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Out there, campfires are the closest you can get to home. Sometimes, you think to yourself that you can almost taste it again.
If asked to describe the very first ones, however - alone with Duncan on your way to Ostagar, leaving behind a charred past you could never go back to and facing a future bleaker than you ever could have imagined - home wouldn’t be the first concept that comes to your mind. You would speak of doubt, fear, nightmares, darkness - yes, but not ‘home’.
Duncan is a warm man, in his manner. You cannot take that from him. But his cryptic ways, at a time when you crave answers more than ever to the thousand questions running around your head, are not what you need. He does see your fear, and does do his best to appease you; his best is not enough. But you appreciate that he tried.
And so the journey to Ostagar sees you mostly alone with yourself, processing your grief, curled in the light of the campfire, arms clutched around yourself. Reminiscing memories of your family, your friends, your home, helps as much as it hurts. Many nights, Duncan hears you crying yourself to sleep. He leaves you alone, knowing you need time to harden yourself.
And harden yourself you do. By the time you arrive to the fallen city, you have crafted a shield around yourself, knowing that life continues no matter what you do, and that you will in time find a new purpose to it. The Blight is coming, and coming strong, if Duncan is to be believed (you believe he is). Any capable swords and the brains to match will be welcome in the fight, and you happen to possess both. Might as well find them a use.
It’s what your mother and father died for, you convince yourself (try to). So that you could thrive in a world that would thrive as well. You can’t rebuild the House of Cousland surrounded with traitors, darkspawn, and the Maker knows what else. You have to cleanse Ferelden. To ward off evil.
So maybe becoming a Grey Warden is the way to do that. It certainly is a way, at the very least. Somewhere to start. You have a gut feeling that it is here that you were meant to go, and a strong tendency to trust your gut feelings.
Your gut feeling also suggests you run when you come face to face with the first darkspawn you ever see, but this time you don’t listen. The creature came out of nowhere, springing from behind a bush and running towards you like it was born to rip your heart out of your chest. Such determination to spread death and misery is the one thing that will never cease to baffle you about these guys. But you come back in one piece, with parchments in your pockets, strength in your heart and new nightmares in your head.
And then you witness two of your new brothers in arms die for no reason other than sheer bad luck, before you communiate with Hell in a dark mockery of eucharisty, sealing your fate in more ways than you can imagine at the time.
That night’s campfire is a pyre, and nearly all your hope burns on it along with king Cailan, Duncan, and the biggest army Ferelden had seen in decades. You wake up shivering in a home that isn’t yours, witches calling you the last of your kind. You take the burden, partially because you know that no one else can or will, and that for some extraordinary reason, you of all people are the one fated with saving the world - mostly because there is nothing else you can do. You can’t walk away - the Blight won’t stop unless it is stopped. You can’t pretend nothing is wrong, make your peace with the Maker, and wait for death like everyone else. You can’t pretend this isn’t your life now, because you have no life of your own anymore, and no will to create one.
But then, you’re not exactly the last of your kind. There’s Alistair. Alistair who somehow survived and wishes he’d died. Alistair who’s just as much of a wreck as you are, just as much of a lost sheep, and who shoulders the load with just as much determination as you do.
The way he looks at you when he realises you’re alive, when he realises he’s not entirely alone, is enough to give you the strength to go on at least another day. You barely know one another, but you need him and he needs you; from now on, you’re anchors to each other. You’re something to come back home to, if such a thing still exists.
As it turns out, such a thing does; you find out day after day, battle after battle, campfire after campfire.
Along the way, you pick up new people. Many people - many of which are just passing through, but some do stick around.
There’s Morrigan, who never asked to be here but stays nonetheless, passively agreeing to saving a world she never cared for nor lived in. You think the actual reason why she stays is she might be enjoying the thrill of the adventure much more than she fears death. And the Maker knows there is adventure in your wake.
There’s Leliana, who sings and saunters and brings some heartfelt laughter wherever she goes, so much so that some nights, you manage to forget about everything for a few blessed minutes, while she tells stories of starcrossed lovers and exotic lands. You even manage to forget the pain behind her eyes, and maybe she does, too.
Sten, who’s a boulder (a menacing boulder, which is unnatural and frankly unnerving, Alistair mutters one evening, squinting at the Qunari warrior who’s literally just standing some thirty feet away from the fire, staring at the trees above your head, his face completely blank).
Zevran - you’re still unsure about that one, and watch him closely. Chaka, your mabari hound, seems weary around the assassin, and you share the feeling. You feel slightly sorry for the elf that no one seems to trust him, but he seems alright with it, and you’re better off safe than sorry.
