Archive of Our Own

I.

Morrigan rubbed the poultice over the base of her thumb in futile motions. Her temper had dissipated a step or two, an easing decline with the steady quiet of taking the night watch. Well—“taking” was an understatement, perhaps. In the wake of her latest skirmish with the odious elder circle mage, the all-night no-relief shift with said witch was the Warden’s punishment. Morrigan was glad at least that Wynne occupied the other side of the camp, away from her view or earshot, and that she didn’t have to cook tonight.

Wynne had put up a nice fight, though; she had a newfound propensity for flames, and they had licked deep into the tissue of Morrigan’s hand and elbow despite her best attempts to evade them. She would be impressed if she did not detest the prized Chantry horse so. Wynne had struck Morrigan first for telling the truth, that she was the embodiment of hypocrisy and frankly a hack, and it had boiled Morrigan’s blood. The audacity to condemn the very magic that coursed through her veins, to be a mindless mouthpiece of Chantry propaganda whilst believing this was her choice and feeding into the fear of mages, only to make herself a singular exception—and then to hide it. Oh no, Morrigan would not be fooled, and she had said so, loudly—which Wynne did not appear to like very much. In the retrospect of one hour, it gave Morrigan satisfaction to know that she could whittle away even Wynne’s sanctimony. That she could make her worse.

But the revelry in such degradation of Wynne’s character tasted less sweet with the accusation that Morrigan had not considered the fresh murder of Cousland’s mother before asking her to slay Morrigan’s own. It was true, she hadn’t—because the Warden had accepted the task and did it quickly with no complaint. Last of the Couslands or no, Adelle was a stubborn snake like any other of noble Fereldan blood; had she any real quarrel with Morrigan, she’d have said. And she had. Like she had tonight, scolding her and Wynne like miscreant children, for undermining her leadership and embarrassing her in front of their other companions, so on and so fucking forth.

The elfroot was too weak to salvage the nerves in her hand, and Morrigan scowled. She scowled deeper upon hearing footfalls behind her.

“Leaving your post to finish me off?” said Morrigan, hiding the wince that resulted when she turned to look at the approaching Wynne. “As if you could ever. Were it not for the Warden’s sake, you would be dead by my hand.”

Wynne was unfazed by the threat and said, “Your good hand, I assume.”

“Die.”

“I did not come here to quarrel with you, Morrigan. Let me see your arm.”

A moment passed before Morrigan turned her head away. It was one thing to accept Wynne’s healing in the middle or aftermath of battle, but this time it took shoving aside an amount of pride. She did not protest further, and instead petulantly surrendered the afflicted limb as the senior enchanter knelt beside her. After all, Wynne had put the burns there, and it was only right that she removed them.

With a warm touch to her elbow and then to her wrist that Morrigan wanted badly to flinch from, the healing was done quickly. Morrigan neither gave thanks, nor did she reveal her jealousy at the spell she did not yet have, and instead yanked her hand away back to her person, glancing askance at Wynne to witness the resulting frown that stitched itself back into a coerced kindness.

“I must apologize to you.”

“How sweet. I do not accept. Leave my sight.”

Wynne, stubborn mule that she was, remained uncowed. “It was uncharacteristic of me, and I gave into weakness. Surely you are familiar with such foibles.”

Being young and rash and an idiot apostate of the Wilds, was perhaps the unsaid sentiment, and Morrigan bristled. “Or maybe,” she said, “the spirit animating your decrepit body is not as benign as you want so badly to believe.” This made Wynne’s jaw clench, and Morrigan smirked coolly. “Oh, I have touched a nerve! How exciting.”

“As you often do, even to those you owe civility to,” Wynne snapped and stood up, the matronly facade slipping into something bilious.

“I owe nothing to you.”

“No, perhaps not. But you owe the Warden, who regards you as her friend for a reason nobody else here can seem to perceive.”

Snarling, Morrigan rose and hissed nearly nose-to-nose with Wynne, “And yet you have not told her about your little secret, have you? Do not talk to me about the Warden, old woman, she can speak for herself. She is not your child or your ward or whatever which relationship you keep imposing on everyone here. You are pathetic and full of incessant shallow platitudes, and when the Warden no longer has use for your senile bag of bones I shall gladly be the one that tosses you back into the Circle and lets the templars deal with you.”

The lines on Wynne’s face hardened, and Morrigan felt the air around them vibrate with channeled mana. For a moment, she thought she would have the delicious opportunity to bludgeon Wynne to death right here and now, but that fantasy was cut short when the Warden came up behind them.

“When I put you both on watch,” Cousland said with a calm that still betrayed impatience, “the idea was to deter any more pointless wrangling. What else must I do? Force you both into a ‘get-along’ sweater? I think Sten’s shirt should do.”

Desisting, the mages stepped away from each other; Wynne delivered an earnest apology to the Warden that lacked all the underhanded insult she offered to Morrigan just moments ago, and she returned to her post.

Adelle waited from where she stood until Wynne could hear them no longer, crossing her arms and looking sternly at Morrigan meanwhile.

“Morrigan,” said the Warden.

“I hate that woman,” replied Morrigan plainly.

“And I am sure it is mutual. That tends to be the case when you suggest that you’d not suffer any Circle mage to live.”

“Oh, such awareness you show! Yet you brought her along in a matter that only concerned us two.”

“Mm, because taking down Flemeth, the Witch of the Wilds, was a one-person job. Wynne is the only reason why your mother did not flay me alive before coming here to flay you alive.” Morrigan pinched her mouth shut, because she could not argue with the fact. After a time, Cousland sighed, and regarded Morrigan with her usual fondness. “Think and feel however you like. I don’t care to control that. But we are nevertheless a team. All of us. Idiotic fights like that cannot happen again. Not with the Blight—“

“Oh, yes, yes I know, save your lecture. If I had wanted one I would have allowed it from the crone.”

Cousland laughed dryly. “You’ll do well to remember, Witch.”

“Blue-blood.”

“Get in the sun a tad more and then we’ll talk.”

Morrigan gave her a harmless shove, and the Warden returned it.

“So, what?” asked Morrigan after the mild horseplay ceased. “Did you suffer much, completing my favor?”

“I am here, am I not?”

“That is… not what I meant.” What Morrigan meant was indeed harder to articulate, not without feeling like a fool or like she was entertaining or giving credence to any of Wynne’s wretched words.

“On the Maker, are you asking how I feel?” said Adelle, catching her anyway, her dark eyes widening. “Wynne did a number on you, didn’t she.”

“Adelaide.”

The Warden hummed, sobering. “Perhaps.” She took a moment to calculate her answer. “But let us not let my grief get in the way of what needs to be done.”

“Happily,” Morrigan said, not unkindly.

She allowed the Warden one brief touch to the shoulder, then sent her back to her tent to resume watching the night without a heavy blink, until the sun tinted the sky.

And so it went. The pitiless apostate kept better watch of her tongue, and Wynne remembered to thicken her skin when she did not. It was simple enough. The older mage was on borrowed time, as the swamptress was so very aware, and she would not spend it thinking too hard on these petty matters, not with the Blight ever encroaching.

They were on their second day of returning to Redcliffe from Haven with the ashes needed to cure the Arl of his sickness. With Ferelden’s ongoing shortage of horses, the younger companions with the decorum to do so took turns on one mount while Wynne occupied the other full-time. It was a loftier alternative to being inside Bodahn’s wagon, where poorly-secured cargo risked toppling over its passenger. Sten went entirely on foot, admitting to no weariness or soreness that could invite Wynne’s offer to ward him; Zevran complained loudly in between asking to steer the mount for Wynne, which was merely an obscene and transparent attempt for him to feel her press onto his back. This eventually went completely ignored as Wynne simply leafed through the latest book the Warden had acquired for her.

Then all became quiet as the Warden lifted her hand in a stopping motion, and they awaited further command. Flying as a hawk overhead, Morrigan’s wide berth became narrower as she turned around and dipped low to land on Adelle’s anticipating arm. “They’re waiting for us,” she said through her beak, voice wispy, “Eight or nine with sword, three archers, one emissary. Those of the latter have a terrain advantage.”

The Warden thought for a moment, then nodded, releasing Morrigan as she took off and shifted back into her human form. With a hand signal—one person assigned each digit—Cousland called for both mages and Sten to follow her ahead, and for the remaining to guard the dwarves.

It was not long until the cacophony of battle ensued. The warriors faced assault head-on in the incline of the valley as the mages lingered behind on level with the ranged hurlocks.

