October 2025: an OG Flemeth Draft (& my only Opus prompt :’)

Flemeth Fight, Kokari Wilds (9:31)

“Do not think her gone soft in age,” Morrigan had warned them, before they left her behind. “My mother is many things. ‘Forgiving’ is not among them.”

“We need a plan.” Emma spread the map across the damp ground, weighing down the corners with stones. Her fingers traced the route through the swamp, pausing at each water crossing marked by the Chasind scouts. “Flemeth’s hut is here, deep in the wetlands.”

“Lovely.” Alistair crouched beside her, close enough that she could feel the warmth radiating from his armor. “Nothing says ‘friendly visit’ like trudging through a swamp to meet an ancient witch of legend.”

“The water paths will be our main challenge. We should establish signals for crossing formations.”

Zevran lounged against a tree, cleaning his nails with a dagger. Alistair shot Zevran a warning look. She ignored them and continued,

“Sten and Alistair take point, I’ll coordinate from center with support, Zevran and Leliana on flanks, Wynne on barriers. If we encounter deep water—” she paused, “Zevran’s on reconnaissance.”

“How delightfully practical,” Zevran purred. “Our fearless leader seems less than enthusiastic about getting her feet wet.”

Alistair had already deliberately placed himself between her and Zevran’s knowing smirk. “It’s called tactical positioning. Emma coordinates better with full field visibility.”

“Of course.” Zevran’s smile widened.

“We leave in an hour,” Emma interrupted, “Check your supplies.”

As the others dispersed, Alistair lingered.

“Remember what we practiced at Redcliffe. If—”

“I remember.” The swimming lesson felt like a lifetime ago—his patient hands supporting her back, her death grip on his forearms, the mortifying panic when water touched her face. She’d managed to float for exactly three seconds before scrambling for shore.

“But the swamp won’t be like the lake,” she added. Emma had also been anxious of Lake Calenhad’s cold, semitransparent depth; But now found herself nostalgic for it. His hand found hers on the map.

“Don’t,” Emma responded, pointlessly, while squeezing back. She had noted the way he angled himself, as if he could shield her from this as simply as he could a physical assault. This was plain for Zevran to read, at least, and probably the others as well.

Embarrassing, but maybe better they all knew, or suspected.

“Don’t what? Don’t stand here? Don’t breathe? Don’t fail to notice that you’re gripping that map like it’s trying to escape?”

“Someone needs to keep you from making terrible jokes at inappropriate moments.”

“My jokes are perfectly timed, thank you very much.”

The swamp had reclaimed itself—water risen, thick black and sucking. The Korcari Wilds pressed in on all sides, thick with rot and fog that turned the midday sun to a sickly yellow smear. Their boots squelched through mud that grabbed at every step, and Emma forced herself to focus on the rhythm of movement rather than the sticky air and soggy ground saturating her entirely.

“Cheerful place,” Alistair muttered, slapping at something with too many legs. “Really captures that ‘slow descent into madness’ aesthetic.”

“Shh.” Leliana held up a hand, arrow already half-nocked. “Something moves ahead.”

They fell into formation without thought, weeks of travel having honed their movements to near-telepathy.

“Just a giant leech,” Zevran reported, reappearing from the mist. “Already dead, thankfully. Though the size suggests we should watch the water.”

“There.” Alistair pointed through the trees. The hut squatted in the swamp like something grown rather than built, all angles wrong. The Wardens exchanged glances. It had not, until this moment, felt much like the same swamp where they’d been rescued, almost a year ago. It had been here the two of them had learned they were the only Grey Wardens in Ferelden. His visor was open, exposing a knot of grief in his brow, once so familiar. She realized she couldn’t recall the last time she’d seen it.

“Well, well.” Flemeth stood silhouetted in the doorframe, and Emma’s blood chilled. Power radiated from her like heat from a forge, ancient and amused and probably inhuman. “The young Warden and her merry band. Come about my daughter’s little request, have you?”

Emma wasn’t interested in talking. She looked at her companions—Leliana already reaching for her bow, Sten simply waiting for orders, Wynne’s face grave but unsurprised. Zevran twirled his daggers with anticipation. And Alistair…

Alistair stepped closer to her, voice low. “We can walk away.”

“And let Morrigan be possessed? By her own mother?”

“No– I– You’re right. Of course.”

Everything was their problem now—the Blight made sure of that. Morrigan was one of theirs.

