Chapter Text
“ Now is the time to say your goodbyes, child.”
It had been a courteous offer. One that Eilwyn Amell might have taken First-Enchanter Irving up on, had she anyone left to say goodbye to. There were none that held love for her. She had betrayed Jowan, her only true friend, the only one who truly understood her and her infatuation with Ser Cullen. They’d been confidants through it all, up until she’d gone to the First-Enchanter and ended up confessing what he had planned.
A swift and traitorous end to their friendship. All because of some misplaced sense of what was right and what was wrong. Perhaps atonement for her own guilt, her own treacherous heart. A self-sacrifice, in a way that sacrificed nothing of herself.
It wasn’t his involvement with the Sister that Eilwyn disapproved of. It was that she had known, in her heart of hearts, that he had delved into a darker place than she could follow. He had pursued someone forbidden, and she both envied and hated him for it. The rumors, the mere speculation of him cutting himself open to gain power from the flow of his veins, made her deeply uncomfortable just to think about. Having seen it, having seen what Jowan had done with his own hand… the way the blade had sliced deep into the meat of his palm, past layers of too much wet flesh into what looked like bone…
There was nobody left to say goodbye to, when the time came for goodbyes to be said.
She had hugged the First-Enchanter, already crying, and attempted to look as if she knew what she was doing by leaving with Duncan. By being forced to leave with Duncan. Her most polite mannerisms took over, her etiquette instincts propelling her into a posture of grace when she felt only fear. She asked to stay only once, and Duncan had looked on her with patient kindness as Irving gently pried Eilwyn’s arms from his neck and held her wrists before him.
“Have faith in how you handle yourself, Eilwyn. You will be alright.”
In the moment, Eilwyn had believed him, as she always believed her elders. There was no reason she should not excel among a new community. She was sharp, observant, and loved to make others smile. She could play instruments, draw pictures, and were it not for the way her mana pulsed from her fingertips like fireflies when she was overwhelmed, she could have been a well-bred noblewoman. Ignoring the threat of Darkspawn, those traits alone were a recipe for immediate acceptance... or so she figured.
So she had nodded, and she had left.
At first, being outside of the Circle was enough to keep her mind occupied. The smell of a forest at night, the sound of crunching leaves under hooves of their beasts, the crackle of an open flame as the embers licked up high to join the stars above them- it was all beautiful and new to her. She slept outside of a tent, merely unfurling her bedroll beneath the large expanse of sky, gripping the grass on either side of her body, scared she would float away and half-praying that she would.
One night, the rain came, and Duncan led her into a small farming outpost where they traded a few silvers for a night sleeping in the stable. It was a roof, at least. As she wrung out her hair, pulling its impossible length over one shoulder, Eilwyn had inhaled the smell of wet pine, sweet hay, and loamy earth churned into gravelly mud from the occasional traveler. The aroma of the night had changed about her, now it was light and somehow more, positively dripping with cedar bark.
She recognized the cedar smell since the library tables were made from those very same logs. But the other smells, she could not place, and that sense of being inside a bigger world than she had previously known was enrapturing. It was the best perfume she’d ever had the pleasure of smelling. Before now, she had only ever sat on the edges of window overlooking Lake Calenhad, breathing in the freshness of a thunderstorm looming on the horizon. Even at the window, the smell of lyrium and ink and stone was so pervasive that she could barely enjoy it. Being so thoroughly outside was both amazing and terrifying, and even though her robes chafed the following morning from where she had not dried them… Eilwyn was happy.
It was a beautiful feeling, however fleeting it was.
As they rode further towards Ostagar over the next few days, Duncan seemed to grow contemplative and quiet. Or maybe he was merely tired. Eilwyn couldn’t tell, but she didn’t want to intrude, much as she had more questions she was looking to ask. In his silence, she was lost in her own thoughts, and her eagerness gave way to steady anxiety. Much as she tried to understand the noises, the smells, the shapes about their path, she was left entirely at the mercy of a man lost in quiet contemplation. A man she truthfully knew little to nothing about. The nature about her suddenly contained less beauty and more teeth.
While they were watering their horses, she almost stepped into a nest of river snakes. Duncan caught her elbow at the last second, and taught her how to look for signs of such things in the future. When she wasn’t paying attention, she rode through spiderwebs and found the creatures clinging her like venomous brooches. Duncan helped her to brush her hair out, reassuring her that even as her skin itched that they were gone from her tresses. At night, she could not get warm no matter how she layered herself in her blankets, her tent poorly erected and leaving gaps between her and the cold ground. Duncan helped where he could, advised her when she asked, but she began to feel as though she was becoming burdensome. Even when he reacted with an almost fatherly warmth to her questions and her mishaps, she couldn’t shake the idea that she should know better.