“Take the left,” Wynne instructed Morrigan, to which the reply was a cold scoff, despite the chain of shock that she rippled through the archers. On the right, Wynne hurled a fireball at the emissary, the impact knocking back the remaining around it. (She held back a smirk; the thrill of fire could be a little tempting, sometimes.)

With the archers and emissary indisposed, the Warden swung her shield in signal to the rest of them, and one by one the Darkspawn fell as each was made a target of both warriors and the mages that flanked them from above.

Easy enough, perhaps—but then as the last genlock fell, Wynne saw too late an arrow in her direction, which grazed her shoulder and turned the torn sleeve there bright red. With immediacy, Morrigan aimed her staff and froze the still-living archer in place, and Wynne cast a stoned fist that shattered it.

“Perhaps ensure your enemy is truly dead before you move on,” Wynne said reprovingly.

Another cold scoff. “’Tis no fault of mine if a simple cut of a missed arrow can disarm you so.” Nonetheless, Morrigan helped her apply the poultice from her pockets when Wynne rolled up her sleeve and wiped the blood away. How the apostate could divorce civility with allyship was beyond her—that separation would cost them, one of these days.

“Everyone alright?” asked the Warden as she and Sten came up the valley with their blades and armor stained red. An arrow poked out of Sten’s forearm, but he simply yanked it out without so much as a grunt.

“We shall live yet another day,” Morrigan said, then added flatly, “Hurrah.”

As they walked back to the wagon, Wynne noticed that each step became heavier than the next, which she dismissed at first as fatigue until her vision began to blur. The backs of her companions swayed unnaturally like spirits in the Fade, with muffled chatter between them sounding as if underwater.

Oh, Wynne thought, Not now. The hold of the Spirit within her loosened, like a mother coaxing a child to swim on its own. But the water was too deep, moved too much. And then Wynne fell.

Hitting the ground, the nothingness was shocked back into recession, and Wynne became very aware of the press of her bones in the pavement, the dirt and dust creeping into her lungs. All attention was turned her way, and the Warden rushed to her side. Saving face, Wynne stood herself up and brushed her robes off, a front of normalcy that was negated by the quick beating of fright in her heart.

“Wynne?” The Warden’s brow furrowed deeply, hands hovering in case of another fall.

The buzz of the blackout still lingered, and Wynne held her head. “For a moment there, I thought I was…” she murmured. “I thought it was all over.”

The Warden looked at her curiously. “The fight is over, if that’s what you mean.”

Wynne stilled as everything became lucid again. The eyes on her, ranging from concern to passivity, made her feel heavy with guilt.

And then it was Morrigan that spoke. “I don’t think that is,” she said slowly, glaring, “quite what she means. Is it, Wynne.”

The gall of the remark chafed like flint. Wynne declared, less feebly, “I will explain everything when we are back at camp. Now is not the time.”

The Warden studied her for a moment, calculating, and very namely not indulging her apostate friend. “We’re not far from Redcliffe,” she said finally, addressing the group. “Let us go with haste.”

As repayment for his health and wellness, the Arl awarded the Grey Wardens and their companions shining supplies and pay for an indefinite stay in the village’s tavern, however long they needed before their next departure. Under the castle's roof would have been more appropriate, Eamon had said, but perhaps they’d not like to sleep in such bloodstained quarters. The stench of shambling corpses still lingered despite weeks of clean out, and it would not go away any time soon. The Arl himself itched to leave to his Denerim estate for the Landsmeet, but understood begrudgingly that the wardens still had a remainder of two treaties to make good on.

As promised, Wynne told the Warden the truth. Were she to fall in a more permanent state of indisposed, that would leave only the wretch called Morrigan to answer why—she who would either say nothing at all or use it to slander Wynne when another strike to the face for her wicked impertinence was no longer possible.

Seated together at a table by the fire of the empty tavern, Wynne recounted the incident in the tower to Adelle. How she intervened between a demon and Petra, and how it had cost her life—until it had not. Until a spirit had reached through the Fade and willed her heart to beat again with a firm grasp. Wynne could see Adelle put together the pieces, why their conversation about possession and what constituted an abomination or not an abomination had occurred in the first place. She could perhaps see now, too, why Morrigan reviled her to an interminable degree. Wynne told Adelle this, but the Warden only held sadness, even when she was not saying so. Excusing herself to contemplate this new knowledge in private, the Warden left Wynne alone.

At last call, Wynne besought the barkeep for an ale. She drank in isolation by the fire, thoughts swimming, careening, settling. She had spent quite a deal of time thinking about death and all its implications; what was another half hour of it? At the end of her meditation, she decided that if she lived to see the end of the blight, she would find her son. She would go quietly when death claimed her, but until then, this was one lighthouse she would like to sail to. The Spirit buzzed in agreement inside her body; or perhaps it was just the drink.

Becoming too warm, Wynne took the stein outside to overlook the cliff, and regretfully found Morrigan, who set up her own little camp at the base of the slope in a desiccated niche.

“Well, what have we here?” said she, and Wynne sighed and addressed her, against her better judgment.

“The inn too civilized for you, is it?”

The witch laughed mirthlessly. “I wonder,” began Morrigan, languorously picking at the leaves of an herb by the fire. “Have you given thought to, perhaps, prolonging your life by forcing another spirit into your service?”

Wynne frowned. “Of course not.”

“I would.”

“Color me surprised.”

“Of course, I am still young, beautiful, and my life is my own,” Morrigan boasted haughtily, “while you are bound to that Circle. Hmm. I wonder why I asked. It would be a silly thing, prolonging your life.” She snarled when Wynne gave her no reaction. “A waste.”

Scoffing darkly, Wynne downed the rest of her ale, and swung the empty stein dismissively in Morrigan’s direction, furrowing her brow and looking at the floor. “Think what you will, Morrigan. When the end comes, I will go gladly to my rest, proud of my achievements. While you…” Wynne shook her head, meeting the challenge in the apostate’s narrowed eyes, one lost cause to another. “You will see how empty your life was. You will realize that because you never had love for others, you never received love in return. And you will die alone and unmourned.”

The ale had made her brash, but she had no regret. Morrigan set her jaw, hands stilled now; perhaps she would reach for her staff. But instead she rebuilt her facade. “You speak of meaningless things. I need no one to mourn me, old woman.”

Wynne shrugged once, and turned back to walk the slope to the tavern. “More’s the pity,” she said, and meant it.

And from the corner of her eye, she saw Morrigan sitting still, until she flung the herbs into the fire.

II.

The one time the Warden took only Morrigan without Wynne turned out to be a near fatal mistake. It was for optics, Adelle said—she wanted those in her party who were the most removed from Chantry as possible, in order to make the treaty as agreeable as possible.

Well, such luck for that. In retrospect, Morrigan would know that Cousland was always going to be fine—that it took much more than the tight grasp of an ogre to crush her stubborn ribs.

But right now she could not be afforded such knowledge. Each of the four of them were already sustaining injuries from their forays into the Brecilian Forest and their subsequent handling of the cursed wolves when the Darkspawn had ambushed them. Taking form of a bear, Morrigan carried the Warden on her back as Sten and Zevran—respectively soldiering through a cracked skull and a wrenched arm—ran alongside her, making sure the Warden did not slip and roll away. It was difficult to do. Her body was limp, her heartbeat faint.

Leliana was the first to see them in the distance, and lucky for the Warden that she had taste in smart and perceptive quick-acting women for lovers. By the time they reached the center of the camp, the bedroll was laid out with Wynne kneeling beside it at the ready with the contents of her bag splayed out for her disposal. Morrigan bowed, and Sten and Zevran eased Adelle into lying prone on the roll.

The sight of her was ghastly. Where she was not red, she was purple, with the whites of her eyes visible as they rolled up underneath her half-open lids. Shaping herself out of the bear form, Morrigan took the other side of the Warden to help undo the leather clasps of her breastplate, then lifted her head carefully as Wynne removed the shoulder pads. When they removed the rest of her armor and cut open Adelle’s tunic, Leliana audibly gasped, and it took a sharp inhale for Morrigan not to join her.

Wynne frowned, but was not nearly as disturbed. She examined Adelle with a clinical eye. “This will take some time,” she said to Leliana. “Help Alistair attend to the others. I will take care here.”

Nodding and clearly secure in her trust for Wynne’s abilities, Leliana rose, stopping first to address Morrigan. “Come on, let us take a look at you.”

“I am fine,” said Morrigan tightly, eyes staying morbidly on Cousland’s mangled, barely breathing body. “I will stay.”

