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He awoke to the sound of howling. Alistair paused, a hand on his sword, listening. It was hard to discern anything over the violent winds and thunder, but he heard it. Two voices, one canine and one human. And both sounded like they were right outside his tent.
Alistair pitched himself forward, drawing his blade from its scabbard, and ducked out of his tent. The rain was practically falling sideways from the wind, soaking him instantly, and the thunder made the ground below him tremble. His ribcage vibrated with it. But where he had expected barbarians or thieves, he instead found his fellow Warden. She was barefoot, pale feet covered in mud and ash, blond hair soaked so heavily it was a dark brown. She was grinning at the sky, and then him. Her eyes were wide and her cheeks flushed red. She looked like a child in a sweets shop. Around the campsite he could see his fellow companions staring from inside their tents. Thespin stood beside her, mouth hung open and backside wagging.
"Isn't it incredible?!" she cried over the wind. "A real thunderstorm!"
Somewhere to his left Zevran began laughing. Natalia joined him.
"Is this normal human behavior?" Sten asked from across the campsite as Natalia threw her head back and howled again. Thespin added his voice to hers.
"Enough, let her have her fun." This came from Wynne, on Alistair's right. He stared at the old woman incredulously.
"She'll get sick if we let her go on like this." he argued. Natalia raised her hands, fingers outstretched as if she could feel every drop of rain that fell around them. Wynne shook her head slowly.
"She's been locked up in the Circle for years. No doubt this is her first time really seeing a thunderstorm."
"It is!" she cried in response, and laughed again. Rain dripped from her chin, her nose, her hair. She was soaked, just as much as Alistair was, the skirts of her robes clinging to her legs. "It's incredible! Watch it with me?" she asked, holding out her hand. Sten grunted and closed his tent. Zevran followed it with something Alistair didn't pay any attention to before doing the same.
Alistair remembered when he was a child, fascinated by rain and thunder and always dragged away from it, usually by a very annoyed servant to be brought before a very annoyed Isolde. He knew they'd both be shivering cold, fighting to peel out of their wet clothes, probably would end up sick and having to stop their already time-sensitive journey for them to get better. But he couldn't say no to that face. She grinned at him like a child, all teeth and dimples and pure joy. So he tossed his blade back into his tent and took her hand. And when she and Thespin howled again at the crack of thunder above, Alistair howled with them.