my life using whatever I could get my hands on to scrape by to get all high and mighty about someone else doing the same thing.” She looked at the pair of mages again, at Surana’s insistence on staying directly beside the sleeping form of a dangerous predator, and one prone to nightmares. “Anything that you used to keep yourself alive is a hard habit to break, no screwing around. Just remember that sometimes those things outlive their usefulness. Sometimes, it’s better to let them go.”

Chapter Text

“Sooooo, Mahariel” said Alistair, greeting the party “How was the circle tower?”

Ghilharel Mahariel was trekking back into camp with the rest of the wardens they had sent as a delegation to Ferelden’s mages. He sighed, and looked wearily at Alistair as he said;

“The tower was full of ants”

And that was the start of it.

Mahariel later declared Redcliffe’s undead siege, Connor’s possession and Eamon’s poisoning to be ‘ants’ as well, to general bemusement and confusion.

The deep roads, and Orzammar in general were also full of ants, as was the entire process of golem creation.

When the group arrived at Haven, a boy at the gates pulled him aside and placed something in his hand before dashing off again. He stared at it a moment before rejoining the group.

“Whaddid he give you?” Amell asked him.

Mahariel opened his hand, and showed them the severed human finger in his palm. The entire group stared at it in shock for a moment.

“He gave me ants.” He said, with great resignation. “Everywhere we go is full of ants. I should expect it, at this point, but it’s always ants, every time.” And then they were too busy fighting cultists and dragons and dragon cultists to question him further about this declaration.

It was not until much later, back in Redcliffe, that they were finally able to get clarification on the meaning.

The wardens and their companions were packed into what Alistair assured them was once a dining hall, but the group was using mostly as a communal meeting place away from Arl Eamon and his ‘helpful advice’. Cousland was pacing up and down the length of the hall, flipping a dagger in one hand.

“Royal court is a vipers pit, always has been” He began “I’m talking murder, double crossings, secret alliances, the whole nine yards. We have to expect the landsmeet to be full of ants, start to finish”

Mahariel looked up sharply from where he was fletching his arrows on the floor

“That’s not what that means” He said, frowning. Cousland paused, and looked at him curiously.

“Full of ants?” Cousland asked, “It means ‘full of horrible things’, right?”

“No, it’s-“ Mahariel’s  ear twitched, annoyed.

“It’s part of a story” He said, and then stared at Cousland until he made a little ‘go on’ motion with his dagger. He pushed his feathers and glue to one side before climbing onto his chair and turning to face the whole group.

“Once in old Arlathan,” He began “There was a guardsman who boasted of his vigilance. He claimed that not even the dread wolf himself could sneak up on him unawares. Fen’harel, hearing this, was amused. He came unto this hunter, and offered him a chance to rescind his claims. But the guardsman was proud, and said to Fen’Harel, ‘Wolf, I heard you coming, your feet on the dirt. I saw you coming, your eyes in the dark. Wolf, I even smelled you coming, your scent on the breeze. You could not come upon me undetected even if you had the favour of Andruil herself.’

“Fen’Harel, hearing these bold claims, threw back his head and laughed. ‘If that is so’ he said, ‘then I offer you this. I shall make you rich beyond your wildest dreams, but if you ever stop looking for me, I return to claim what is mine.’ The guard, young and foolish, agreed to this.

“It was two months before the guardsman first forgot his pact. He was young, drunk and newly rich, and the dread wolf was not at all on his mind as he went to pour himself the last of the wine. But, the Dread Wolf knew, and instead of wine, ants poured from the bottle. The man cursed Fen’Harel, and vowed to be more careful.”

“The second time he forgot his pact was two years later. He had been to the market, and happened across a beautiful woman. As he saw her, all thoughts fled his mind and he missed his footing, tripping into the well in the centre of the square. When they pulled him out, he was covered ears to toes in ants, which had replaced the water in the well. He vowed once more to be more cautious, and swore that this was the last time the dread wolf would get the better of him.”

“Two decades after the second, the guardsman forgot his pact for a third and final time. He had courted and married the girl he had met in the market all those years ago, and with the wealth he had made from Fen’Harel’s bargain, the two of them became nobility in the city. It was on the day of his daughter’s birth that he forgot the pact. He was called into the birthing chamber, and upon seeing his infant daughter for the first time, all thoughts of the dread wolf fled his mind. And, the moment he forgot his pact, his daughter opened his mouth and ants poured out, and they consumed him.”

