#griffons!!!

The First Warden? Alistair glances over his shoulder and then steps outside, closing the door behind him. “What does the First Warden want?” He’s been suspiciously generous to them, and according to what few acquaintances Alistair has made here, he’s not generous to anyone. Alistair fears that any day now, that generosity is going to run out.

The man - Davrin - adjusts the sword in his scabbard. He seems very nervous. Or maybe he doesn’t want to be here. Or maybe both. “I’m on a, uh, special mission,” he answers. “And I’ve been told not to speak about it in public. But if you let me inside…”

“I’m not sure that’s a good idea,” Alistair replies. “The Warden-Commander isn’t feeling up to visitors right now.”

“From what I’ve heard, she’s never feeling up to visitors.”

Alistair’s eyes narrow. “Yes. Quite.”

“Look, Warden-Constable Alistair.” Davrin takes a step closer and lowers his voice. “The First Warden wants you and Warden-Commander Cousland to join me on my mission. He says there’s something there that she might want to see. Something that might improve her… condition.”

“What do you - or the First Warden, for that matter - know about her condition?”

Davrin takes a step back, holding up his hands. “I’m not saying I know anything,” he responds. “I’m just telling you what he told me. And - look. I respect what the two of you did in your day. I really do. But if you don’t want to come with me, I won’t make you. I don’t really want to make you.”

Alistair starts to turn towards the door, stops halfway, and then stares at the ground. Long and hard. Probably a bit longer than is socially acceptable, but why should he care what this random Warden thinks of him and his social skills? “What does this mission concern?” he asks finally.

“Warden history,” Davrin answers. His voice is lowered again - it must really be a secret. “I don’t know what exactly. I mean, I have an idea, but that’s all the First Warden told me.”

“Warden history.” Alistair rolls his lips together. “He really thinks it’s going to improve her condition?”

“He seemed to think so.”

“Did he say how?”

Davrin is silent for a moment and then lets out a short sigh. Alistair doesn’t think he was meant to hear it, but he does, and instead of responding in turn, he waves a hand in the other man’s direction. “Right. Ignore that question. Ignore me entirely, for that matter, I’m… a mess.”

“I leave tomorrow night for the High Anderfels. And I’ll be leaving whether or not you and the Warden-Commander are there. But… for her sake, and for yours… I hope the two of you leave with me.” With one last nod, he turns on his heel and walks away. Alistair watches him until he disappears into the hustle and bustle of the fortress.

He doesn’t want to get his hopes up that whatever they’re being sent to see is something to do with the Calling. Both of them have come to the conclusion that, despite the old texts they found and some promising research, it can never be cured. But if there’s one thing that’s been true about Wardens throughout history, it’s that they always have something up their sleeve. Even if it can’t fix the Calling, maybe it can fix something. Maybe it can fix Hilda. 

He opens the door and tiptoes into the house.

“Hilda?” he calls out. “Are you awake?”

Weakly, from the bedroom: “Yes.”

There are some days where she can hardly even speak. That one word in itself is a victory. He feels himself smiling as he follows her voice into their quarters, a smile that widens when he sees her sitting up in bed. He rushes over to sit at their bedside, but before he can say anything, she asks, “Who were you talking to?”

“Oh, you… you heard that?” He tries not to let the worry show on his face, but he dreads to think about how she reacted when she heard him talking to someone about her.

“Some of it,” she answers. Their hands find each other on the blankets - he doesn’t know which one of them reached out first. “Sound carries through the window, and I can almost always recognize your voice.”

He smiles at her and kisses the back of her hand. “It was a Warden I don’t know,” he answers. “Davrin, I think his name was. He came with a message from the First Warden… my love, do you want something to drink?”

Her free hand falls from where she had been holding it at her throat. “No. My throat just feels scratchy. Now go on. What was the message?”

“Hilda. You need a drink. You haven’t had any water since yesterday morning - no wonder your throat feels scratchy.” He stands up from the bed and crosses the room to where a sweating pitcher of water and a stack of cups sit on top of a block of ice - one that never melts, thanks to the ice rune underneath it and the warden mage who gave it to Alistair free of charge. “Here,” he tells her a minute later as he passes the cup into her waiting hands. “Do you need my help?”