Then the bog itself seemed to inhale. The wind dropped. The reeds bent outward. And Flemeth rose from the muck. Not the woman, not the hag of the Wilds—something else. Her dragon form tore through the canopy, swamp water sliding off her scales in sheets.

“Great. A disapproving parent who is also a dragon,” Alistair raised his shield, bracing in the muck.

“Form up,” Emma commanded. “Spread out, don’t group where her breath can catch us all. Wynne, barriers on the melees. Leliana, Zevran—”

Leliana crossed herself and knocked an arrow, cold eyes calculating angles, “Aim for the wings when she lifts. Bring her down,” she called to Zevran, her bardic voice lilting through rain.

“Already on it,” he vanished into stealth.

Emma saw the telling glow building in Flemeth’s throat. “MOVE!”

Fire turned the swamp to steam. Emma threw herself behind a twisted tree, bark exploding above her head as flames licked around either side. She heard Alistair’s war cry, the clash of sword on scales. The surface of the swamp was slick and black as oil.

Emma called out from the left flank, sending a bolt of energy that sparked harmlessly off dragon hide. The enchanted arrows flew true, a dozen striking in rapid succession. Flemeth roared, whipping around with her tail catching Sten full in the chest. Their off-tank flew backward, hitting a tree with a crack that made Emma wince.

“Sten!” She started toward him, but Wynne was already there, blue light flowing from her hands.

“Focus!” Wynne commanded, ever the teacher, even now.

Emma turned back to see Alistair dancing between Flemeth’s claws, his shield taking gouges that would have eviscerated him in leathers. Zevran appeared and disappeared, leaving bleeding wounds that re-sealed behind dragon scales. The dank smells of iron and peat hit her in waves.

“We’re not hurting her enough!” Alistair yelled, diving under another swipe.

Attempting to make advantage of the wet, Emma hit Flemeth with a storm of frost and shadow, but it dissolved uselessly in a spark of violet. She resists cold.

Her staff pulsed with white fire, enchanting their weapons to flame with an unspoken command: Burn her.

Flemeth reared to fight fire with fire, breathing a blast that rolled off Alistair’s shield like molten sunlight, briefly lighting the field beyond seeing anything. She heard Leliana’s arrows sing over their shoulders, each one striking softer flesh—between scales, under the jaw, along the wing joint.

Emma’s mind raced. They had done this before, with the dragon at Haven. But Flemeth was older, smarter, and she knew their tactics. Every time they seemed to gain advantage, she adapted. Then she saw it, when the dragon reared back for another breath attack, there was a pause, a gathering of energy that left her exposed.

“Alistair!” Emma shouted. “When she breathes—”

“Come on, then!” understanding, he provoked the dragon who obliged him, diving with a crash. Emma channeled a forcefield around him, preventing him from being split with the blighted water. The spell held, barely. And that was now a new problem.

Emma looked at the positioning—Flemeth was too mobile, too reactive. Unless…“Leliana, Zevran—drive her toward the water!”

Zevran laughed, breathless. But they moved anyway, harrying Flemeth toward the deep pool at the clearing’s edge. Emma felt her chest tighten as they got closer, the dark water reflecting nothing, promising everything she feared. Flemeth, focused on the immediate threats, didn’t notice her back claws sink into mud, until it was too late. She reared up, wings spreading for balance—

“NOW!” Emma screamed. Arrows soared. Her spell, a concentrated lance of arcane entropy, struck the exposed point. Flemeth’s roar reverberated through the air. Furious at the resistance, her slit-pupiled gaze swept to the next threat — Zevran, shooting too close, loosing arrows with reckless rhythm. Her tail lashed, spraying mud, and she pivoted toward him like a serpent scenting prey. The amateur archer lowered his bow, eyes flicking to Emma with a quiet plea for help.

She looked back– just in time, the force-field dissipated, their tank charged toward them. Flemeth rounded swiftly in a mighty surge of motion, rocking the peaty surface. He was determined to draw Flemeth’s wrath away from their archers, covering their retreat. He slammed his sword into Flemeth’s hind leg with a resounding crack. Her retaliating claw caught him mid-turn.

It wasn’t a clean hit; worse, it was a crushing one. The strike flung him back into a deeper part of the bog, where he vanished beneath the surface. The splash was deep and sickening. Then, nothing. No shout. Just the ripple closing in on itself.

Emma went after the depth where Alistair had vanished, waded toward the rippling spot where the bubbles still broke. Her next spell fizzled in her hand. Every instinct screamed at her to stop, to let someone else—anyone else—She could just wait, and hope.