Mahariel folded his hands together, resting them on the table in front of him and looked at the rest of the group, waiting for a response. They stared back at him.

“I- Thank you?” Cousland said. Mahariel nodded happily in acknowledgement.

"Is that the full story? No moral or anything?" Cousland asked

"Don't make deals with Fen'Harel is a perfectly reasonable lesson" Mahariel argued, 'But not all stories have to be about something. I don't understand the human obsession with only using stories for teaching and not for their own sake."

“So full of ants is what," Brosca asked, "you stopped being on your guard for something and it was horrifying?”

Mahariel wrinkled his nose. “Only partly. Mostly, it’s ‘I was expecting this to be normal and instead it was horrifying beyond anything I could imagine.’ Like if you went to pour your wine and instead it was full of ants. That’s the relevant part of the story. The guarding part is less important than the surprise.”

He picked up his arrows again, checking their points against one thumb.

“You can’t ever expect something to be full of ants, if you do then they aren’t ants.”

“The Dalish have a phrase that means ‘unexpected skin crawling horror?’” Asked Tabris from down the table. Mahariel nodded at her, pleased. Cousland sighed.

“I don’t know if I’m more put off by the fact that ‘unexpected skin crawling horror’ is a phrase the Dalish have” Cousland said “or by the fact that ‘unexpected skin crawling horror’ is an emotion we’ve experienced so often the rest of us have started to pick it up ourselves.”

“Mostly” Brosca piped in from down the table “I’m just pissed that ‘unexpected skin crawling horror’ is something we’ve experienced so often it’s no longer unexpected.”

“It would be, too.” Tabris said dryly. “It just about figures that one of the only proper elven expressions I know how to use properly translates to ‘holy shit why this’. I can see the way this happened. Don’t like it, but it makes sense.” She snorted. “Full of ants. I’m gonna remember this one.”

She did. Warden commander Tabris one day used the phrase to describe the state of Amaranthine’s basements, to the deep surprise and grudging respect of a former Dalish keeper. Cousland once used it to describe a trade deal that had gone south, and then had to explain the phrase’s origins, laughing all the while, to an increasingly horrified delegation from the Orlesian empress. Amell and Surana used the phrase often in discussion with other mages, and have never once paused to explain what it meant. Mahariel was once asked by another clan, years later, why he had shared one of their few stories with a group of shemlen, two dwarves and a pair of flat ears. After the keeper broke up the fistfight that resulted, Mahariel told them that it was the job of every Dalish to keep the stories alive in their clan, and he would have done no less in his own.

Chapter Text

“Come on!” Alistair yelled at the freshly minted wardens “The beacon is at the top of these stairs, we have to get it lit now!”

“I’m not sure if you’ve noticed” Hollered Amell, as she doused several gunlocks with a spout of fire “But we’re all doing our best here!”

As if to respond to these words, there came an almighty bellow from up the stairs. The wardens, as one, turned to the stairs as an Ogre crashed its way through the doorway, ten feet tall and infuriated.

“Oh for fucks sake” Brosca said quietly, wrenching one of her daggers  out of a darkspawn as the Ogre beat it’s chest in front of the stairs “How are we supposed to get by that blighted thing.”

Adenine Tabris snorted quietly beside her, and tied off one of the broken straps of her shield before looking at the bloody wardens behind them and the ogre in front of them in turn. “Oh I don’t know,” she said. “I’ve had worse odds.”

And that was the start of it.

At Redcliffe, facing armies of the undead, Adenine rallied the militia to her by making proclaiming “I’ve survived worse odds than this!” and throwing herself headfirst into the ranks of the dead.

The other wardens began challenging this claim whenever the chance arose.

On a bridge, halfway across a frigid river, with darkspawn dozens deep between them and either side, Cousland turned to her and yelled “How’re the odds, Tabris?”

She slammed three gunlocks into the river below with a well driven shield before answering “Still not the worst I’ve ever had!”

Three days into the deeproads, drawing blades against a broodmother, Brosca turned to her and asked “How’re we looking, Tabris?”

“Not the worst odds I’ve ever seen!” She yelled back, cutting through one of the broodmother’s appendages with a single swing, leaving the fleshy tentacle writhing on the floor at their feet.