She shakes her head. “Tell me what the message is.”

He almost smiles at that. That’s his girl - stubborn as a mabari, even to her own detriment. “He wants us to go on a mission,” he answers. “To the High Anderfels.”

“To do what?”

“To see a piece of Warden history.”

She stares at Alistair for a second and then raises her cup to her lips to take a long, slow sip.

“We don’t have to go,” Alistair rushes to tell her, “but -”

“But he wants me to go?”

“He thinks it’ll be good for you.”

“For my condition.” Alistair winces. She squeezes his arm. “It’s fine.”

“Yes,” he says, “he thinks it’ll be good for you and your condition.”

“But it’s not about the Calling?”

“I don’t think so,” he answers, knowing she’ll be disappointed, feeling disappointed himself. “I’m sorry.”

She rolls her lips together. He notices that those, too, are dry - cracked and peeling like the desert outside Weisshaupt. “Hilda,” he whispers, “your lips.”

“I’m fine.”

You’re not fine, he thinks as he leans over to the bedside table and pulls out a small pot of ointment. You spend all day sleeping. You don’t eat. You don’t talk or sing and the house is unbearably quiet to the point where I miss the dog. You’ve lost weight and I don’t even know if any of your travelling clothes will fit you properly anymore, let alone your armor, which means I might have to go out tomorrow morning before we leave and do my best to find something that could fit you better. When he’s scooped up a small amount of ointment onto his finger, he tilts her head back and smears it across her lips. To her credit, she lets him do it, and he instantly feels bad for chastising her, even if he did do it all in his head.

“I love you,” she whispers when he’s done, a tear slipping from the corner of her closed eye. “Alistair. I love you.”

“Oh, Hilda.” He presses his lips to the droplet and keeps them there until he can feel the salt on his tongue. “I love you, too. And because I love you, I think we should go. If you can manage it, I think we should go. It might be nice for us to get out of here and clear our heads, you know? And we’ll have a strong young man to keep us company.” And protect us, he thinks, but doesn’t say aloud.

“Hmm.” Hilda opens her eyes. “You won’t be jealous?”

“I’m not a boy anymore, Hilda. I’m a man. And your husband, need I remind you.”

“I don’t need reminding.” She cups his cheek. “How could I ever forget?”

–

Alistair isn’t sure whether he or Hilda is panting harder when they reach the front gates of Weisshaupt.

“We’re here!” he calls out to Davrin, who is packing his things onto the back of a horse. “Sorry, sorry, I know we’re late. But we’re here.”

Davrin turns to look at them. He’s clearly surprised, but after a few seconds, Alistair swears he sees a hint of a smile on the other man’s lips. “Good. I’m glad you made it.” He takes a couple steps closer and holds his fist to his chest. “Warden-Commander Cousland, it’s an honour to meet you. Officially, I mean.”

“It’s an honour to meet you as well, Warden Davrin,” she replies. “I’m looking forward to travelling with you.”

“It’s been a while since we’ve left Weisshaupt,” Alistair tells him, “so it took me a while to find all of our travelling gear…” And thank the Maker that Hilda’s still fit, because the two of them were so preoccupied with each other all morning that he had no time to run out and look for something new. (He was going to - part of the reason they got preoccupied was because he started running his hands all over her body in the name of ‘measurements’ and then they got… carried away. But they haven’t had sex in months, so he wasn’t going to come out and tell her no. What kind of monster would do that? Certainly not him!) 

“No problem,” Davrin answers. “I have your horses there. Warden-Commander Cousland -”

“Hilda,” she tells him. “You can call me Hilda.”

“Warden-Commander Cousland, you’re on the white one. Warden-Constable Alistair, you can take the brown.” 