“You need not,” Wynne said.

“I need no permission from you.”

“This is not the time to be contrary with me, Morrigan!”

Morrigan opened her mouth to make some frustrated retort, but it was interrupted when the Warden stirred only to cough up foamy blood, splatters of which caused Morrigan to recoil.

Then Wynne reached across and grabbed one of Morrigan’s wrists firmly, not allowing her to wrench free. “Morrigan,” she said, more gravely now. “Stop. You are shaking.”

And she was devastated to learn that it was true. She willed herself to cease, and could not even do that. Even Leliana now touched a hand to her shoulder.

“You must trust me,” said Wynne, her voice brooking no room for dissent.

Looking for one more moment at the state Adelle was in, Morrigan relented and wrangled away. She wanted to say: if she dies under your care, I will kill you. I will open up the Veil and coax a demon into your soul and then slaughter the abomination you become twofold—but it did not make it to her tongue, not when she saw the concentration on Wynne’s face as she hovered her glowing hands over the Warden’s body. Instead, Morrigan did as she was told, and left Adelle’s side.

There was less than an hour left of light when Wynne finished, and Adelle was carried delicately back into her tent for a long, but not too long, rest. Having tended to the more superficial injuries of her teammates as well as her own, Morrigan sat by the lake with a washbasin and scrubbed the blood off of the Warden’s armor. She did this in a meditative state, with a focus and diligence that distracted from the more unhelpful thoughts stirring in her mind. Thoughts that forcibly replayed the moment when Morrigan could not summon up the mana quick enough to frost the ogre before it grabbed Adelle, and gave one good horrific squeeze. Sten’s sword went through the back of its throat, and by that time Zevran’s daggers had joined the Ashala blade piercing its chest. Meanwhile Morrigan had stood there, useless and depleted.

She shook those thoughts away as they crept up again, if only to school her expression back into calm determination as Wynne ambled up toward her.

Wynne did not speak. She sat near Morrigan and merely held out her hand, and wordlessly Morrigan gave her a piece of the armor and a clean cloth to dry it. They worked together in continued silence; it was the quietest they’d ever been with each other, perhaps.

Then the elder mage broke it. “I had never seen you so rattled,” she said carefully, now taking the breastplate when Morrigan got the last of the blood out. “I sincerely almost thought you incapable.”

Morrigan began to scrub the last blood-encrusted boot. The motions grounded her, and made her think of the first time she did this for the Warden, who living as a well-to-do noble did not exactly have the same practical skill set as one who had lived subsisting on the wilderness. The first time was the last, before this, of course; Morrigan was no lady’s maid, and besides Alistair had begun to ask her for these favors and she would not tolerate even the asking. It was already enough that no one else knew how to cook.

“I have been thinking about what you said,” Morrigan stated quietly, like the admission was one of weakness. “That I… have never loved anyone.”

Wynne sagged her shoulders with a sad smile that Morrigan could not look directly at. “Clearly I was mistaken.”

“I—“ Morrigan cleared her throat. “I have never had a friend, nor considered that I would ever desire one, before the Warden. I know I have not always proved worthy of her friendship, but I cherish it all the same. This I have told her as much. And had you not helped her in time, she would have been lost to me.” The Warden’s things were clean now, and laid out on a cloth between them. Morrigan would polish them with oils, later. A somber moment passed, and she was unnerved with the raw vulnerability of it. She swapped a moody gaze for a smirk. “And then where would we be? Under Alistair’s leadership? I do not think we would survive an evening.”

Scoffing lightly, Wynne looked away and beyond. “I suppose this is your way of saying thank you.”

“I do not owe you thanks. ‘Twas not my own life you saved.”

“Hmm.” Wynne waved her hand dismissively, at the moment she perhaps thought they were to have.

And Morrigan… found herself wanting to give it to her, anyhow. But it was foreign in her mouth, and moved strangely on her tongue. She said, “If you are so keen on my gratitude, there is one thing I would ask of you.”

“And that is?”

“To teach me.” At this, Wynne’s eyebrows rose. “Your healing spells. It is in my mother’s grimoire, yes, but—I am having trouble. And I do not want this to happen again. It should not be that I cannot provide something when I could easily be relied on for it. Should your precious spirit leave you, I need to know how to do more than apply wet herbs and cover with gauze.”

When she stopped speaking, it was like reigning in a stubborn horse. With nothing in her hands, she gripped the tops of her knees, and endured Wynne’s stunned silence.

“I must admit I am… surprised at the vulnerability of your request,” she replied finally. “And that it is a proper request.”

“I do have concept of manners, to those who deserve them,” Morrigan mumbled defensively, which earned a chuckle from Wynne that she did not know how to respond to.

“Very well,” said the senior enchanter, rising. She crossed her arms and scrutinized Morrigan with narrowed eyes, not maliciously, but to assess her. “To be frank I remain skeptical of your ability to use the spirits responsibly. But we shall start small with creation healing, won’t we? The Warden requires considerable time to recover, and we will have a lot to busy ourselves with. Draw upon your fortitude, girl. I do not go so easy.”

Morrigan simply rolled her eyes and muttered, “How quickly I have come to regret this.”

The smile she received could not be looked away from; Morrigan struggled to describe it in her mind, for it was anything but the old woman’s usual patronizing or placid smile. It was only when she mirrored it that she could find the word: mischief.

The Warden nearly broke her ribs all over again learning what her mages were doing while she recovered. “Oh, Maker,” she had nearly cried in laughter, “I think Morrigan might have gotten herself possessed.” This Morrigan ignored, only because it was Adelle and not say, Alistair, whose tongue she frosted the moment he mistook her tolerance for permission.

Out of mercy, Wynne conducted their lessons in the relative privacy of Morrigan’s section of camp, though it flustered her all the same. That was a collection of thoughts and feelings to contend with at a later time, if ever, anyhow. They started small as Wynne had said: with a dagger, she would cut shallow lines into Morrigan’s palm, and walk her through the use of mana to expedite the way flesh naturally stitched itself back together. The first attempt was pitiful, managing to worsen the cut and severely endangering Morrigan’s pride. Her mentor-of-circumstance simply told her to do it again. And again, and again—until Morrigan could seal up her palm and leave no scar, which she fortunately accomplished before she could lose her patience, snatch the dagger, and turn it on Wynne.

When all that could be taught in the controlled environment of camp was exhausted, the teaching was put to the test. Staying in one place for so long attracted the bloodlust of many a wandering Darkspawn. Though practice came with a cost, Morrigan was not one to waste an opportunity.

They would need to leave, finally, at the next daybreak. An excursion to Redcliffe for rest under a roof and supplies, then they were to follow a lead at Sulcher’s Pass where the Warden would like to chase a rumor before making their way to Orzammar.

“You make a diligent student,” observed Wynne, sitting by Morrigan’s fire to take their evening meal. No one would have ever thought she’d take regular post here, and yet.

Morrigan raised a brow. “’Tis such a surprise to you that I take the arcane arts seriously?”

“Frankly, yes,” replied Wynne, taking a spoonful of stew into her mouth. She was less dignified around Morrigan, now, and she ate like she ought to for someone who was living almost exclusively in the wilderness during wartime. “What with your flagrant disregard for humility and restraint.”

“You say such sweet nothings,” said Morrigan, and Wynne gave her that look of mischief again, which somehow made her wish she had kept her mouth shut.

“I suppose it is… refreshing,” said Wynne, having clearly tried to find a softer word, “that you are nothing like an apprentice I’ve ever had. Or any mage in the Circle, at that.”

“Careful, crone. Despite our agreement I am not a project of your will.”

“Oh, no, I would not wish that on myself.” Morrigan laughed, low, and Wynne smiled with pleasure before proceeding more contemplatively. “No, but… I have been thinking. Particularly about your stance on the matter of freedom, and reveling in our talents as mages.”

Morrigan grew guarded. Of course this could only be mildly pleasant while it lasted. Keeping her eyes on Wynne and drinking from her pouch of water to hide her sudden shift in mood, she waited for the inevitable declamation in the Circle’s favor, or further judgment cast upon Morrigan and her life in the Wilds—but the lines on Wynne’s face did not harden the way it normally did when she spoke of this subject.

“When my magic first came to me, it appeared as fire,” began Wynne, a faint smile splayed on her face, lit bright by the flames crackling before them. “It served me well as a girl, when other children did not treat me kindly, of course up until the farmers locked me in a hayloft to be retrieved by the templars. In the Circle, additionally, primal magic is… discouraged. It attracts demons, you see.” Morrigan scoffed at Wynne’s knowing look, then the senior enchanter’s smile went fond. “Before we had that silly little fight, fire was a dormant magic within me.”