With every passing day, she felt less and less equipped to survive in such a world, less and less equipped to fight blighted darkspawn for the king in such a world. Perhaps she had made a mistake. Perhaps Duncan had made a mistake, and perhaps he knew it, and perhaps that was why he was quiet. She rode with a heavy coil about her heart, secretly lamenting her quick departure.
She hadn’t even had time to say goodbye to Cullen.
Of course he hadn’t been there when everything happened with Jowan, and it had all happened quickly. Cullen wouldn’t have had a chance, even should he have wished to bid her goodbye. It wasn’t his shift to begin with… and if Eilwyn was being honest, he had been avoiding her since she’d confessed how she felt to him.
“It would be innapropriate to do anything more than-”
Remain friends, wasn’t that what Cullen had said? But then he didn’t seem to have the capacity to do so. When they did talk after that, it was about his vows. Or her duties to the Circle. Or the fact that he was put in charge of striking her down should she not suffer successfully through her Harrowing.
That last one stung the most. Not that he would have done it, but that he thought to even tell her. As if it was something to be proud of. As if she should have been happy to die at his hands. As if he were atoning by confessing it to her and she should feel something in regards to it, something besides anguish.
He had been the last of her ties, besides Jowan and the First Enchanter. Without Cullen, without the rest of them, Eilwyn was finally seated in her solitude.
Riding along behind Duncan up to Ostagar’s gate, consumed by the thought that she was well and truly alone now after having spent her entire life in the safety of the Circle walls, she barely registered when Duncan began to leave her. She replied with politeness, clipped and small in her voice, but he had smiled at her regardless. As if he understood she was in some kind of shock.
He was leaving her on her own. He said something to her, of course. He told her where he would be, or something, and she replied with something… but her mind just hadn’t grasp what it had been. She remembered to ask for clarification, and Duncan asked her if she was alright.
Maker, who even knows .
He did repeat himself for her, though. She was to find someone, a Grey Warden named Alistair, and then she was to find Duncan again.
Resisting the urge to break down, Eilwyn tried to steel herself. She had faced a demon in the fade- more than one even! She could do this!
Squaring her shoulders, she began to cross the bridge to Ostagar with slow, even steps.
The first two men she met were not who she was intended to meet, apparently. She figured out that they were also prospective Wardens, new and anxious as she was. Well, perhaps not in the same way she was. Eilwyn doubted that these people had the natural instinct to tear up at the first sign of intimidation.
One seemed just as homesick as she was, perhaps more. He said he had a wife. The other seemed darkly eager, almost combative in his nerves, and she liked talking to him much less. Eilwyn remembered their names - Jory, Daveth - as she walked on in pursuit of the Grey Warden she was meant to meet.
After she moved past mages, after she passed by a Chanter preaching benedictions, Eilwyn was finally facing the stone fortress ahead. Uncertain of where else this man Alistair could possibly be hiding, she considered leaving and going to find Duncan. But then she caught sight of two people seemingly in an argument past a few pine trees and what looked to be the skeletal remnants of a cathedral. Hesitantly, almost as if she shouldn’t have even been there in the first place, she approached.
It was two men, one in mage robes that Eilwyn didn’t recognize, and one in armor that looked like Duncan’s.
That must have been him. The Grey Warden she needed to find.
The two men were disputing something that Eilwyn couldn’t really internalize. About Duncan? No. About the Chantry. About a messenger. Grey Wardens were messengers? She shook her head, hugging her arms about herself as she waited for her courage to return. When the mage stormed off, leaving the Grey Warden alone, she finally stepped forward.
“Pardon me, ser. I couldn’t help but overhear. Wh-what was that all about?” she asked, trying to keep things light, unsure of how to start a conversation with the person before her. What was his name? Duncan had told her several times. She just couldn’t remember.
Wait. Alistair, right?
“Oh. The usual,” the man before her said with an easy smile. “You know the one good thing about the Blight is how it brings people together.”
She tried to laugh. She did. But for some reason as soon as she smiled back, Eilwyn’s eyes glossed over with tears. When she tried to speak past them, only a little sob escaped her lips. Immediately she clapped a hand over her lips, staring down at Alistair’s chestplate as she tried to regain her composure.