“And you?” Alistair asks as he mounts his horse. (He started to hang his packs onto it, but a bunch of Warden-Recruits appeared from the shadows and started doing it for him. Hilda, too, though hers are a bit slower on account of all the staring and pointing and losing their minds at seeing the Warden-Commander in the flesh.) “Which horse are you taking?”

“None,” Davrin answers. “I’m walking.”

“Walking,” Hilda repeats. Alistair balks, too, but silently, because it’s been months since she’s said this many words in one day and he always preferred to let her do the talking anyway. “How long is the journey?”

“Two weeks.”

“That’s too long.”

“I’m used to it.”

“We’re all used to it,” she reasons. “We can trade.”

“I’m fine.”

“I don’t know, Davrin, I’d listen to her.” Alistair gives the man a pointed look. “You won’t like her when she doesn’t get her way.”

Hilda kicks him. He hisses and reaches down to rub his ankle. 

“Well, how about I walk for tonight and we can reassess in the morning,” Davrin offers. “Does that sound good?”

“Sounds great,” Hilda says, smiling.

“Better than great,” Alistair lies. He really doesn’t want to give up his horse, but he’ll do it if that’s what she wants.

“Do you have everything you need?” Davrin asks. “We won’t be able to turn back once we’ve left.”

Alistair turns to Hilda and holds out his hand. “Do you have everything you need, my love?”

She slips her hand into his and squeezes. “I do.”

-

They make good progress. Hilda takes well to the sun and the wind and the open space as Alistair had hoped, despite the fact that it’s freezing even at the height of the afternoon and the nights are even worse. Davrin isn’t much company - he doesn’t say more than a few words the first few days - but he does eventually relent to Hilda’s insistence on riding the horse, so he and Alistair take turns on the rare occasion he admits to being tired. Hilda, on the other hand, hasn’t walked much, but it's clear that neither Davrin nor Alistair want her to. In fact, it's clear that none of them want her to. It’s just one of those things that's better left unspoken.

In the bright gray sun of the desert, Alistair gets a better look at her than he has in months, and he sees now how far the taint has progressed and transformed her body. Her skin has a gray pallor to it, not unlike the clouds above them, and her eyes look bloodshot no matter how long it’s been since she last shed a tear. Her hair, though still long and thick, looks stringy at the ends, and he notices that the first thing she does every morning is tie her hair into a braid. The veins at her temples and along her neck are darker than usual, thanks to the taint that courses through them, and her lips are cracked and dry like the ground they travel on no matter how much ointment he slathers on them at night. Despite what she looks like, though, she seems to be doing better than she has in recent memory, and she does her fair share of the work by keeping their spirits high. She sings songs and reminisces about Vigil’s Keep and Highever and wherever else her travels have taken her over the years that Alistair never got to see, and she even convinces Davrin to open up about his childhood, though it takes a little bit of prodding. He’s Dalish - which Alistair could’ve guessed, considering the vallaslin - but chose to leave and started hunting monsters instead. After some more prompting, they find out that he has some really good stories, and she asks some really good questions. They stay up so late one night that by the time Alistair and Hilda turn in to let Davrin take first watch, the sun is already starting to peek over the horizon.

And again, despite what she looks like, there are moments when he feels like he’s travelled back in time. (Which is a thing now, according to Leliana, but he tries not to think too hard about it.) He hears Hilda snoring in bed beside him in the pale hours of the morning and remembers that there was once a time where he heard her snoring for the first time, and feels his chest warm at the thought that he’s heard it so many nights since. One night, when they pitch their tent a little further away from Davrin’s, they fumble with the clasps and buttons of each other’s clothes for so long that they give up on making love and lay there half-clothed instead, telling stories to each other until they both fall asleep. And one day, when they come across a group of darkspawn in the middle of the desert, he remembers what it’s like to watch an enemy set their sights on her. Fear churns his stomach before her arrow pierces the creature in the centre of its skull and then pride blooms like a flower in his chest. But her condition means that they only manage to travel a few hundred feet away from the burning pile of corpses before they need to stop and make camp for the night.