“That cannot be. You fling about those flames like your life depends on it.”

Wynne laughed. “Now I do, perhaps. But I am still holding back… I think for now, I wish not to. Not as much. I had missed the feeling.”

The admission was so quiet Morrigan had to repeat it in her mind to fully comprehend what had been said. Hiding her bewilderment, Morrigan said, “How curious. No longer convinced that it will turn you into an abomination?”

Scraping at the bottom of her bowl, Wynne finished the last of her meal and hummed. “That is still true, I think. But for me, what room is there left? I am already quite occupied, if a demon were seeking residency.”

And unexpectedly to the both of them, Morrigan barked with laughter, startling Alistair from across the camp.

III.

“I see you are getting along with Wynne,” said Leliana, who had slithered to Morrigan’s side as they climbed up along the Frostback Mountains, a trek she found extremely objectionable for the merciless cold, and the way Shale’s footstomps threatened an avalanche.

“An astute observer you are, for things that are not relevant.”

Her acerbic reply did not deter the bard-assassin-nun-whatever from making even more pointless chatter. “I had a running bet with Zevran, you know. Who would kill the other first. Now neither of us will see that sovereign, it seems.”

Morrigan scoffed with indignance. “I’m sorry, are you an extension of Wynne? Does my tolerance for the old woman mean I must have a kinship with you, too?”

The smile on the bard’s face was sly. “A kinship we have, perhaps, if I am right that you share my persuasion.”

The implication could stop a man dead. “Persuasion,” Morrigan repeated in a derisive stupor.

“Do you not also enjoy the company of an older woman?”

“What… are you talking about.”

She prated on, and Morrigan craved death. “When we were at the Gauntlet to retrieve the ashes, however many months ago—there was a ceremonial passing through fire that required stripping, and I was quite surprised to learn how muscular she is under those robes. It is a shame you missed it.”

The subject of their conversation, thankfully out of earshot, treaded ahead through the snow with a vigor that was now very apparent to Morrigan—and she did not appreciate it. Her mouth opened and closed, and she blinked furiously trying to gather herself.

“Oh,” said Leliana, like she was surprised, “I have made you speechless.”

“I will make you speechless with death if you do not leave me alone!” Morrigan proclaimed loudly, making those in front of her turn their heads. Grumbling, she clutched her fur cloak around herself and walked past Wynne.

“You must take care around that one, Langwynne,” Morrigan said to her, tossing her head in Leliana’s direction, who was now laughing with a confused Warden. “I hear she has an affinity for your musculature.”

Wynne blinked, then decided she was unbothered. “As well she should, I suppose.”

“As well she shou—“ Morrigan mumbled, upset, and walked off faster.

Orzammar, it turned out, would be Wynne’s favorite of their trips, despite the political upheaval for which they had yet again intervene, for a myriad of reasons. The Dwarven ale, for one, which surprised everyone including the newest of their companions, Oghren, a dwarf of the perpetually drunken variety.

Second, the Warden’s newfound zest for life after her near-death experience in the forest found itself extended to Wynne. A flip of a coin dictated their decision to back Harrowmont over the Prince Bhelen, and thus Adelle talked and meddled her way to the middle of the Proving Grounds, duking it out as they say with multiple rounds of dwarven champions. Wynne and the others watched with incredulity and amusement from above the arena—even Morrigan, who not moments ago called the entire ordeal a pointless waste of time, sweated on Adelle’s behalf during close calls.

After two rounds, Adelle was asked to choose a partner of her liking to fight the upcoming pair of challengers. As she looked up at the arena at her companions, Wynne was sure that either Alistair or Morrigan would be called upon to join her in the battle—but to her surprise, Cousland met her eye and gave her a wide grin.

“No way,” laughed Alistair. “Wynne?”

“Surely ‘tis cheating to bring a mage to a Proving,” murmured Morrigan.

“Oh, move aside,” said Wynne, pushing past them down the aisles. “And watch how it is done.”

At the conclusion of the round, made short by Wynne’s clever use of glyphs, she returned to her seat between Alistair and Morrigan, brushing off dirt from her robes with a blasé that made their gaping all the sweeter.

The Deep Roads were less pleasant. The dark caverns, the birthplace of Darkspawn and moreover the most wretched spiders Wynne had the misfortune of staving off with her staff, was a disquieting place. It was made no better when Oghren, as their mandatory guide to the Paragon, would not stop his lecherous comments punctuated by sour belching and ale-breath. It was perhaps out of their newly forged respect for one another that Morrigan, after a particularly prickling come-on, discreetly wiggled her fingers behind her back, and suddenly the dwarf had yowled in icy pain and clutched between his stubby legs. Wynne remained tight-lipped, betraying no sign of enjoyment when the Warden shoved Morrigan with an elbow and told her to behave.

Did Wynne then light the dwarf’s behind on fire when he leered at Morrigan next? If you asked her, the answer was a scandalized no.

The Broodmother they encountered was yet another experience Wynne could live another lifetime without. It was outright abominable how many tentacles one being could have, though if one were to ask Oghren, he would have noticed the amount of other body parts the beast possessed.

She and Morrigan took turns casting spells at the Broodmother from afar as the Warden and Oghren axed away at the thick tendrils protruding from the ground. Once or twice, one managed to wrap its deplorable self around Morrigan’s waist and fling her across the cavern with a crunch, and once again the Warden was shouting at her about how she needed to put on at least a fucking helmet one of these days so help me Andraste’s left tit. Quoth she, mind you.

Maneuvering to Morrigan’s side, Wynne called upon the Spirit to close the fractures in Morrigan’s skull, and helped her up.

“Thanks,” huffed Morrigan in a rare show of gratitude, blood caking above her brow. “The tempest storm is wearing away. I can’t do it again for another—“ A tentacle erupted from the ground beneath Wynne’s feet; Morrigan hastily grabbed Wynne’s hand and pulled her to run across the cave where inevitably another tentacle would find them. Not far, the Broodmother was spitting toxic substances right in the Warden’s face, who consequently screamed in anger and disgust.

“Helmet not helping you so much now, is it?” Morrigan shouted, and the Warden said something to likes of, “Fuck you!”

Wynne herself was out of breath and mildly bloodied, and she was purposely holding back any spells in hopes that the pause would replenish her thinning streams of mana. It wasn’t happening quick enough. Morrigan’s storm did indeed wear out, and freed from the unpleasant shocks, the Broodmother summoned more hurlocks at its disposal. Back to back, the mages fought them off with basic elemental blasts from their staves, occasionally throwing a stonefist or a winter’s grasp at any one of them that threatened to overpower Adelle or the dwarf.

When she finally could, Wynne cast a glyph of repulsion underneath them, which did nothing for the attacking tentacles but at least flung the hurlocks away when they got too near, allowing them some respite of range, as was comfortable. Wynne was not sure a bonk to the head with her staff would have any effect on these beasts.

“Maker it would be embarrassing to die here,” Wynne remarked.

“Another Tempest,” the Warden yelled across to Morrigan. “Just one more.”

“I cannot,” was the anguished reply.

Though it seemed endless, the wave of hurlocks ceased, and again it was the four of them against the Broodmother and her bothersome tendrils. The glyph faded out, and Wynne and Morrigan ducked as one of the tentacles swept across.

“It is vulnerable to fire,” Morrigan said, shielding herself uselessly with an arm.

“I suppose you haven’t smelled the gas the beast has filled the cave with.”

“Really? I had thought it was just Oghren.”

“Hey!”

“We will all cook alive,” said Wynne, frowning.

Morrigan was scanning the cave all over, searching for something; Wynne watched as her golden eyes lit up with an idea.

“Follow me.”

“Where?”

“This is the part where you trust me, old woman.”

She commanded all of them into an inlet that fit the four of them and then some; the Warden’s face was hidden under blood oozing out of her nose, but there was a skepticism there, and Oghren was too drunk and wounded to protest. But Wynne understood.

Morrigan rifled through her pockets and produced a single vial of lyrium. Wynne did not like the stuff, nor the fact that Morrigan could just make some—but they were where they were, and they needed to be out.

Taking a careful swig, and then handing it back to Morrigan to down the rest, Wynne felt the pool of mana flow through her body, nearly escaping at her fingertips. She channeled it into her staff, and felt Morrigan do the same beside her, prematurely frosting the lip of the inlet in preparation.