“Shoot, I’m sorry. I’m sorry, bad joke,” he said, and she could see him hesitate with one hand up like he was going to touch her shoulder and didn’t know how. She had seen that hesitance before, back when she had cried near Cullen. Or rather, when she’d come close to crying near him. Cullen, too, had reached up, almost as if he were going to pat her on the shoulder, and then thought better of it. Eilwyn closed her eyes against the memory.
When a hand touched her skin, she flinched hard. Immediately, he gentled the grip, moving it towards her collarbone, his palm large but somehow still nonthreatening.
“Shh, please don’t cry. Did you, ah,” Alistair was fumbling before her, and she blinked open her eyes to better take him in. She could feel hot, fat tears rolling down her cheeks, could feel her chest ache with the effort of holding back the hiccuping breaths she wanted to take with every hard sniffle. Eilwyn knew that she must’ve looked a damn fool, but Alistair’s expression was not judgmental, and it was not nervous. If anything, he seemed to be a little relieved. “We haven’t met, have we?”
She shook her head, one hand still covering her mouth. Alistair’s eyes softened, and his mouth quirked up at the corner with a devious little grin.
“I don’t suppose you happen to be another mage?” he asked.
Eilwyn’s eyes grew wider, guilt positively exploding within her chest. Tears flowed freely from her eyes, without her even having to blink now. As he registered her expression, Alistair’s hand tightened at her shoulder, and his lips twisted in a regretful grimace.
"I didn't mean-"
Past her fingers, she whispered, “Would that make your day worse, if I was?”
“No, no no no,” Alistair’s hand at her shoulder rubbed a soothing circle with its thumb, digging into the muscles there only enough to give her a playful shake. “I only ask because I was expecting you. I should have recognized you right away, I apologize.”
“That’s a-alright,” Eilwyn murmured, “No offense taken.”
In truth, she was insanely relieved he wasn’t angry. Or disdainful. Or merely even ignoring her. Eilwyn was so used to being ignored by men in armor when she tried to get their attention that this was almost enough to jar her from her sadness.
He didn’t stop, either. His touch changed, friendly and warm, to a loose grip about the ball of her shoulder, away from her clavicle.
She was so grateful he was anchoring her with a touch that she didn’t flinch when he smoothed a line up and down her bicep with his flattened palm. It was a gesture one might do on the back of a child with an upset stomach, firm enough to massage, but gentle enough not to hurt. It was nothing more than that, and yet it felt powerfully important at the same time.
“Take a breath.”
She obeyed him, inhaling a shuddering breath and then letting it out quick. The second breath came quicker, shallower, and the third came even without her volition followed quickly by a fourth and fifth. Eilwyn dropped her hand so that she could fan at her face with her fingers. She closed her eyes, her chest painful constricted, her throat tight, her breaths shallow and small.
“I can’t,” she whispered, panic setting in. She screwed her eyes shut, memories of her Harrowing cropping up. So suddenly had she gone from an everyday, safe routine to demons and betrayal and blood magic… and soon there would be darkspawn. It was more than she could bear.
Nobody to miss you. Nobody to care. You don’t matter enough to even be here. Had they had the numbers you would never have been recruited. You have no experience-
“You have to calm yourself,” Alistair said firmly.
“I can’t-” she went to repeat, but was interrupted.
“You can. But don’t focus on your breathing, though, just focus on my voice.”
His other hand was on her opposite shoulder, and the weight of his palms were more of a comfort than his words. Eilwyn nodded, tears still streaking freely down her cheeks. She would try. It was much preferrable to the emotional spiral she found herself falling down at the moment.
“When I was little,” he said, “I found out I was very good at rambling. So good, in fact, that if it had been an event in the grand tourney, you would be looking at the grand champion." Alistair lowered his voice, but did not slow his words. "Breathe. So while you’re calming down, I’m going to tell you about the first thing that comes to my mind. Sounds like fun, right? Make sure you breathe, but listen too.”
“O-okay,” Eilwyn gasped, trying to work past the hyperventilating to a place where she didn’t feel so light headed. She reached out, holding his forearms to steady herself. She felt Alistair pushing her shoulders back, opening her airways, expanding her chest.
She let him. She relaxed into his hands, and he began to speak.
“I remember this game I used to play as a kid. Maybe you remember it too? You and a friend would hold out both of your hands with only your index fingers out, and you would take turns trying to make the other person hold out more fingers. Do you know what I’m talking about?”
Eilwyn shook her head, the image unfamiliar. She had no idea.
“That’s fine, that’s actually better. Listen and try to imagine it.”
She nodded, and Alistair continued.