At Haven’s peak, standing in front of the temple of sacred ashes, a high dragon swooping down to meet them, Cousland hollered over the wind “This has to be the worst odds, right?”

She grinned back at him, sharp and halfway wild, pointed elven eyeteeth on display. “We’ll call this one a tie!” She called back as Amell whooped beside her, sending a blizzard surging up on the cold mountain air to engulf the dragon as it wheeled above them.

The group half believes for weeks that Duncan recruited her because she fought a dragon on the backstreets of Denerim.

They get clarification in Denerim itself, more specifically, they get clarification in the bowels of Fort Drakon, the wardens one and all locked in the cells.  

Adenine was one of only three of them conscious at the end of the confrontation with Ser Cauthrien, and she was the one who surrendered when given the opportunity. She was the one who allowed herself to be chained by humans, who watched them strip her friends and comrades of their arms and armour, who watched them be stuffed nearly naked one by one into a cage overlooking a tourture chamber. She was the one who tried desperately to keep Mahariel from fighting their captors, when they were outnumbered and disarmed and in the custody of humans that would kill an elf as soon as look at one. She was the one who bit her nails bloody, pacing up and down the twelve-foot by twelve-foot cell, waiting for the other wardens to regain consciousness.

Surana was the last to wake up, and when she finally stirred in Amell’s lap, Tabris sank to the ground in relief, head in her hands, giving a muffled.

“Oh thank the maker.”

“Is that all of us, then?” Alistair asked as Amell helped Surana sit up against the back wall of the cell “We’re all up and kicking?”

“Kicking’s gonna have to wait a bit, I think” Brosca said, picking flaking blood off her arms “As it stands, we’re unarmed, unarmoured, and whoever searched us on the way in did a damn good job, because I hid my lockpicks well.”

Cousland nodded. “Same here. Not even a single jimmy left on me.”

Adenine ‘hmm’d in acknowledgement, before turning to the pair of mages in the corner.

“How about you two? Anything you could cast that would get us through the door?”

“No can do, chief” Amell said apologetically, holding up one arm to display a ragged gash, still sluggishly oozing blood. “They gave us both magebane when they were taking us in. I couldn’t as much as light a campfire at the moment, let alone melt through cold iron”

“I’m guessing three, four hours before it wears off?” Surana added, poking at her own nearly identical wound “Don’t how much they gave us, or what the quality of it was, but I’ve still not recovered from the spells I cast during the fight yet, so I say another few hours minimum.”

Tabris cursed, and stood up again, running her hands along the bars of their cell.

“So to sum up” Brosca said, ticking off her fingers “We’re all locked up, unarmed, no armour, no magic, no lock picks, having just killed an Arl thanks to Cousland, at the tender mercies of Loghain, and the landsmeet is in less than three days.”

Adenine nodded at her. Brosca let her hands hall back to her lap before grinning cheekily.

“How’re those odds looking?”

Adenine turned to look at Brosca. She opened her mouth, and then visibly stopped herself and grimaced before she started again.

“Well. I’m not concussed this time. That’s a plus. Not sure if smallclothes are an upgrade or a downgrade on a wedding dress. Killed the nobleman on the way in rather than having to find him on the way out. But you are all definitely more equipped to fight our way out of a palace than my bridal party was, and none of them were armed or armoured either. So I’m still going to say I’ve faced worse odds, actually.”

Silence greeted this announcement. Brosca broke it.

“Wait no, hang on” She began “All those times you said that, you were actually comparing it to a fight you were in? You weren’t just blowing smoke up your own ass?”

Tabris shrugged uncomfortably. Brosca let out a tiny, incredulous laugh before speaking again.

“When the fuck was this? What the fuck happened? How did you survive that?”

Adenine set her shoulders against the door and leaned back against it, keeping an eye on the hallway leading to the rest of the fort and tried her best to ignore her rapt audience.

“The former Arl’s son had a thing for elf girls.” She started “His bad luck that he came looking on my wedding day. Took me and four or five others back to his palace, locked us in the pantry. Came to get us one by one.”

She was staring down the hallway, determinedly not meeting any of their eyes.