She falls asleep as soon as she’s set out the sleeping roll. She doesn’t even have time to pull her hair out of its braid. Alistair and Davrin sit in silence while Alistair sharpens his sword and Davrin stirs a pot of soup. 

“Is she alright?”

Alistair stops sharpening but doesn’t look across the fire at the other man. “She’s fine.”

He doesn’t seem to like this answer, if his sigh is any indication. “I’m serious. Should I be worried?”

This isn’t the first time he’s had to defend her - and it hasn’t just been the past few months, either. After Amaranthine was sacrificed and the people of Ferelden turned on her, he had to defend her choices to their enemies and defend her leadership to their friends. How one woman can do so much and still experience so much doubt, he will never understand, and it will never fail to make him hideous with anger. “If you’re talking about the battle,” he says, trying to keep his voice even, “then I believe she handled herself perfectly fine.”

“But if we run into more darkspawn.” Davrin has stopped stirring. “Will she be fine if we have to do this every day?”

At that Alistair drops his sword and stands. “I don’t think you know who you’re talking about,” he begins. “That woman in there - the woman that you are mistaking for someone weak and frail - is the Hero of Ferelden. She’s the first person in history, in ALL of history, to end a Blight in a single year. She’s the first person to kill an Archdemon and live. She has seen and endured so much that you will never, ever understand, and she has made choices that you will never, ever have to make, and -”

“Alistair, stop.”

He’d been so distracted that he didn’t even notice her slipping out of the tent.

“Warden Davrin.” Hilda sits down at the other man’s side and places a hand on his shoulder. He looks guilty, but he probably doesn’t feel guiltier than Alistair does. “I’m sorry about that. And I’m sorry, I am honestly sorry, that you have to travel with me. You’re right - I’m not fine. I haven’t been for a long time. But you will never have to carry my weight. I promise you that.”

“I wouldn’t mind if I did.”

She smiles at you. “I appreciate that. And I appreciate all you’ve done for us. You’ve been a great traveling partner so far - I think Alistair and I both agree that we’ve been honoured to have you at our side.” 

“Thank you, Warden-Commander.”

“I thought I told you to call me Hilda.”

“Then thank you,” Davrin says, “Hilda. And - I want you to know that I’m honoured to get to travel with you, too.”

“Thank you. I appreciate that.”

She straightens up. Alistair can feel her looking at him expectantly, but he’s so embarrassed and ashamed that he doesn’t meet her eyes until she’s standing right in front of him. After a few seconds, she holds her hand out. He takes it and lets her lead him away.

It’s the first night that it hasn’t been absolutely freezing, and though he’s cold as they leave the fire behind them, he doesn’t miss it. And he certainly doesn’t miss Davrin’s presence, though he does feel really bad for yelling at the man - firstly because he knows Hilda hates when he yells at people for her, and also because yelling makes him feel bad in general. And, to be honest, he's so unused to it that it hurts his throat. Hilda sits down on a flat-topped boulder and tries to pull Alistair down beside her, but he doesn't sit. Instead he kneels at her feet to wait for her judgement and sighs with relief when she winds her arms around his shoulders.

“He meant well,” she tells him eventually.

“I know he did,” he answers. “I just get upset.”

“When?”

“When people talk about you like that. When they talk about you being sick.”

“I am sick. We’re both sick. We’re all sick.”

“I know we are. But they don’t understand.” He leans his forehead against her knee. “No one understands.”

“What don’t they understand?”

He takes a shuddering breath. He thinks back on all the years they spent separated so she could search for a cure to the Calling; the nights he spent patching his own wounds; the days she spent travelling with only herself to talk to, which, aside from death, is the worst thing to punish her with. He thinks about all the letters he ruined because he traced his fingers over her signature so many times that the parchment fell apart. He thinks about all the time they wasted. All the time that they’ll never get back, as well as whatever else they lost. That fire in her eyes that he’s only seen flickers of these past two weeks - he doesn’t think that’ll ever return.

“That we tried everything to fix it," he whispers. "And we failed. It’s not that you’re weak - it’s that you spent so long trying to be strong that it… it…”

Tears are beginning to form in his eyes. He’s glad he buried his face in her lap so she can’t see. 