Zevran was already there, looking to their leader; Oddly slow, struggling not to freeze in fear. He estimated their odds of surviving this fight, her typically stoic command broken, the other Warden underwater. Not good.

In an instant, she reflected rapidly on a series of past and present: “Water erodes even the strongest mountain, and remembers everything it swallows.” Areli sleeping soundly in a bunk, before she was lost to the Circle. Alistair in the lake of his boyhood home, where he moved through the water with an ease that made her envious, promising not to let her drown. If he could surface on his own, he would have already. She did not want to go on wondering if she could have done something, anything different, not with another.

Zevran barked at her, “Warden! Go, or he’s gone. I’ll cover your back.”

Emma stumbled after, trembling, the swamp closing around her waist. She searched for Alistair’s pulse, distant under the water — but it slipped away, sinking. He was drowning because she insisted they come here.

“His armor,” she gasped. “It’s too heavy—”

Flemeth was already rearing again, wings spreading to take flight. Leliana’s arrows whistled in arcs of red flame, and one struck deep. The dragon roared, staggered—its wing faltered. Zevran seized the opening, a rare shot into the same wound. Leliana’s last arrow loosed — divine fire trailing like a comet — and slammed through Flemeth’s eye.

Emma got a glimpse of the dragon reeling backward as she plunged into the liquid darkness, thick with sediment and plant matter that turned everything to shadow. She propelled herself forward, despite wanting to surface, to breathe, to escape. The signs of life she had been following dissipated against the fade. Somewhere ahead, something metallic glimmered faintly—a shoulder plate, bubbles leaking through a helm, anchored motionless at a wretched angle into the mud. He’d hit hard and cratered into the bottom. Emma’s lungs burned already.

She kicked through the muck toward him, every stroke fighting suction. Zevran, somehow not far behind, his eyes were narrow slits behind the dim gleam of a dagger he’d drawn—his “knife for close conversations.”

Emma reached the fallen Warden, desperately clawed at his plates, fingers sliding off the mud-slick steel. Zevran appeared at her flank and mimed cutting. But there was no leverage, no air. Every tug sent clouds of silt blooming around her like smoke. To her horror, she discovered the swamp’s pressure had sealed him into the suit, like a coffin’s lid pinned down by the earth. They couldn’t access the straps or cut them.

Her spell fizzled, her staff-less hands burned—the fade’s current muddled by the water’s density. Her magic didn’t travel well here; it hit resistance like sound underwater. She tried again. Her hands found his breastplate seam and she pressed her palm flat. Her glyph flickered and she reversed the spin, forcing the pressure out.

The spell detonated in silence, a concussive bloom of blue and white. The mud Alistair was embedded in loosened, clouds of silt boiling up like smoke. And the damned breastplate buckled, separating by a finger’s width—enough for her to jam her hand in and wrench the straps. The leather, swollen and tight, refused to give. She summoned a thread of flame to the dagger in Zevran’s hand, mana draining rapidly to keep the the blade burning faint gold underwater, but the rogue managed to saw through.

Emma jammed her own knife under another strap. The effort was blind, desperate. Her knife and hands were meant for chopping herbs. Zevran followed her fast, sawing through the leather buckles of the breastplate, swollen and gritty, practically glued together. She moved on, looking for anything else to get through, so desperately grasped and stretched the doublet underneath, cutting him out of careful stitches and strong wool. Her lungs convulsed to remind her she was also running out of time. Her entire will compartmentalized her fear of submersion, suppressing the urge to surface, refusing to leave without him.

She tried and failed to pry the armour open as Zevran he cut through the last strap. He was still too heavy, the water too thick, and she could feel her head getting light, her limbs getting denser.

I’m going to drown. We’re both going to drown.

With her last bit of mana, Emma forced the next repulsion glyph, veins now burning with her lungs. She heard the unmistakable sound of bone cracking, but it worked. The cloud of debris they had created sucked inward, toward the vacuum of the breastplate pried open at last. The force ripped through the mud and kicked both of them upward. Armor peeled away in chunks—breastplate, spaulders, gauntlet.

She thought of nothing but up, of firmly dragging the other warden behind her, thought of nothing but them breaking the surface, thought of nothing but—

Air.

She gasped, choked, gasped again, treading poorly while struggling to keep hold of him, his helmet heavy against her shoulder. The rain hammered down harder now, drumming against her face, turning the swamp’s surface into a boiling skin. Leliana was bounding toward them.

“Help!” The word came out as barely a croak.