“My cousin, Soris, snuck in through the servant’s entrance. Brought Duncan’s longsword. Found us just as the guards were coming for me. I fought through the palace with nothing but that borrowed longsword and a kitchen knife, tripping over my wedding gown and protecting the other girls from the alienage on the way. Had to find my cousin, too. She had been grabbed ahead of me. Got out, eventually, but forty palace guards, a handful of body guards and an arl’s son on one side, and me and my cousin who could barely use a bow on the other?” She snorted. “Most days I’m still surprised I made it out of there alive.”

“So, this Arl’s son” Surana asked “Was it the same one who had a passage to the torture rooms hidden in his bedchamber?”

Adenine nodded.

“And you killed him?”

“I took his blighted head clean off his shoulders.”

Surana nodded with vicious satisfaction.

“Thank you for telling us” That was Mahariel.

“No, I should have told you all sooner.” Tabris scrubbed one hand over her face. “I just- They purged my alienage because of this. Found out when we came back to Denerim looking for Genitivi. I was going to tell you all after we left the city that first time. I was, but I couldn’t face that. I was a mess for days afterwards, you all remember. Could barely talk at all, let alone tell this particular story. Just when I was ready to tell you all about the wedding itself, I find out that I caused the deaths of likely three or four dozen of the people I’d grown up with. I’d escaped the odds, but no one else did.”

She scuffed her bare foot against the floor of the cell.

“So that’s the story. Now you know.”

“Don’t suppose we could expect a repeat performance from your cousin, huh?” asked Cousland “No unexpected armed help bursting through the doors at any minute?”

“I’m not sure I would call it unexpected help, actually” Adenine said wryly “I’d be more surprised if the rest of our group didn’t launch a daring rescue.”

“Who do you think it’ll be?” Asked Alistair “Oghren and Shale, maybe? Ooh! Sten and the dog, perhaps?”

“Nonono” Cousland jumped in “It’s gonna be Zevran and Leliana for sure. A former crow and a former bard? They could charm or bluff through any door in the place.”

“Morrigan won’t like being left behind” Mahariel said “She’ll want to be here”

“That’s because she likes you” Amell teased “Wouldn’t let her beau be rescued by anyone else.”

“We’re not courting!”

“She never said you were, buddy.”

Adenine stifled an entirely inappropriate laugh in the back of her hand as Mahariel sputtered protests in the face of needling by the rest of the group. Having half a dozen wardens at her back, she thought, did mountains towards swinging the odds in her favour.

(Years later, new wardens assume she is referring to the final battle with the archdemon when the she says this. Warden Commander Tabris lets them believe what they will.)

Chapter Text

It started on a rare, precious lazy afternoon among the wardens. Camp was set up with an hour of daylight to spare, and Mahariel and Aeducan had set off for the woods a half-hour before looking so fresh meat to add to Alistair’s infamous ‘Ferelden stew’. Cousland was set up beside Brosca on the edge of camp, enjoying the last of the weak autumn sunshine. Brosca had her head tipped back, angling her face up to drink up the rays before the sun disappeared under behind the tips of trees to the west, and Cousland was rewrapping the leather grip on one of his daggers. The bowl of beech nuts they were ostensibly out there to crack was full by their feet, the shells scattered on the dirt around them, and for once, for once, they could take a few moments to relax.

They could hear the rest of the party talking to one another back at camp, indistinct with distance, though occasionally the breeze would snatch a laugh, or a fragment of conversation or a note from Leliana’s lute and bring it to them clear and clean as spring water. Brosca hummed in contentment beside him. Cousland pulled the last leather strap tight around the handle of his dagger before sheathing it and turning to look at her. She grinned back up at him, before stretching so widely he could hear cracks from both her elbows and half her spine.

“My mother always said that popping your joints like that would give you arthritis.” Cousland said. Once, his tone would have been admonishing, but now he was simply making conversation. Brosca hmmd.

“They said the same thing in Dustown. I always figured I’d be dead and burnt long before I had to worry about it.” She said, leaning back against the log.

Cousland considered this, and then cracked every single one of his knuckles, one by one. Brosca laughed, and they fell back into lazy, companionable silence for a few moments before she sat up and peered off into the distance.

“See ‘em yet?” Cousland asked her.

“Maybe. Hold on” She brought a hand to shield her eyes from the sun and squinted down the road. “I think I do! Mahariel’s got something on a line, I think.”