“It made you even sicker.” His hands ball into such tight fists that his knuckles start to burn. “And I can’t fix that, either.”

He feels her lips first at the crown of his head. Then the nape of his neck. Then the tips of his ears. She tries to pull his head up so she can look at him but he doesn’t let her, keeping his face buried into the top of her thigh because this has now become an evening full of embarrassing moments he would rather not acknowledge if there’s a chance her condition might make her forget. Unfortunately for him, she only lets him cry for a few more minutes before she starts tugging on his hair, and he eventually relents with an, albeit tearful, “Ow! What was that for?”

“Alistair.” She grabs his face. “It’s not your job to fix me.”

He frowns. “The ring on my finger and the amulet around my neck disagree.”

“It’s your job to accept me as I am and love me anyway. Which you have done diligently for almost two decades now.” 

“I should be doing more than that.”

“You can’t love me into health, Alistair.”

At that, his bottom lip wobbles. She places her thumb on it.

“But getting out of the fortress has made me feel so much better,” she whispers. “So much better. I’m still weak. And sick. And… sad.” He nods - he’s sad, too. “But this - this is the right call. I don’t think we should go back. I think our story continues somewhere else.”

“Maybe in whatever dank cave Davrin is taking us to to put us out of our misery.”

“Maybe,” she laughs. “Or maybe it takes us to Tevinter. Or the Free Marches. Or back home, to Ferelden... I haven’t been there in years.”

“And you think that’ll help?”

“I know it will.”

“But if it doesn’t, then I’ll be there to take care of you.”

“And maybe you’ll let me take care of you, too.”

He nods. She nods. And then he lets his eyes flutter shut. He’s suddenly very tired, too - it’s been a while since he had a good cry like this, and he forgot how much it could drain him. Hilda kisses both of his eyelids and then his lips before grabbing his shoulders and hoisting him into standing. “Now let’s get back to our friend,” she says. “Because I think you that you need to help him make dinner.”

-

By the time they reach their destination, the three of them have reached their limit. The High Anderfels is certainly the most unpleasant place Alistair has travelled through in his life - it’s even worse than Blighted Ferelden, which is saying something. They barely have time to greet their contacts, Lancit and Remi, before they’re ushered into the ground floor of some sort of watchtower, given tankards of mead and wedges of cheese and three or four slices of slightly stale bread each, and urged to go to sleep as soon as they’re finished eating. “Big day tomorrow,” says Remi, a tall, broad-shouldered woman. She gives Davrin a wink before leaving the three of them alone.

Alistair raises an eyebrow at Davrin. The elven man rolls his eyes.

Hilda and Alistair set up their bedrolls on the other side of the room from him. When they’re settled underneath the blankets and listening to the wind howl through the windows in the tower above them, Alistair leans over and whispers, “I bet he’s excited to get rid of us.”

“No,” she whispers back. “I think we won him over.”

“You can win over anyone.” Alistair presses a kiss to the hollow of Hilda’s temple. She hums contentedly and snuggles into his side. Within minutes, she’s asleep.

Alistair, on the other hand, tosses and turns most of the night. He’s anxious. And hungry, because the cheese and bread that Lancit and Remi gave them looked so unappetizing that he could only eat about half of his share. Whenever he tries to fall asleep and realizes it’s not going to work, he usually gives up and watches Hilda instead. There’s a few times where it’s clear she’s having a nightmare, but after some soothing words and his hand brushing over her forehead, she seems to pull herself out of it. In addition to the past few weeks and their conversation a few nights ago, it confirms his suspicions that her recent behaviour is not a product of the taint or the Calling at all.

