Into the Woods (a Dragon Age fanfiction)

Drawn to the Fire

Oghren was bent over a small pile of sticks on the ground, arranging them carefully. Anders's body lay next to him, and he kept glancing between the sticks and the body, as if to see if he had built the pyre high enough yet. Isabela nodded to herself. She began sawing at the end of a branch with a dagger, trying not to wince at what this labor would do to the blade. At this rate, they would be cutting wood for ten years, she thought, but it didn't matter. It needed doing.

"What do you think happened to the spirit of Justice?" she asked after a while.

Oghren's reply was short, terse, and explicit. Isabela didn't think spirits did that kind of thing, but she agreed that Justice deserved it if they did.

They cut and piled in silence for another short period of time before Oghren gave a great, wet, snuffly snort. Isabela glanced at him and was touched to see tears streaking his face and running into his beard and mustache. "You want to tell me about him? All I knew was ... this." She indicated the body in its ratty feathered coat. "But sometimes, early on ... you could see what he must have been like. Wish I'd known him."

The dwarf nodded, snuffling some more. "Used to make fun of him," he offered, "wearin' those fancy dresses the mages wear, all tight and girly. But I liked 'im a lot better in the dresses than in those things." He pointed to the breeches under the coat, torn and filthy after months of travel and what felt like endless amounts of fighting. "Wish 'e was here right now, insultin' all my dwarven ancestors. 'E could drink me under the table, 'im and the Commander both. Outwench me, too, and there ain't many can say that."

"I believe it." Isabela gave him a quick smile, remembering their surprisingly enjoyable interlude.

With a watery chuckle, Oghren bent back to the pile of sticks. "Never woulda thought of 'im goin' all crazy about the mages. He was so happy to get outta there, out from under the Templars. Then that ... thing came back from your Stone-damned Fade, started talkin' to 'im, an' ... something changed."

"You mean the spirit of Justice?"

"That's what it called itself, but who knows. Coulda been anything, really. Never trusted it. Spent all its time talkin' to people about their troubles, stirrin' up things that were long buried an' didn't need thinkin' about." He cleared his throat noisily, hacking away with his axe at a branch. "Don't know who this fella is. Thought ... all this time, maybe I could find my friend in there, but—"

"I think you helped. He was more—he was looser. Lighter."

"Not enough, though, was it?"

"No. I'm not sure anything could have been. Not anymore."

"Yeah. Let's get this done."

But Isabela couldn't just cut in silence. The body lying there haunted her; Fade or no Fade, Maker or no Maker, Isabela feared death. Her life was lived consuming pleasure, and there was nothing about a disembodied life in a Maker-driven Fade that appealed to her. Without something to distract her, she kept thinking of Anders, and how one minute he'd been alive and the next dead. Of course, in between he'd been possessed and insane, but considering that didn't make her feel any better.

"What will you do, when we get back to the world?"

"You think we'll get there?"

"Of course. Hawke and Cousland wouldn't let us down."

"No, I don't s'pose they would, at that," Oghren agreed.

"Will you go back to the Wardens?"

He sat back on his heels and stared at her, then turned and spat on the ground in an unmistakable response.