“I haven’t used this spell before,” admitted Wynne shyly.

“Oh, just do it,” snapped Morrigan, not unkindly, and a missed swing of tentacles brutishly stole all room for hesitance.

Raising her staff, Wynne reached into the depths of her ability, feeling the magic cause vibrations around her feet, like she was standing on a waterfall, and summoned a glorious storm of fire right where the Broodmother was stationed.

Just as the flames burst outward and filled the cave, Morrigan swung her staff with a shout and produced a wall of ice that shielded them from the firestorm, daunting heat replaced immediately with the loving chill of frost. Through the wall, they could see merely a bright pillar of blurry fire engulf the Broodmother as it screamed monstrously, and its tentacles whipped around in loud, thumping frenzied desperation.

When it dissipated, the wall was half melted, and there on the other side of the cave the ghastly Darkspawn lay charred and otherwise gelatinously sloughed where it was not, its tentacles shriveled pathetically on the ground like singed hair. Wynne would be scrubbing the smell out of her nostrils for weeks.

The Warden collapsed onto her bottom in exhausted relief. “Nice work, ladies,” she said. “I think we can continue this tomorrow.”

Wynne, heaving for breath and frankly delirious, gave Morrigan a tired but victorious smile. Putting a hand on her shoulder, she said, “Not bad for an old crone?”

But Morrigan was not smiling back—nor was she frowning, but she was staring at Wynne in a strange way: dazed, almost, like she was looking at Wynne but seeing something else. And then the tips of her ears colored; her face had already been red with exertion and the oppressive stuffiness of the caverns.

“No,” she said finally, looking away and smirking like the glance had not happened at all; Wynne’s own ears turned hot. “Not bad at all.”

This time, the chill of the Frostbacks was welcome after the stale heat of the Deep Roads. A few of them were enjoying the various merchants stationed outside of Orzammar as Wynne sat on the steps to eat a sorely needed meal, a sort of coal-colored dumpling that nevertheless was delicious after tasting nothing but Broodmother toxins for the last few hours, with a flask of Dwarven ale that she sweet-talked/threatened Oghren into surrendering to her.

Morrigan avoided her, which was interesting at first, then it became troubling. Wynne was deciding whether she wanted to confront the girl about the moment in the caves, for despite all the Chantry’s teachings, Wynne was worldly and furthermore much older, and so knew a look of unexpected desire when she saw one.

What she did not know, was how to feel about it, how to even begin comprehending how this could have happened and what she even wanted to do about it, and the fact that she was thinking about what to do about it. Morrigan was young, a little less than half her age, an apostate, against the Chantry, against the Circle, and for a long time since they had met up until recently, was against Wynne’s very presence.

Perhaps Morrigan was simply—missing her mother, and coping in a way that was not unheard of amongst young people with fraught relationships with their mothers or fathers, but that explanation soured in her mouth until it made the dumpling almost inedible and required a cleansing wash of the dark ale.

Or maybe Wynne had misread. How mortifying if she had.

By one of the merchants, Wynne could see the Warden approach Morrigan with something in her hand that she then gave to her. They talked in inaudible conversation with smiles and laughter, and playful punches to the shoulder. Wynne watched Morrigan move around the Warden and, while the witch was clearly fond of and loyal to Adelle, there was no moment, no hint of a frozen glance or a shallow breath or darkened eye.

Wynne finished the ale, and decided to retreat back into the Commons to rest.

IV.

They departed after Lord Harrowmont’s coronation, and with all three treaties secured for the wardens, preparing for the Landsmeet was next on the horizon. It felt like an age and then some since Morrigan left the Korcari Wilds to join two unwitting wardens who were traumatized aggrieved and bumbling with little hope for success, and now here she was, amongst the best and brightest if not the strangest collection of allies. This she would never say aloud, of course—she was already becoming frustratingly soft, which made the reality of what she had to do at the end of all this that much more difficult.

It should have been reason enough to remain aloof, but she had been unraveling the day she met Cousland. And she enjoyed it quite a deal, didn’t she? The spoils of friendship. It made the constant onslaught of Darkspawn and inane meddling and endless traipsing across Ferelden nearly worth it. For this and more she owed the Warden a great debt that she had no chance of ever repaying. For this, she could accept a pre-emptive grieving in a sane, comprehensible way.

Whatever it was that she was contending with regarding Wynne, however, was neither sane nor comprehensible. It confounded her endlessly and she was filled with all sorts of anxieties that she never could have dreamed of. It was humiliating, unacceptable, and any other adjective that could convey Morrigan’s inconsolable affliction.

And dense was not a word that could describe Wynne, despite what Morrigan thought of her allegiances to the Circle. She gave Morrigan a wider berth, and touched her less, speaking to her kindly as if in recompense, which made Morrigan feel worse. Had this been Morrigan of old, she would have simply schemed to herself, seduced the woman and made a fool of her after discarding her, but Wynne was not naive enough to fall for that anyhow, and Morrigan did not desire finding out if she was.

Making a pit stop in a small village that was reminiscent of Lothering, and could very well have been established by the survivors that managed to flee, Morrigan found herself being courted in the tavern by a pretty if not rugged little thing, an elf woman who, after a stein of drink, invited her to the privacy of an alleyway. She was the farthest thing possible from a middle-aged enchanter, and so Morrigan said yes.

In the evening, she returned to the camp, where her companions were gathered around the fire and the Warden was making lewd whoops in Morrigan’s direction.

“Alistair’s the last virgin in the group,” sang Adelle, and Alistair replied with something objectionable. It was not quite true, Morrigan had only been necking with the elf, but she wasn’t going to say that.

Joining them, Morrigan was passed a bowl of grains and stew, and from across the fire, Wynne ate without looking at her.

But nightfall had made them bold, or stupid, either way.

As the others slept, Wynne unexpectedly left her watch post to stand in Morrigan’s part of camp, looking at the fire with a somber expression that Morrigan simply observed from where she sat. Moments passed without a word, and the silence was filled with the snapping and crackling of the flames, which were beginning to die and needed stoking again soon.

Morrigan chanced a quiet, “What are you doing here?”

Wynne’s hands were folded calmly behind her, but looking at Morrigan everywhere but her eyes like she was in the middle of making a precarious decision. Suddenly and with clarity, Morrigan could see what it might have looked like when the enchanter did this in her little tower, seeking company amongst its inhabitants, men or women or mages or templars alike. This was not her first time indeed, having a half-century of existence under her belt, and it showed in the way Wynne could make her begin to sweat with a cool glance that told her that however Morrigan proceeded was no real difference to her in the end.

“Send me away if you like,” Wynne simply said.

Morrigan stood, alight with idiocy. She was always drawn to power; as it happened, Wynne was powerful. “My tent has been rather cold.”

The older mage’s mouth quirked upward in a rugged smile, meeting Morrigan halfway in languid steps. “You’ll have to do something about that.” Wynne’s breath was warm and minted against Morrigan’s cheek, making the hair at the nape of her neck prickle, and it was hatefully thrilling. When their lips came together with teeth knocking softly, and when they clutched at each other with greed, Morrigan raised one hand and snatched the fire dead.

The morning afterward, it was as if nothing had occurred under Morrigan’s tent; there had been no dalliance, Wynne had not pressed Morrigan against a tree and slid her strong and calloused fingers under her skirts, Morrigan had not shaken and bit Wynne’s shoulder raw to muffle the sound of her pleasure, and Leliana had not been correct about the enchanter’s musculature after all.

Yet if one got too close, one would smell Wynne on her neck, in the niche above her collarbone. One could probably smell Morrigan on Wynne’s fingers, and it was with this mutual knowledge that they kept a distance from not only each other but the rest of the group lest someone perceive what they had done. But ever so occasionally, Wynne’s surprising amount of wickedness would make a reprise, idly resting her nails under Morrigan’s red hood and grazing the bare skin there as the Warden stopped to trade with nomadic merchants, and Morrigan would have to stifle a shiver.

The next time they stopped for the night, Wynne was once more by her fire, but behaving as she had always done when they were merely friendly—assisting Morrigan with crushing the elfroot in a mortar and easing the powder into the lip of a flask, all the while discussing the properties of certain classes of magic and debating their appropriate uses, as well as histories and their implications for the future. This was what their companions heard and thought nothing of when they continued their bookish chatter and disappeared into the woods “to look for more herbs.”