And you know more people will join; you’ve got a knack for seeing assets where Alistair or Morrigan only see either a threat or an obstacle. And, quite frankly, you like winning people over. They don’t understand - the former templar still has some trouble seeing the world in other shades than black or white, his moral compass a bit too stiff to your taste (but then, you’re a rogue at heart, while he’s a warrior. He’s all brute, pure, focused and single-minded strength; you’re all cunning and compromise, your mind going a hundred different directions at once). And the witch, well- Morrigan simply doesn’t understand the concept of befriending people just yet. She thinks survival of the fittest. There’s predator and prey, one side to pick, and no in-between. Either you eat people, or they eat you. It’s funny, really, how similar she and Alistair can be, for people who are constantly inches away from killing each other. You watch them bicker, and a fond smile sneaks up on you, lighting your face.
All these people make for a merry band, an unlikely team of misfits, loosers and renegates, all rejected from the world they’re trying to save in one way or another. And in the middle of all this, you stand, the one stitch that holds it all together, the peace maker. Some nights, when everyone is gathered round the fire, listening to Leliana’s stories intersped with Zevran’s sarcastic quips, an argument over something ridiculous (generally involving Morrigan, Alistair, and a steady flow of insults on both sides), or simply just chatting like civilised people - granted, that doesn’t happen often - you look at your crew (your crew, you think; the people you gathered, who chose to follow you), and you feel something tighten in your chest. It’s a familiar feeling that brings up a whole lot of things you don’t really want brought up, but you tolerate it, because it’s something you used to think you would never feel again. You remember it from times and times again as a child, curled up with Chaka at your father’s feet in Highever’s drawing room; having your mother brush your hair, teach you how to tie your shoes; playing with wooden swords in the yard, being beaten by Fergus, until you become better than him and he decides it's not funny anymore; holding your newborn nephew in your arms for the first time, wonder blossoming in your chest at the sight of such a tiny, fragile thing, your flesh and blood, your family.
Your home. That’s the feeling, and even though it’s small and strange with these new people, you know it’s what you’re finding here too. And when you come back to your senses after Zevran told a particularly gross joke that was met with laughter (Alistair, loud; Leliana, louder), groans (Morrigan, because she’s actually starting to get a hang of this kind of social interaction, although she still needs to experiment) and scorn (Sten. Sten will scorn everything and everyone. Fight him.), you feel just a little warmer, and snuggle your wolf fur cape just a little closer around yourself, the hint of a smile on your face that has nothing to do with the joke you didn’t hear.
Those campfire nights aren’t exactly an everyday thing, mind you. There will be times when you’re stranded deep in a forest infested with darkspawn and you can’t afford a fire that would betray your position. There will be other times when people have gone on errands of their own or simply do not care for your presence and go plant their tent a couple dozen feet away. Everyone needs their me time, even Alistair, who’s the least me-kind of person you’ve ever met (once, he literally rescued a kitten stuck in a tree. Morrigan was mortified). You respect that. Some nights, you can’t bear to see their faces, either, because you shouldn’t be here. You shouldn’t be sleeping in the woods, stranded and alone, fighting dragons and evil spirits to save the world. Maybe this is what you were born for, but it certainly isn’t what you grew up for.
You often think about Fergus. Sometimes you imagine he’s alive, out there somewhere, maybe looking for you. Sometimes you’re certain he’s dead, his body half devoured by darkspawn and wolves, rotting away in some burning village. Sometimes you wonder if he wouldn't be better off dead, remembering he lost even more than you did. You wake up at night, haunted by visions of your brother coming home to a slaughtered family, Howe sitting on your father's throne, sentencing Fergus to death as though he has any right to do so, while you’re hundreds of miles away, saving other people’s lives to make up for not saving your own people. But no matter what happened, no matter what you believe, one thing remains the same: you vow to search heaven and earth until you find him. In the morning, your eyes are caught by Alistair’s over the dead campfire as you pack your things, and he offers a nod, a grimace, sometimes a hint of a smile. He knows the look on your face, because he’s wearing the same on his own. He told you about the nightmares eventually, about how you would probably spend your remaining days enduring a restless, tortured sleep, visions of Hell, monsters whispering in your ear, but knowing what’s happening to you doesn’t make it easier; if anything, it makes it worse, to know that it’s not just a dream - that the things you see are more real than anything the Fade can conjure up.
But then, you look at your people, and you realise that this, too, is real. Home is no longer a charred relic from the past; it’s within your reach, you have it already, a safe haven you draw back into when you can’t face the world. A sliver of hope, flicker of light in the darkness.