“Fish, you think?” Cousland asked

“From where?” Brosca replied, letting her hand fall and settling back against the log ‘We haven’t seen anything bigger than ponds since we crossed the Hafter two days ago. Rabbits, maybe.”

“Maybe grouse or wild turkey or something” Cousland said hopefully “It’s been months since I’ve had chicken.”

Brosca closed her eyes again “Just about any meat’s an improvement on nug, I’m gonna level with you here. Plus, actual greens are still exciting for me. I think I’ve put on five pounds since Duncan hauled my sorry ass outta Orzammar.”

Cousland peered down at her “No way. No one can gain weight with a grey warden appetite on the road. I must have lost twice that since the joining.”

“No joke!” She protested “Look, I have tits now and everything!” she clapped her hands to her chest through her leather armour and wiggled her eyebrows at him. Cousland laughed as she continued.

“Three squares a day is three squares a day, Cousland. I’m eating better now than I have, even the months I had coin to spare back home.”

She looked like she was about to continue, but squinted down the road and made a satisfied noise at the back of her throat

“I was right, rabbits! Looks they found a warren, Mahariel’s got a solid half dozen there.”

Cousland squinted down the road, and saw the small figures of the dalish elf and the once-princely dwarf making their way towards them. He could just make out that they were gesturing at one another, Mahariel swinging the string of rabbits around as they talked.

“Arguing again.” Cousland surmised.

“Not surprising” Brosca agreed. “Fucker’s been riding Mahariel pretty hard ever since he and Morrigan started doing whatever it is their doing.”

And then the breeze picked up, and carried a snippet of their argument to Brosca and Cousland as clearly as if they had been talking right beside them.

“Can I get you a ladder?” came Mahariel’s voice, cracking slightly in anger “So you can get off my back?”

Brosca dropped her hand in shock, and and turned to look at Cousland, a grin creeping across her face

“Did you-?”

Cousland nodded, trying to contain his smother his laughter behind one hand

“Holy shit” Brosca said, her grin widening even more “That’s fucking incredible. I’m going to use that forever”

“Brosca you are four feet tall!”

“I am,” she said, the seriousness of her tone undercut by the grin on her face “Going to use that forever”

And Cousland lost it completely.

Aeducan and Mahariel found the two of them wheezing with laughter leaning against each other, repeating the phrase to each other in increasingly breathless laughter. Brosca relayed the tale to the rest of the group that night, and before long, the rest of the group was using it too. At first tounge-in-cheek, but, as happens with supposed jokes, it seeped into the group’s everyday language. At least, that’s what Cousland assumed to be true. It did seem to be the only explanation for what happened at the landsmeet, over half a year later.

Cousland stood at Anora’s side, Loghain lay unconscious on the floor, and Alistair was preparing to swear off the Therin bloodline permanently when he was interrupted by Arl Eamon.

“Alistair” the man practically begged “I implore you, think about what you are doing!”

“What I’ve always wanted to?” Alistair asked him “The Couslands are practically royalty already! Half the country wanted his father to rule instead of Cailan, he’s been trained to rule an arling, he knows which fork to use, he’s far better suited to rule than I am.”

“Alistair” He said again “I will not allow you to-“

Alistair wheeled on him, and it seemed to Cousland Arl Eamon realized all at once that Alistair was no longer the boy he had made sleep on the floor in the barn. That this Alistair, who had been through Templar trainging and a part of the grey wardens for a year and a half was an entirely different creature from the boy he had once been able to influence and intimidate. Eamon took a step back from an Alistair who was a stranger to him, who had been on the road for a year dealing with dangers and kingdoms that Eamon had never seen, who had taken orders from and fallen in love with an elf.

“Maker Eamon!” Alistair said, on the edge of losing his patience “Can I get you a ladder?”

And then, from around the hall, came seven other voices chorusing in reflex;

“So you can get off my back?”

Eamon took another step back, and Anora turned to regard Cousland with the inscrutable regal stare that had made her such an effective ruler alongside her mostly-absent husband, and raised a single eyebrow.

“Are those” She said in an undertone to him “your first words as prince consort?”

Cousland looked at her, and then back out at the collected wardens, which he stood apart from instead of alongside, raised on a dais beside the queen of Ferelden.

“No.” He said “But I think they were my last words as a Warden.”