At the West Hills, Adelle found them a small bath house, a luxury that was welcome after the constant cold washes of Lake Calenhaad and that she was happy to part with a few sovereign for. Shale stood guard outside, proud that she did not have such squishy and vulnerable flesh without admitting of course that she feared erosion, as the rest of the camp bathed cold in basins to then occupy the hot springs in shifts.

The division between their male and female company was an unneeded propriety, Morrigan thought; the Warden and Leliana had left their soak early perhaps to do some shucking of their own, leaving the mages at opposite ends of the bath. Wynne had her eyes closed and her arms resting on the warm rock she leaned on, looking only with a half-opened eye when Morrigan crossed the length of the spring.

“Aren’t you eager,” Wynne murmured, amused and unmoving as Morrigan straddled her bare thighs under the water. Beads of condensation collected atop Wynne’s shoulders, and she kissed them off, reveling in the sigh as she approached the skin behind the enchanter’s ear. “Careful. Oghren might be peeking through the wall.”

“Let him,” laughed Morrigan. “No one would believe a word he said.”

Wynne allowed from her a lazy, lust-laden kiss. “And would you believe it, that you are here, propositioning an old woman?” she said when they broke, looking at Morrigan’s mouth.

“As much as I could believe that you are no better than a sorry cradle-robber.”

“I am as human as any woman,” said Wynne, now sinking an arm into the water to make Morrigan gasp.

“That you are,” she cooed.

Wynne grinned. “I’m glad we have an understanding.”

There could have been odder couplings among their group, to be sure, yet as Morrigan thought, it had made devastating sense that it would be with Wynne. The witch had no interest in any of their men, nor in the Warden that way or the annoying spy nun, and despite her early attempts to seduce their resident Qunari, it had all been in jest. As for Wynne, she herself could have had her way with Zevran, should she have chosen to sate things with him. But he would have boasted, which Wynne would not have liked—Morrigan at least came with the benefit of discretion.

Journeying on, it was a lesson in discipline and compartmentalization, and Morrigan found the fortitude to at least put it aside and wait until the next time they stopped to set up camp to discover where the hell any of this was going.

In hawk form, Morrigan flew ahead of the trail, swooping to investigate suspiciously trodden shrubbery and rising again to scan the road. As they neared the midpost of the Coastlands, there was a glint of metal in her eye. Upon closer inspection, she saw that they were men on horses—specifically templars, with their unmistakable Chantry insignias billowing off their capes.

Shrewdly, Morrigan slowed herself into a descent toward the Warden, who was walking beside Wynne’s horse. Rather than perch on Adelle’s arm, Morrigan reshaped and saddled herself behind Wynne in a fluid motion.

“Templars await us,” Morrigan told them. “But what for I cannot discern.”

“Curious,” remarked Adelle, narrowing her eyes. “Must be the ones that were stationed in Denerim, if they are coming from that way.”

Wynne was uncharacteristically quiet about the prospect, and Morrigan could feel her tensing and relaxing in front of her.

“Nervous?” said Morrigan, smirking, sneaking her hand around Wynne’s waist. “I thought you liked your little templars.”

She was ignored, and when said templars came into view, Wynne said quietly, “Hide your staff.”

Morrigan frowned. “I honestly doubt—“

“Do as I say, Morrigan.”

It seemed their affair had made Wynne overconfident, thought Morrigan grudgingly. But she obeyed, removing her staff where it hung on her back and tossing it discreetly to Alistair, who had heard the instruction and stashed it into Bodahn’s wagon as they slowed to stop.

“Enchanter Wynne,” said who appeared to be the leader of the men. In his hand was a clear vial that shone bright red.

“Ser Modric,” she replied politely.

“Is something the matter?” Adelle asked.

The templar looked upon them gravely and uncomfortably. “We are to escort the Enchanter back to the tower.”

Morrigan resisted glaring at him over Wynne’s shoulder and let the Warden speak. Adelle said: “I am afraid that doesn’t answer my question. Instead it raises more.”

“There has been a concern,” the Ser said, and the lackeys behind him sat still on their mounts with their hands on their hilts. There were about six of them, prepared for a fight lest the Warden resisted surrendering over their loaned property. “Regarding her condition.”

“My condition,” Wynne repeated skeptically.

Modric looked at her significantly. “The Knight-Commander’s orders, Enchanter.”

Clicking her tongue, Morrigan could not still hers any longer. “And what condition exactly do you speak of? Old age? Might I direct your attention to your own Knight Commander’s withering existence?”

“Morrigan,” Wynne warned.

Ignoring her, she went on, “And I should not insult your intelligence to remind you that there is currently a Blight your Circle promised aid against, but I will if I must.”

“Ser,” Adelle intervened when Modric’s mouth puckered like he had eaten something sour. “Surely this can wait until we have defeated the Archdemon. We need Wynne. And my companion, albeit a bit brusque,” (she gave Morrigan a brief look of reproach) “is right, Knight-Commander Greagoir agreed—“

“I will go,” interrupted Wynne with a finality. Morrigan stared dumbly at the nape of Wynne’s neck, irked that she could not see her face.

“What?” said Adelle incredulously, turning behind. The attention of their other companions had also been captured.

But Wynne merely dismounted the horse calmly, leaving a cold space in front of Morrigan. “I would like to know what it is that Greagoir believes is an appropriate reason to disrupt our treaty.” She turned to the rest of them, smiling serenely. “Do not tarry, my dear friends. I will join you in Denerim for the Landsmeet when this is done.”

She said it with a confidence that was hard to doubt, and indeed brooked no room for it when Leliana or Alistair tried to protest. Even Sten was murmuring that this was unwise. The senior enchanter of the Circle waved it all away—but when she purposely avoided Morrigan’s obstinate gaze, Morrigan knew the Circle mage sycophant was lying.

They arrived at Denerim after two days of expeditious travel, and after three more, Wynne did not follow. Having nothing to contribute to the petty squabbles amongst nobles, arls, or teryns, Morrigan watched dutifully on the Arl’s battlements for hours at a time, flying around the estate as a crow when she grew tired of being so still.

Unfortunately it was the same place Alistair eventually sought reprieve from all the talk of making him king. He spotted her, and her glare did not have the effect she had wanted.

“Are you…” he hesitated, dipping his chin low like he never pronounced the next word before, “Okay?”

She kept her gaze on the line between land and sky, Lake Calenhaad and the Tower miles and miles from view. She said slowly, “I do not think Wynne is coming back.”

Alistair clinked as he shifted balance from one leg to the other, perhaps deciding whether Morrigan meant it as a joy or as a grievance. Every day Morrigan was bereaved with the knowledge that in the end, it would have to be him.

“Perhaps you believe so as well,” she said when he did not reply.

“I don’t know,” Alistair said with a shrug. “Surely she’s too important for the templars to do anything despite… you know.”

But Morrigan shook her head at his naivete, leaning herself on the battlements with her hands. “They recalled her because they heard about the Spirit and in their eyes, Alistair, she is an abomination. There is no distinction, no matter what she will say or do to prove otherwise.”

“This isn’t right.” Alistair had that incredibly annoying boyish forlorn look. “Not after all Wynne has done for us. There must be something we can do.”

She spun around fully on him then, startling him. He held his breath stupidly as she eyed him up and down, thinking. Perhaps she should confer with the Warden before she made this decision—but she already suggested it once before, and the intensity of Adelle’s hatred toward Arl Howe and Loghain made her one-track minded. Morrigan was left only with the option of asking forgiveness after the fact.

“There is,” she said finally, “something we can do.”

Alistair sweated. “Uh oh.”

Wynne was not regarded as a prisoner insofar as she believed it so. She counted it a blessing that she was not in the dungeons and instead was restricted to her chambers in the mage quarters, which had been cleaned and scrubbed of blood and death since the last time she had been here.

Yet she could feel herself go mad remembering what had transpired here. The Tower used to be so full, teeming with brilliant minds that were so noisome and plenty. Wynne had taken it all for granted: she remembered exhaling in impatience when her Libertarian peers would scold her for her complacency, when her apprentices would question her word and her faith in the Circle. They were gone from her now. Mages that grew up alongside her, mages that she mentored and loved, mages that she had yet to know.

Perhaps this same madness was what led Greagoir to suspect her on an offhand comment that Petra had innocuously made as they finished rebuilding the tower. Grief had a funny way of manifesting in those who had the power to act on it, and now, they were simply waiting. Wynne showed no signs of possession—none that they knew to look for, anyhow—but the seed of doubt had already been planted, and it was a matter now of reaping.