Her vision was cloudy, but she felt hands on them—Zevran, pushing, Leliana hauling them to shore. As they emerged from the swampy pool, its water released them with a slurp, and they collapsed onto solid ground.

Leliana rolled Alistair onto his side. His visor was still locked down; Emma slammed the heel of her hand against the hinge, but it didn’t budge. She used her knife as a lever, wedging it beneath the visor seam and prying. The visor gave way with a splintering crack; The knife snapped. Air hit his face. He didn’t breathe.

“You’re not done yet,” she insisted, tearing open the satchel of vials at her belt to chug a mana potion. The spell bridged the gap between them; she felt his heart’s heavy stillness inside herself. Emma pushed harder—pulled harder, mimicking the rythmn of her own heartbeat—until, finally, with Leliana shoving at his back, viscous bog water gushed from his mouth. He sputtered, coughed, groaned, an ugly sound of drowning undone. The glow around her hands dimmed as she saw his eyes open.

Zevran sat back, running a hand through his hair, exhaling slow. “Maker’s mercy. Remind me to never fish for Wardens again.”

“You owe me a new bowstring,” Leliana said softly; She secured it poorly in her haste to pull her companions out of the water.

The swamp was still again, except for the hiss of cooling scales. Zevran looked away, under the pretense of watching the corpse steam in the distance. Leliana carefully removed her ruined bowstring, stealing glances at the Wardens, her eyes shining.

Alistair took in Emma, crouched over him, soaked to the bone, hair plastered to her face, her palm pressed to his sternum and radiating an unnatural warmth into his lungs. Feeling returned to him in stabbing pins and needles. He became aware of her other arm curling around him, pulling him up against her as he ejected goo on every other exhale.

“You… can’t swim.”

“Neither can you, apparently.”

“Meant to…”

“Shut up. Just breathe.”

Alistair’s eyes fluttered, unfocused, a hand pawing at his torn doublet. He wheezed something and promptly choked on it.

“Get us potions… and a tent,” she said to Leliana.

“Em, where…?” he managed.

“Don’t worry. Sit, please…” He tried to straighten, but pain constricted him. He was limp and heavy. Emma struggled with the angle for his lungs to drain.

“Keep him upright,” Wynne said sharply as she reached them. “He’s aspirated half the swamp.”

Leliana arrived with the potions, then sprinted off again to start assembling camp. As Emma eased him up with a poultice, she spotted among the vials: Her phylactery with the amulet of Andraste chained around it.

Somewhere behind them, Bodahn and Sandal must have already retrieved some things. Leliana’s romantic streak had saved their asses more than once, and apparently today was no exception.

“It’s safe. We found it.” She assured him; He didn’t respond.

“Alistair.” She could feel everything. Still breathing. Still going to be fine, eventually. But she bid him anyway. Slowly, the arm she held him by latched onto her.

He felt her gasp, heard her cry, felt tears hot on him as she pressed her face into the dampness of his hair and neck.

Leliana looked back at them before she shook out a bedroll onto the driest patch of land available: a massive tangle of roots forming a platform above the mire. Together, they dragged Alistair onto it. Leliana and Zevran built a tent around them.

Wynne swept in with an armful of supplies. “Out of the way, dear. Let me see him.”

Emma shifted back, allowing her the elbow room, watching as Wynne’s practiced hands moved over Alistair’s torso. The older mage’s expression darkened.

“Broken collarbone. Possibly cracked ribs.”

Emma withdrew a pungent bottle of brandy, wincing as Wynne narrated her own observations. She recognized exactly which injury she’d caused cracking the breastplate open. Flemeth had done the rest.

“And his lungs,” Wynne added grimly, already warming water into steam. “Fluid. We need to keep it from settling. I’ll handle that. Warden, tend the fractures.”

Alistair blinked at the bottle. “–getting me drunk?”

“Very.” She tipped it to him, slowly, patiently holding it back as he coughed.

“Your bedside manner has improved considerably,” Wynne remarked without looking up. Then, lowered, a precisely calculated volume: “At this particular bedside.”

Emma ignored her.

“Em…” Alistair squinted at her, breaths deepening as the alcohol took effect. “Did you—?”

“Drink.” Emma held it steady while he coughed and tried again. His eyes were glassy as he slumped. She held him up, fumbling with the nearly empty bottle in her other hand.

“Alistair.” She squeezed his better arm; discarded the bottle and found the nape of his neck. “Focus. Sit up. Please.”