He’s heard of people like this before. Women who give birth and spend the next year staring listlessly at walls or out windows, men who lose their children in a battle and suddenly can’t find the strength to get out of bed. And there have been more than a few times in his life that Alistair’s felt that despair himself, like all the nights in the Korcari Wilds that he spent staring into the fire and thinking about how much he missed the weight of Duncan's hand on his shoulder. So he understands. Perhaps, in some twisted way, he’s relieved that it isn’t because of the taint. If she can pull out of this, if she really is right that leaving Weisshaupt for good is going to help her feel better, then they might still have a fruitful few years ahead of them before the Calling really sets in.

But that can be tomorrow’s problem. He tucks her into his chest, curls himself around her, and finally manages to fall asleep.

He awakes a few hours later to quiet chatter on the other side of the room. “Yes, of Ferelden,” Davrin is saying. “You didn’t recognize her?”

“When would I have seen her before?”

“There are at least three books about the Fifth Blight in the library.”

Another man - Lancit - snorts. “You think I have time to read those?”

“Why do you even care?" Remi. "Wasn’t she before your time?”

“I was a child during the Fifth Blight. I heard all about it.”

“If you heard all about it, then what do you have to say about her surviving a blow to the Archdemon?”

“Gooood morning!” Alistair says. The three Wardens nearly jump out of their skin. Apparently they hadn’t noticed him shuffling out of his bedroll, standing up, and pulling on his gambeson, which does not really give him a lot of hope for the future of the Wardens, but oh well. “What are we talking about?” 

“Nothing,” Remi responds. “Good morning, Warden-Constable.”

“Morning,” Lancit mutters.

“Morning, Alistair,” Davrin says with a smile. Apparently he’s not sick of them after all - another thing Hilda is right about. Alistair will add it to the very, very long list.

“We have some food here for you.” Lancit pushes a plate to the end of the table, which has an assortment of cheese, apples, and more stale bread on it. Thank the Maker - Alistair would hate to have some fresh meat or a nice pastry or something! “It’s a bit of a trek up to where we’re going - how soon can the two of you be ready?”

“We’ll only need a few minutes, thanks.” Alistair grabs the least-bruised apple and returns to Hilda’s bedroll, where he grabs her shoulder to gently shake her awake. “Up and at ‘em, Warden-Commander. We have some history to see.”

Once Hilda is dragged out of bed - reluctantly, because she apparently had a really good sleep - and dressed, the five of them set out for the top of a small mountain nearby. It shouldn’t take more than an hour to get to the top, according to Lancit, but it takes about three, if the way the sun rises higher and higher in the sky is any indication. Hilda, like usual, manages to get both Lancit and Remi’s life stories out of them as they climb, and eventually has the two of them laughing at stories of her own. Alistair will never get tired of watching her win people over. It always feels like a victory to him, too.

At the top of the tower, they reach a gate that is flanked on either side by golden griffon statues. Alistair can hear something in the distance, a whining animal of some kind, and though he places a cautious hand on the hilt of his sword, he doesn’t have the chance to ask what it is before Lancit steps in front of them, rubbing his hands together and smiling. “Alright,” he says. “What the three of you are about to see today is something that will change your life.” 

“Oh, get on with it, Lancit,” Remi says.

“No!” Lancit retorts. “This is a momentous occasion. We have to do this properly.”

“I can’t wait to see what this is,” Davrin comments dryly.

“Go on, Lancit,” Hilda encourages. “Set the scene for us.”

“What the three of you are about to see is one of Thedas’s best-kept secrets.” He starts walking backwards up the steps and waves for the rest of them to follow. “One of the Wardens’ best-kept secrets. Actually - it’s thirteen of the Warden’s best-kept secrets!”

“Thirteen,” Alistair repeats under his breath as they make their way up a second set of stairs. “Is that a number I should know?” Hilda elbows him. He winces. “Was that a yes?”

“It’s a pay attention.”

“Warden Davrin, Warden-Constable Alistair, and Warden-Commander Cousland, may I introduce you to - our griffons!”

Hilda stops in her tracks. “Griff-?”

She’s interrupted by the sound of thirteen cages swinging open.