As the time passed her by, there was a bitter taste in her mouth. Or maybe it was the lingering taste of Morrigan’s.

A day before they were to send her into the Fade for a second Harrowing of sorts, the very witch had shown up in her room. Wynne thought herself hallucinating when the spider that climbed in through the wall cracks suddenly glowed and expanded into the shape of a woman, now indolently sitting atop her bed.

And she was wearing a robe that belonged to the Circle, no less; Wynne all but barked in startled laughter at the absurdity of such a sight. “What—are you doing here?”

Morrigan sighed, examined her nails like being there was a chore. “You must think so low of me to believe that I would let you rot here.”

“You advocated for the very thing not a year ago, my dear.” Wynne eyed her up and down, slowly. “Furthermore, pink is not your color.”

The apostate rose and encroached on Wynne’s space, stopping inches from her as if in orbit and staring at her mouth. This view of her was quite different in daylight as opposed to the murk of the woods or the lambent lights of a bath house, which if she were honest was having the effect of rendering her brain bereft of all rational thought, replaced only with the urge to press Morrigan onto the bed.

She was about to make good on the thought until there were hurried clinking footsteps outside her door, and she reflexively pushed Morrigan behind her when it opened.

But it was just Alistair; pink in the face and out of breath, donned in templar armors. This was not just a fantasy of the lonely, then, and it was real. Wynne straightened her back.

“We must make this quick,” he said in low tones, out of breath. “You do not want to know what it took to get here.”

“Let us go, then,” Morrigan said as she strode to the door, taking Wynne’s hand, and then turning to her in dismay when Wynne did not move.

“They have my phylactery.”

“That can be changed.”

“You cannot possibly believe that I can go quietly!”

“It will be quiet if they do not know about it.”

She let go of Morrigan’s hand then, frowning. “But they will eventually, and I will have to answer to them.”

The witch scoffed pitilessly, which made Alistair look over his shoulder in anxiety. “Splendid, perhaps you can answer to your Maker next when the Darkspawn overtake the land and slaughters you, because you were too busy concerning yourself with your nonexistent standing in the Circle.”

Wynne bristled. “It is not that simple—“

“Uh, ladies,” sing-songed Alistair in fright. “We may have a problem.”

“A problem,” said Greagoir, stony-faced at the doorway, “would be an understatement. Wouldn’t you agree, Wynne?”

They sat like scolded children in the commons room of the mage quarters.

“They are just children, Greagoir,” Wynne was saying placatingly after his disappointed opprobrium had lessened with exhaustion and Irving’s chiding to calm himself. “Send them on their way, and I will remain here.”

“You brought an apostate into the Tower,” he said, and the maleficarum in question was glaring at the Knight-Commander from where she was restrained on the chair with glyphs.

“They came of their own volition. Furthermore, she is an ally of the Wardens. This one can confirm for you.”

Greagoir threw an irate look at Alistair, who coughed. “Yes, Knight-Commander, it is true.”

Morrigan was silent still, but keeping her ground when Greagoir looked down upon her next with a disinterested snarl. He knew Wynne of old, in many ways, and she was praying that he would not see in Morrigan a twisted version of their companionship. But he did, and he said to Wynne with a sniff: “You always had peculiar tastes.”

“Greagoir,” Wynne said seriously.

It was Irving who spoke next, sorrow in his tiring voice. “Wynne,” he said gently, putting a hand to her shoulder. “You must realize how this looks. Either you called for them, a Grey Warden exploited our alliance, or an apostate has influenced you both. You must understand now what Greagoir and I must consider.”

Suddenly the world was coming down on Wynne. All her work and care to be exceptional was dust at her feet, and the only thing in front of her now was the road to the Rite of Tranquility.

The abrupt despair spurred Alistair into a disposition of leadership. “We understand, First Enchanter. But you can’t keep Wynne here. Or Morrigan.”

“And why is that?”

“Because…” Alistair said slowly, “I invoke the Rite of Conscription.”

“Oh for fuck’s sake,” Greagoir exclaimed, pushing down an empty chair.

The trip to the docks was tense with silence, as were the consequent two days journey back to Denerim with a band of soldiers from Redcliffe making their way to the Landsmeet. Wynne hardly acknowledged Morrigan’s existence throughout, and Morrigan did not vie for her attention, still shaken by the encounter with the Knight-Commander and her brush with lifetime imprisonment. Alistair was quiet with his own contemplations, occasionally muttering justifications under his breath or louder assurances that neither mages needed to prepare for a Joining, as it was easy to say there was no time.

It was only when they arrived and Wynne was welcomed with pleasant surprise by their various companions that Morrigan began to feel sour in the stomach. Wynne smiled at Leliana and hugged her, exchanged repartee with the golem after its expression of dismay that the elder mage had not been around to see her squash the verminous pigeons on the estate, neglecting to mention that one of those pigeons was actually almost Morrigan as a crow. Adelle was not in to receive and ostensibly scold the living hell out of them, and so Morrigan took the opportunity to follow Wynne into her assigned room.

“You are ignoring me,” she accused, shutting the door.

Wynne would not turn to meet her eye, and continued to calmly unload her belongings and staff at the vanity. Quietly, she was saying, “It was foolish of you to intervene. You have no idea what you have done.”

“I should have thought you of all people would know to say thank you.”

“Thank you,” repeated Wynne, not in actual thanks but to criticize the very phrase. She faced Morrigan, and was clenching her fists and jaw. “For undermining the Circle’s trust in the Grey Wardens, in me, and for adding chaos to their already turbulent recovery? If that was your goal, then congratulations, you have done exceedingly.”

“I did you a favor!” Morrigan found herself raising her voice, lurching forward. “They were going to make you Tranquil. I acted as any true friend to you would. ‘Tis what you wanted from me all along, is it not? To owe you civility?”

“None of that was your decision to make, Morrigan,” Wynne told her.

“No, you’d rather submit that choice to that Greagoir and your useless sycophant Irving.”

Wynne grew impatient. “You will never understand,” she declared, hand cutting the air between them in stern emphasis. “You consider no one and nothing and act accordingly. The Circle is my home, and you have turned it against me.”

“It was always against you,” countered Morrigan, and Wynne gave her a dry scoff, turning crueler the way Morrigan knew she was capable of being.

“Tell me,” she said, “what exactly did you think would come out of this? Did you hope that I would renounce the Chantry and the Circle, leave my whole life behind and become an apostate, and—what,“ Wynne snarled before she could control herself, “run away to be with you?”

At this Morrigan stopped dead, mouth hanging open. It would have struck her less painfully if Wynne had incised her down the chest and pried her ribs open. That would have made her feel worth more than she did now, standing cheapened before Wynne in those fucking enchanter robes and feeling so unforgivably young.

Morrigan’s eyes must have become wet, because Wynne’s brow took on a regretful curve, but by then it was too late. “You are right,” said Morrigan, voice low, and stepping closer and closer as she spoke. “I am a fool. How utterly stupid of me to have believed that maybe you were more than a dog on a leash, that you were actually brave, and capable, and daring. But I see it now, you old hag. You are nothing, Wynne.” Morrigan was in her face now, provoking her. “You are nothing but a coward and a dying, sorry waste of a mage—“

The hand across Morrigan’s face was swift and hard and loud, making her stagger backward. When she regained her balance, she lunged for Wynne, shoving her into the vanity once, and then harder the second time until Wynne twisted their arms together to push her back.

They would have scrapped in that room had Adelle not shown up at the door looking haggard and outraged. Heart pounding and desperate to be free from Wynne’s cold glare, Morrigan strode over and pushed past her into the hall.

Adelle followed in long, clinking strides. “Where the hell have you been? I needed you and Alistair and neither of you were anywhere to be found! I was thrown in a dungeon! And the Landsmeet is tomorrow!”

Morrigan rounded on her, shouting, “Oh, to hell with your bloody Landsmeet!” She did not look back at the Warden, who stood there dumbly, and spent the rest of the evening perched on the very top of the estate. A storm was on its way, and perhaps the lightning would strike her down. It would have been a mercy.

V.

The days leading up to war against the Darkspawn were innumerable, passing quickly and lasting forever simultaneously. It astonished Wynne how much could happen in one place. Arl Howe was dead, Loghain was dead, Anora remained Queen, and the Wardens had amassed armies.

And Morrigan—

Morrigan should have been the least of Wynne’s concerns, yet she replayed their altercation at night and regretted it deeply. Any attempt she made to speak with her however was met with ice, sometimes literal. Something changed within the girl the days following their fight, and Wynne was privy to none of the explanation; she could extrapolate, though she would not be so egotistical to believe herself totally responsible. Yet it weighed on her.