“I wanna lie down…”

“Don’t.” He obeyed, slowly, straining.

“Leliana,” Wynne said, “hold his shoulder. When Emma manipulates the bone, he’ll try to pull away.”

“Manipulate wha—?”

“We’re putting your bones where they belong,” Emma said, palms sliding into position as he squirmed. She felt the misaligned ends through swollen skin.

“Try to be still. It’ll hurt,” she warned him.

He groaned with contempt. “–already hurts!”

“Wynne, the ribs—”

“Wrapped already.”

Wynne began a slow, practiced healing pulse over his ribs while Emma prepared herself.

“Leliana,” Emma said. “Brace him.” Leliana planted a knee beside his arm.

Emma met Alistair’s eyes. “Ready?”

He nodded, steeling himself, a steady gaze on her.

Emma pulled and pushed in one sharp motion. Bone ground, clicked, and he cried through clenched teeth, arching against Leliana’s hold. She pushed back, until it settled into place.

“Done,” she murmured.

Alistair slid down again, panting, drenched hair sticking to his temple.

“Sit up,” Emma insisted, stuffing her cloak behind him as Leliana lifted him forward.

“Mmhmm,” his hand was searching again for the pocket inside his absent tunic. While Wynne pushed him away from her bandages, Emma quickly slipped the phylactery with the amulet into a dry pouch.

The Senior Enchanter gathered her supplies: “You did well.”

“Thank you.” Emma’s tone was flat. “Please leave.”

Leliana followed her out, casting one last concerned glance back.

“Leliana,” Emma added, “thanks for the potions.”

“Thanksss…” Alistair echoed as they left.

Emma silently splinted and bandaged him, her hands deft as she secured his shoulder around his good side. Finally, she slipped the pouch under the bandages, where he had been searching. His hand met hers there.

“Hi,” he whispered, smiling faintly. “You saved me.”

“Don’t mention it.”

“I will. Endlessly.” His breaths were rough but steadying. Better. “Stay?”

She nodded, settling on his better side.

“Good.” His breathing deepened, he stopped squirming. Then, barely audible, he mumbled: “Love you.”

Emma still didn’t want to put her own pack back on, as they moved the camp up bit by bit, away from the heart of the swamp. She herself hadn’t looked directly at the water since she escaped it. The thought made her stomach turn.

They had to go slowly, and couldn’t go far. She still had Bodhan on the recovery of Alistair’s broken armor, which she knew he’d be eager to get back and repair, if possible… Unfortunately, some parts were still missing.

Zevran crouched near the fire, leathers half-off, his hair plastered to his face in humid gold tangles. He glanced at Emma’s fingertips, cleansed but still stained of poultices.

“Not the best element for you, no?” he says softly, voice light. “And yet, you pulled off a rescue. That’s a fine irony.”

Emma nodded and stared into the fire. “You could’ve run. Thank you.”

Zevran gave her his most quicksilver smile. “Sure, I could’ve. But then who would ruin your reputation for calm under pressure?” He patted her shoulder, resigning himself to internalize his performance of comradery. “Besides, the bastard owes me a drink now.”

“I’ll make sure you get it.”

Emma and Muffin circled the camp, distantly supervising Wynne fussing over everyone. Then she found herself sitting outside Alistair’s tent. Couldn’t bring herself to go back in, but couldn’t leave either.

“Em,” he called, detecting her presence there. She pushed herself through the tent flap.

“You’re worried about me,” it was dark, but his tone was pleased, lightly teasing. She knew his expression exactly.

“You drowned.” The tent had them close. He felt her shiver.

“Just briefly,” was his best attempt at reassuring her. “Besides, I’ve seen you die twice. Fair’s fair.”

Emma settled back to her spot next to him, still warm, listening to his steady heart and ragged breathing. For a while, neither spoke. The tent canvas hissed under the rain.

“You saved me,” he reminded her. Again.

“You’d do the same.”

“Yes, but I didn’t—” He stopped. “Sorry.”

“No, don’t…” she refused the apology.

“–and then you stayed here with me. All night.” He squinted, struggling to remember what he’d been through. Mostly, he remembered how closely Emma held him as he struggled to breathe.

“I just… keep seeing you go under,” she admitted.

“Leliana told me you didn’t even hesitate…”

“Oh… I hesitated.” She pulled her knees to her chest. “I really didn’t think I could.”