And then thirteen creatures fly into the sky above them. The cloud of them is so thick and dark that for a moment it blots out the sun. They’re not the size of the griffons of legend, some of which could be the size of small houses, but they’re not exactly small, and they squawk and howl whenever they strike each other mid-flight. There are a few that are solid gray, but another the colour of oranges and another streaked with shades of blue and purple and even yellow. And their claws - even at this size, their claws could wrap tight around Alistair's head. He can barely believe what he’s seeing. In fact, he’s so taken aback that he can’t help but feel like it’s some sort of trick.

Hilda has always talked about griffons. He can’t count how many times they discussed what they would name mounts of their own if they’d been lucky enough to be alive at the same time, how many ancient tales she told him that featured griffons as the hero. And how many times has she sat in bed and run her hands over the carving of the griffon on her chest plate, taking strength from a creature she’d never even seen in the flesh? She even had a name for the one on her armor after the Fifth Blight.

He reaches for her hand. In return, she squeezes his hard enough that it loses all feeling.

“Thirteen griffons,” she repeats.

“But how?” he asks.

Lancit and Remi tell them the story, about a woman named Valya and an elf named Caronel who found a clutch of griffon eggs suspended in time in a cave somewhere nearby. Apparently Lancit and Remi have raised them here from birth, which is why Alistair didn’t recognize them. “They’re about seven years old now,” Lancit explains. “They won’t be fully grown for a few more years, but believe me, they have grown a lot.”

Hilda is still watching the griffons twirl and soar through the sky. “And what does the First Warden intend to do with them?” 

“What do you think?” Remi says. “He wants them to be our mounts.” 

Apparently holding Alistair’s hand isn’t enough for Hilda anymore. She grabs his shoulders and pulls herself into his chest, still staring upwards. He runs his hand over her back and does the same. As much as he’d like to comfort her or say something meaningful, he couldn’t tear his eyes away from the griffons even if he tried. 

Davrin, apparently, is set to be Lancit and Remi’s bodyguard. That was his mission all along. He’ll be staying in the High Anderfels for as long as the First Warden needs him to, which he doesn’t seem to be disappointed about. “Do a good enough job and you might get one of your own,” Remi tells him. Alistair does drag his gaze away at that, and looks at Davrin in time to see the other man grinning wider than Alistair’s ever seen. 

“Can we - can we touch them?” Hilda asks.

“Course you can,” Lancit says. “Why d’you think you’re here?”

He and Remi put their fingers to their lips and do a series of complicated whistles. The griffons linger a while longer in the sky before returning to the ground, lining up - lining up! - in front of the five Wardens. “We’ve named them all already,” Remi tells them, pointing as she goes down the line. Each of them squawks when the finger is turned in their direction. “There’s Rumptail, Stormwing, Beaktooth, Heidas…”

“Crookytail,” Lancit adds, smirking. “Of course.”

After the introductions are finished, they spend the rest of the afternoon in the training ground. Hilda feeds all the griffons something called gingerwort truffles; she throws a ball for Beaktooth and a disc for Heidas; after an hour of playing, she settles down on the ground with Stormwing for a break, and the griffon butts its head into her chest and squawks while she giggles and tries to push him away. Alistair does some playing of his own - to no one’s surprise, he develops an immediate attachment to Rumptail, because the name is hilarious. But he spends most of their time with the griffons watching Hilda. At one point, he finds himself with tears spilling down his cheeks. He can’t remember the last time he felt so alive. He can’t remember the last time she looked more awake.

-

They stay for three days. To no one's surprise, most of their time is spent with the griffons. Hilda grills Lancit and Remi on the training regimen and tells Alistair when something is, or isn’t, like how you train a mabari. Davrin starts calling one of the smaller griffons ‘Assan’, and he and Remi have a ten minute long argument about it one afternoon before she finally agrees that it is a good name. She and Lancit are funny. Alistair likes them. He likes that they don’t feel like Wardens. After everything that happened during the Inquisition, he finds the least stuffy Wardens, the ones who would disobey direct orders if they’re stupid enough, and, most importantly, the ones who treat Hilda as the woman she is instead of the myth they want her to be, easiest to tolerate. The only time he isn’t smiling or laughing or otherwise enjoying himself is when Hilda asks Lancit which griffon will be her and Alistair’s, followed by an awkward silence in which they all realize that the two of them will be long gone by the time the griffons are old enough for riders. Still, Lancit allows her to name the orange griffon Cinnamon after her childhood mabari, and Remi swears to her it’s not an empty promise, that she’ll make the name stick.