Recognizing her last opportunity before they set off to Redcliffe, Wynne stopped Morrigan in the hall.

“Before we go,” implored Wynne, “I must make things right with you.”

Morrigan did not meet her eye. Her hand rested curiously above her stomach, under her scarves. “No need,” she said, not cruelly, but not kindly either, and she sounded older somehow. “Should we all survive after this, you shall never see me again. That is a promise.”

And that was that. She was older than most of her comrades here—so she knew how to put something down to pick another up, and it did Wynne well to reacquaint herself with her purpose. She had lost a friend in Morrigan—or whatever it was that they were—but her duty to fight for her, and all of Ferelden, remained. Life was already so horribly and dazzlingly short, yes, but there would be none of that to mull over if there was not even a tomorrow to awaken to. She was a soldier among soldiers starting the day she left the Tower—and no interpersonal matter would change that grim reality.

And that reality was now. Leading the line of defense in the Denerim Markets and the Alienage, Wynne fought with a hardened tenacity. Where it would have previously hampered her will, the mind-numbing trepidation that Ostagar left in its wake instead spurred her into a disciplined focus that the Kinloch Circle mages would then emulate out of inspiration. She had been through so much with the Warden that at this point, it only seemed much of the same, just on a much wider scale: the horrible gushing of swords and maces through flesh, the rushing of Ogres, the deafening shudders of spells snapping the air like flint—it was just noise.

For those that perished, there was no time to mourn. Wynne acted when she could, and moved on when she could not. By the end of that wave, she was splattered in blood from head to toe, robes torn where grubby little genlocks had managed to resist or circumvent her glyphs and swipe at her with their blades.

The skies were red with fire upon nightfall. Regrouping just before the Palace District, Wynne was nearly brought to tears of relief upon seeing her companions alive, if not slightly marred. There was a round of congratulatory touching, and to Wynne’s surprise even Morrigan had welcomed the squeeze of a hand on her shoulder.

“Riordan has lured the Archdemon to Fort Drakon,” said Adelle, weary-eyed and heaving for breath. “He… well, it is time to finish the job now, isn’t it.”

In a rare show of emotion, Sten said: “Then command us at your discretion, Kadan.”

Adelle cried, the tears blending with the blood on her face. “I love you all. Please know that,” she said. Oghren wept with his salute.

Per the Warden’s typical stratagem, she took Alistair, Wynne, and Morrigan with her to the Fort, and delegated the rest to continue defending the Denerim gates. Outside of Wynne’s comprehension, the three of them had shared a significant glance before setting off, but there was no time to ask, nor did she really think to in the midst of it all.

The Archdemon Urthemiel inspired a dread like no other. The fear Wynne had channeled into prowess now threatened to put her heart in her throat. Their forces were dwindling: the First Enchanter was there alongside the Arl among their surviving armies, one of which consisted now of only four other mages. She summoned flame after flame, glyph after glyph, ward after ward—and she was becoming exhausted.

After a whip of the Archdemon’s tail sent Wynne skidding across the rooftop, she feared that she did not have any strength left in her. The dizzying commotion and smells of iron and ash lulled her into blackness, sprung back into consciousness only when she felt a hand at her back, and the unmistakable surge of mana.

“Wynne,” said Morrigan, leaning down close to her ear. “You must get up.”

There was a thunderous screech and gust of wind overhead, ostensibly the Archdemon taking flight over them; there was a boom of heat that surged toward them, and Morrigan created a wall of ice that dissipated the flames, but only barely—she was growing weak, too. Wynne managed to get up on her knees with Morrigan supporting her weight.

“Leave me be,” said Wynne forlornly, pushing her away.

“Don’t be an idiot,” was the reply. Nearby, the Arl’s men were shooting at the Archdemon with futile ballistas, and the wardens clashing swords against scaled claws. “Summon the Spirit. They will not make it without you.”

“Irving will see.”

“Coward, Irving will be dead otherwise.”

A troop of Hurlocks appeared on the roof, storming through the stairways. Smelling their vulnerability like flies to rotting flesh, they ran in their direction brandishing their cutlasses and longswords menacingly. Morrigan got up from Wynne’s side to strike them down with a blast of lightning that ricocheted from one to another, but there were many, and without the range to cast her spells effectively she resorted to parrying the blows with her staff. One slid past her defenses and made its way to Wynne, who was still on the floor and thus could only block the sword coming down on her with wood that splintered in her grasp.

The blade was coming nearer and nearer, despite how hard she pushed. In the distance, she could hear Alistair cry out Adelle’s name, followed by a terrifying crunch that imagination made all the more horrible; beside her, Morrigan had fallen to the ground.

No. She’d allow it no longer. Inside of her body, she called to the Spirit, until the light of its presence uncoiled from within her ribs and spread out, and out, and out—

With a cry, Wynne emitted a blast that sent the surrounding Hurlock tumbling backward, some off the roof and into oblivion. Where there was emptiness in her reserve of mana and strength, the Spirit had supplied for her, and she felt no more pain nor exhaustion. With her staff, she called upon the Spirit to heal her companions at once, and where Adelle had fallen unconscious, used the last bit of her extra mana to shock her back to the living.

The rest happened so quickly, Wynne would not be sure what she saw. She remembered only this: Morrigan sprinting toward the beast with palms full of frost; the Warden, awake and alive and livid, running a sword through the Archdemon’s throat—and then, the blast.

Morrigan stirred first, and found that her face was wet with tears. Overwhelmed with the abrupt silence save for the gusts of wind whistling through the Fort, Morrigan willed herself upwards, staggering along the way.

She went to the Warden first, holding her breath. Adelle had been flung a considerable distance away from the Archdemon, now just a husk and an empty vessel. Rolling her over, Morrigan touched her face and nearly wept in gratitude that her skin was still warm, that there was a pulse in her neck. The ritual had worked; her friend would yet live.

Still very much spent, Morrigan took her time to close up the wounds and scrapes that she could see, and used the more advanced magic to attend to any internal bleeding that was occurring underneath her armors. Adelle’s breath deepened, then, as if she was just in sleep. Morrigan brushed away the blood-encrusted hair from her face, and kissed her cheek. For the rest of her life, she would think of Adelle Cousland.

Alistair was not far from her. She did the same courtesies for him, but without the affection of a kiss—he had enough of that, she thought, though the idea of him grimacing at the feel of the wax on his face when he awoke was a small pleasure.

Then there was Wynne—who, despite her dramatic display of last-minute fortitude granted to her by the Spirit that possessed her, was still alive. Morrigan had not expected her to stir when she approached, but could not help but to rush to her when Wynne began to fitfully thrash about as if in a nightmare.

Lifting her by the shoulders and guiding her in a sitting position against a broken wall, Morrigan said gently, “Be at ease now, Wynne. ‘Tis over. The Archdemon is dead, and the Warden lives.”

Eyes re-focusing on Morrigan, Wynne became more lucid. “It is really done,” she said, voice crackling. Morrigan nodded, unsure what else to say—she did not expect to catch any of them awake. With a steady flow of magic, she gently sealed up the wounds on Wynne’s body, one hand resting finally above Wynne’s heart and the other supporting the back of her head to keep it from lolling.

Wynne reached for the hand on her chest. “Do not go, dear Morrigan,” she said softly, thumbing the back of Morrigan’s hand. “My personal cruelty is a sorry reason for you to abandon us all.”

“It has nothing to do with you, old cat,” she replied with affection. 

"Stay one more day, then."

"No. Do not beg me."

Those dark blue eyes searched her face, and found lines of anguish there. Wynne relented, sympathetic. "So where will you go?"

Morrigan’s free hand combed back wisps of loose gray hair from Wynne’s forehead. “Where it shall not concern you.”

“How enigmatic.” Wynne sighed, and tucked a lock of dark hair behind Morrigan’s ear in fond return. “You utterly confounding girl. I shall not forget you.”

“Nor I you,” Morrigan said, before realizing how much she meant it. Overcome and yearning, she pulled Wynne to her, and they embraced. Letting go, she turned her head and pressed her lips to Wynne’s rough, dirt-lined cheek.

And in one last show of boldness, Wynne placed her hands on each side of Morrigan’s face, and kissed her.

“Farewell,” said Wynne.

“Goodbye,” replied Morrigan. And then her body, now carrying the Old God, turned into malleable light, then into a hawk, and up she went into the sky.