“Technically,” he said, “you both start with one finger each. Someone goes first and taps the other person’s hand. Whichever hand, doesn’t matter, right or left. They tap the other person’s hand with their one finger, and the other person now has to lift one extra finger on that hand that was tapped. The game is all about addition, you see.”
“Okay,” Eilwyn said softly, breaths coming easier. The pain in her chest was still there, as if a great beast was sitting atop her and weighing her down, but this was actually helping. She could feel her hands growing warm as her mana pooled about her extremities, but Alistair didn’t seem to notice.
Or maybe he didn’t mind. Maybe he just trusted her not to hurt him.
“So let’s say that person has two fingers on that hand, right?” he continued. “They can tap one of your hands with the two finger hand, and now you have to raise two fingers. Maybe they chose to make you raise two on your hand that had one, maybe they chose to make your other hand have more fingers. Either way works. And so it goes until one of you has five fingers up on one hand.”
“Wh-what happens then?” she asked, eyes still closed, lips still parted. “When you have five?”
“Then that hand is out. You win when you’ve made the other person raise all ten fingers. When both their hands are useless.”
He paused, and Eilwyn finally opened her eyes.
Alistair was watching her, gauging her for signs of further trauma. He didn’t seem frightened of her, even with the harmless little baubles of firefly-like sparkles that were ringing about her fingernails in her panicked state. Alistair was either too oblivious to have caught sight of them, or too kind to comment on them.
“Were you good at this game?” she asked, swallowing with difficulty after her words.
“The best,” he stated, and a sense of relief seemed to wash over him. “I’ll show you sometime.”
Eilwyn realized how close she was to him only when his glance fell to her lips. It was an innocuous flick of his eyes, and he didn’t seem affected by their closeness at all. She was a crying, frightened mess, of course he was more concerned than anything. Staring up at the sky, Eilwyn swiped both of her hands over her cheeks, just beneath her eyes, trying to dry up all the salt she’d cried over herself.
When she was no longer leaking frustration from her eyes, she brought her gaze back to the Grey Warden before her. He had dropped his hands from her, his face open and patient. Eilwyn took a breath, steady this time, deep to the bottom of her lungs, and then let it out slow.
“Better?” he asked.
She nodded, trying not to feel embarrassed at her lack of self-control. It probably happened to a lot of prospective Wardens, especially if they had never really traveled before.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “You probably expect more of your recruits.”
“Don’t be silly,” he said, his voice bright and jovial. “I just had myself a good long sob not even five minutes ago. It’s actually a Grey Warden tradition to work ourselves up into a great huge panic before a battle, you see. Then the darkspawn lend us their hankies, and while they’re distracted we crush them to bits. You’re incredibly intuitive to have picked that up and gone for it on your own.”
She snorted a little laugh, grinning despite herself.
“Now that we’ve gotten a few sobs out of the way, I suppose we should have some proper introductions?” He stepped back from her and gave her a respectful little bow. “Welcome to Ostagar. As the junior member of the order, I’ll be accompanying you as you prepare for the Joining.”
She extended the hand that had not covered her lips moments ago.
“Pleased to meet you. My name’s Eilwyn Amell.”
“Eilwyn,” he repeated, taking her hand in his to shake it. “Sounds rather like your parents named you Island and then just barely thought better of it, doesn’t it?”
“It never really occured to me,” she said with a little shrug. She sniffled, then added, “But yes, now that you mention it, it does. I might never be able to unhear it. Thank you for that.”
“My introductory gift to you,” he said happily. “I’m Alistair.”
“Yes, I figured as much,” Eilwyn said, and belatedly she realized she had kept holding his hand even after he was done shaking it. She dropped it calmly, trying not to draw attention to the fact, and used both hands to pull her hair over one shoulder. “From your armor, I mean. And the conversation you were having.”
"You are a clever one!"
Eilwyn gave a little huff of a laugh, one that she immediately regretted. What if she offended him? Her first meeting and she wasn't conducting herself in a very ladylike manner, now was she?
“You know,” Alistair said, stepping back and giving her a playful glance up and down. “It just occured to me that there have never been that many women in the Grey Wardens. I wonder why that is?”
“I can handle myself,” she said, fully aware that her hiccups were still audible. “Better than most,” she added with a rueful smile, poking fun at herself. Alistair seemed pleased, grinning back at her broadly.
“I could see that.” He paused, then tilted his head to the side. Slowly, he drawled, “Would you like to talk about it?”