It’s nice to see Davrin let loose, too. He seems to like the griffons, and even though he tells Alistair that he didn’t know Lancit and Remi much before coming here, the three get on well and will have a good time out here in the wilderness. They sort of remind Alistair of when he and Hilda lived in Vigil’s Keep with Nathaniel. Nathaniel. He misses that man dearly. Maybe they’ll add his latest hideout to their list of places to visit.

First on that list: Our Lady of the Anderfels. Hilda’s only been once, the first time she came to the Anderfels while searching for a cure, and she was there during a rainstorm. “I’d like to take you,” she tells him. “And. You know. I’d like to actually see her without any storm clouds in the way.” After that, they’ll make their way back to Weisshaupt, kindly ask the First Warden if they can keep their horses and consider stealing them if he says no, and, on their way out, grab all the books they never got to read from their entryway. 

“I bet the Warden-Recruits dared each other to sneak into the house and steal them when they noticed we were gone,” Alistair tells her.

“No one has noticed that we’re gone,” she reassures him with a smile. “We might as well be ghosts.”

Maybe they were. But not anymore. Hilda is so happy with the griffons that she seems twenty years old again. There’s no distant look in her eye, no delay in her movements. She is present, aware. She’s living for the first time in a long time. Maybe for the first time since the Blight. When they ride away from their three new friends a few days later, she somehow manages to make marks on their map without letting her horse veer off-course, and she’s still talking as Alistair is starting to fall asleep.

“Then after Weisshaupt, we’ll go to Nevarra,” she’s saying. “I’ve been before, but I never had the chance to do any sightseeing - and from what I’ve heard, there are a lot of sights to see. And then, while we’re there, we might as well take the long route through the Free Marches up to Antiva. We’re close enough that we could stop into Orlais to visit Leliana - sorry, I mean Divine Victoria - how ridiculous is that? - but she’s much better at writing letters than Zevran, and I’d like to see this house on Rialto Bay that he mentioned in his last letter. Oh, it’s been so long since we’ve seen him! I bet he misses us.”

“I missed you,” Alistair mumbles, half-asleep.

He can hear the fond smile in her voice. “What do you mean?” 

“I missed you. I’m glad you’re back.” He tightens his arms around her and frowns. “And I don’t ever  want you to leave me like that again. Never again. You hear me?”

“Alistair…” When she brushes her hands through his hair, the touch is so soft and warm that it just about knocks him unconscious. Before he goes, however, he hears her whisper: “I’ll never leave you. It’s you and I until the end.”

-

Davrin is sitting in the Lighthouse and turning over a block of wood in his hands when he hears the news.

“I got word from Charter,” Rook explains. “Who got word from Leliana.”

“About what?” he asks, feeling his chest tighten with familiar panic. Day in and day out, it’s either bad news or worse news, and he doesn’t know how much more he can take.

Rook sits down across from him. “Warden-Commander Cousland and Warden-Constable Alistair. They’re dead.”

Dead. He didn’t know Hilda and Alistair well, but the three weeks they spent together made an impression on him. Last he heard from Remi - before Remi herself died - they were back in Ferelden, living in Highever with Hilda’s brother. She talked fondly of the place. He’s glad she got to see it again.

“How did they die?” 

“Darkspawn attack. They were defending a village in the middle of nowhere.”

“That sounds like the Warden-Commander, alright.” Despite a small chuckle, he feels his throat constricting, and Assan walks over to brush his beak comfortingly along Davrin’s arm. If only they had a griffon to protect them… he knows she wanted one. 

“They died in each other’s arms,” Rook explains. “When the villagers found them, they said it looked like they were sleeping peacefully.”