“But you did… That’s… no one’s ever…”

“Alistair—”

“I know we don’t talk about it,” he interrupted. “This thing between us. We joke and we flirt and we dance around it because there’s a Blight and you’re, well, you’re you. And I’m… well, I’m an idiot. I really don’t know how to do this. But when I was underwater, when everything was going dark, all I could think about is that I hadn’t told you—”

He trailed off. It was cruel, what he had wished he had said had seemed so clear, and now–

Emma thought: he had told her. Probably. Now he was struggling. She decided to save him the trouble.

“I think,” she said slowly, “I’m falling in love with you.”

It wasn’t easy for her, either.

“Emma– You think?” he countered, stunned.

“Why not?” She looked at him, feeling as though she should ask permission somehow, after guessing at where he meant to go.

He chuckled nervously, “Well… I’ve lost everyone who ever mattered to me. Duncan, the other Wardens… But you’re still here. We’re still here. For now.”

“For now is all anyone has,” she gently pressed her forehead into his arm.

The sensation dimly recalled a new detail: How he’d wanted to comfort her. He’d held his arm held to hers, but she cried. Her face as she stifled the sound on him.

“Emma, I—”

“I know, I know…”

He pulled her close, his elbow locking around her, as she had done then.

“I love you,” he insisted. “I love you.”

Emma woke to find herself still in Alistair’s tent, still in all of yesterday’s clothes, his unsplinted arm curled around her shoulder. Outside, she could hear the camp stirring. Leliana’s soft humming, Sten’s heavy footfalls, Zevran making some inappropriate comment that had Wynne scolding him.

“We should get up,” she murmured.

“Mm, no.” Alistair tightened his hold. “The Blight can wait.”

“I failed to consider this. When did you get so wise?”

“When I took a nap in soup. Who knew?”

He hugged her, pressing her into bruised ribs. Painful, worth it, although this didn’t go unnoticed. She slipped away all too quickly.

“Thanks for not dying,” she said.

“Anytime. Well, no. Let’s never do that again.”

The camp was subdued when Emma emerged. Morrigan had caught up with them. She sat apart from the others, the grimoire open in her lap but her eyes unfocused. Leliana was trying to maintain normalcy, preparing breakfast while humming nervously. Even Zevran was quiet, sharpening his blades with unusual focus.

Emma approached Morrigan slowly. “May I?”

Morrigan gestured to the log beside her without looking up. “Come to ensure I’m not planning to transform into a dragon and eat you all?”

“Are you?”

“Alas, I think not,” Morrigan closed the grimoire. “This book… it’s not what I expected. It’s… history. Memories. Some things she never told me.”

“Anything interesting?”

“Perhaps. Or perhaps it’s all lies, stories crafted to manipulate me even now.” Morrigan finally looked at Emma, who had no answers.

So Morrigan changed the subject. “You entered the deep swamp, I was told. For that fool templar.”

“He’s not a templar,” she insisted.

“So I’ve heard. You did this, although you could barely swim. More the fools both of you.”

“True.”

Morrigan stood abruptly, crossing her arms.

“I will need time. To study this, to understand what mother—what Flemeth intended.”

“Naturally.”

“I want you to know that while I may not always prove… worthy… of your friendship. I will always value it.”

Emma found herself strangely moved, but she knew Morrigan would not appreciate any added sentimentality.

“I don’t expect anything more.”

As Morrigan walked away, Alistair slowly approached with two cups of tea.

“That went better than expected. She didn’t threaten to turn anyone into a toad.”

“There’s still time,” Emma accepted the tea gratefully, warmth seeping into her still-cold hands. She thought maybe she wouldn’t mind being a toad, temporarily.

“So what now? We’ve killed the terrible witch, you’ve conquered your fear of water—”

“I doubt that.”

But Emma was thinking of Morrigan with the grimoire, of Flemeth’s knowing smile before she was, apparently, slain. She unhunched herself, sat upright, squaring her shoulders.

As they broke camp, she caught Morrigan watching her with an unreadable expression.

“What?” Emma asked.

“I am… concerned, perhaps. For I believe you have changed. If you make decisions based on feeling rather than logic, you may yet get yourself killed.”

“Not this time,” she watched Alistair helping Leliana restring her bow, making her laugh. No regrets.

“Oh, this time, sure. And what of next time?” Morrigan adjusted her pack. “I wonder, who shall you choose, when you must choose between saving one and many?”

“Many, obviously,” Emma said. “In this aim, we cannot lose a Grey Warden.”

This was a real and logical answer. It hadn’t satisfied Wynne, either. But this was an upside of leadership: Emma didn’t need them to accept her reasons. For now.