“About how I handle myself?” Eilwyn asked feebly, attempting a joke. It fell flat, and she couldn’t muster a smile anymore. Alistair waited, watching her with an air of interest, and she swallowed hard.
He was handsome. She’d only just noticed, but he was. And young. How young? Younger than her? Young enough to be friends with? Just as eagerness bloomed within her breast once more, a noiseless voice within her began to shear it down.
You are not here to make friends. You are here to fight darkspawn. You are a mage, a recruit, and nothing more to even other Grey Wardens.
“No, that’s alright. I’m sorry. Don’t let me take up too much time blubbering,” Eilwyn said to herself, her eyes downcast. She set her jaw against the onslaught of loneliness and longing that seemed to accompany that phrase. She looked up at Alistair, searching his expression. “Everything’s just happened really quickly.”
“Mmm,” he nodded. “Bad things do have a habit of doing that, don’t they?”
Eilwyn gave a shuddering sigh, feeling less than capable of undergoing many more Bad Things, but then Alistair stepped closer to her with his two fists extended.
“Here, hold out your hands.”
Immediately, she obeyed, her brow furrowed.
“Put out one index finger on each hand,” he said with a grin. Flicking his eyes up to hers, Alistair gave her a charming little head tilt. “You can go first, if you like.”
“I just… tap your hand?”
“Yes. But tap strategically, my lady. I have yet to decide whether I will be merciful with you.”
“You already have been,” Eilwyn said softly.
“What? Oh, you mean with the crying and the breathing. Nonsense,” Alistair said, his boastful tone of voice betrayed by the way his cheek flushed pink and pleased. “That was just to lull you into a false sense of security for the game.”
Eilwyn tapped his right with her left. Immediately, he extended his middle finger, then tapped the back of her left hand right as she’d pulled it back. She had to extend two fingers, making her total three on that hand.
Grinning, she tapped Alistair’s two-fingered hand, forcing him to have five and put it away. He put it behind his back with a little scoff, and then tapped her left hand with his left. Her total became four. She looked up at him triumphantly, tapping his single-digit with four of her fingers, forcing him to put his other hand behind his back.
“I thought you said you always won,” she chided.
“There are other levels you know, more tricks to it besides just this,” he said, sounding a bit put out. But when Eilwyn leaned forward to get a better look at his face, he burst into a grin as if he couldn’t help himself. “But you do know how to handle yourself, I’ll give you that,” he replied, his eyes alight. “Better than most.”
“I think it was just beginner’s luck.”
“Good! Then that means you’ll play again, right?”
Eilwyn laughed out loud, a little noise that felt good, familiar. Much better than the tightness from before.
“Tell you what,” Alistair said, pulling his hands from behind his back and motioning towards the rest of Ostagar. “I can take you to Duncan directly, if you like. Or,” he leaned over to her as if he were about to divulge a great secret, “you and I could take a walk about the grounds before we go find Duncan, we could have a chat or two, and maybe, just maybe… we can have a rematch.”
“Deal,” Eilwyn said, relief humming through her in a happy vibrato, as if she were a series of tight harp strings and Alistair’s companionship was a gently strum across her being. “Are junior Grey Wardens supposed to play children’s games with new recruits in their free time?”
“It is yet another vast and far-reaching tradition, passed down from junior recruit to junior recruit,” Alistair laughed. His eyes seemed to darken a bit, or maybe it was a trick of the light. He turned to her with a smaller smile this time. “You’ll see soon enough.”
“I’m looking forward to traveling with you, Alistair,” Eilwyn said honestly, turning to him with a grateful smile.
“Right,” he said, looking a bit pink about his ears now. “Let’s hope I don’t ruin that, then!”
Eilwyn laughed once more, and they both began to walk lazily towards the center of the camp with a lightness in their step that hadn’t been there before. Even with the weight of the fear on their shoulders, with the darkness around them, with war on the horizon and darkspawn beneath it, there was something sweet in that moment.
Maybe it was the way the sun was setting over the valley beyond them. Maybe it was the way Alistair opened up to her about himself, about the Wardens, and about Duncan a bit more. Or maybe it was something else, something intangible.
Even though she struggled to put her finger on what precisely it was, something clicked into place with Eilwyn. For the first time since her Harrowing, she had a vague sense of hopefulness. It was a desire to belong to something more than herself, to do good that would outlast her time in the corporeal world, and to be more than what she was to the people around her.
No longer wallowing in loneliness, Eilwyn Amell let her shoulders roll back in confidence, and followed Alistair on a tour about the camp with a definitive bounce in her step.