Since the game isn't released yet, the fic contains DAI headcanons. Aside from the walks in the rain and the Herald thing, which I've seen mentioned somewhere in the internets, and it's canon, apparently.

(Also, this is what overdosing Loreena McKennitt's and John Tams' songs can do...)

. . .

Rain

. . .

They are recruiting soldiers everywhere they can, some of them so young they are still almost boys, and she turns her head away. She cannot look. They have to save the world, but is the world where children are dragged into wars truly worth saving? She thinks not.

"Cassandra." She turns to the Seeker, waiting obediently at her side. "Eighteen years old. I thought I was clear about it. Eighteen," she repeats wearily.

"I've heard the first time you said that, Herald. And so has everyone else." Cassandra makes a move with her head. "This one is sixteen. But he's from Anderfelds..."

"I don't care," she says, in that kind of quiet voice that usually has people lower their heads and very quickly rethink their opinions. "If he volunteered to provide for his family then send him to help the blacksmith, or... There are hundreds of possibilities, Cassandra. Just not soldiering."

"He's from Anderfelds," Cassandra repeats firmly, but patiently, explaining. "And yes, I offered that. His sixteen-year-old honour would not allow him to accept."

"I will make him accept."

"The Anders are a tough lot," Cassandra muses. "And besides, how old you have to be to become a Warden? I've heard the previous Commander of Ferelden was, what... Seventeen, when he joined? Sixteen?"

"That doesn't mean it was right." She sighs quietly. "Fine. I'll have Blackwall talk to the boy."

"Blackwall's somewhere around the castle." Cassandra crooks a smile, and then gives a chuckle. "Strolling. In the rain. Who would have thought."

"I'll go look for him," she turns and leaves, not returning Cassandra's smile. She cannot stop thinking of the boy, and wondering how many more like him will she encounter before this is over.

. . .

The rain is cold, but still she slips off the hood of her cloak and lets the raindrops wash away her worries. The soft murmur of the rain is soothing, and she feels a little better.

She recalls Cassandra's comment on Blackwall, and her first response is to smile, but the merriment is brief. She wonders what does he want the rain to wash away from his thoughts, or what worries he wants to drown in it.

She finds Blackwall sitting on a pile of stones, leaning against the keep's wall. He's hiding from the rain under an ivy-covered stone arc, and smoking a pipe. There is a distant, pensive look on his face, one she would have never expected to see there.

"Blackwall," she greets him quietly.

He nods to her, and only then notices her wet hair, as if it took him some effort to push his musings away. "Lass, what in Thedas are you doing? Come here." He moves, and pats a dry spot where he has been sitting a moment ago.

She sits on the stones, which are still warm. He must have been sitting here for quite a while.

"Your hair," he notes.

"It'll dry, eventually. I was looking for you."

"Yes?" He turns to her, offering his full attention. "What is it?"

"I need you to talk with one of the soldiers."

He eyes her carefully. "And it's so important you went to look for me immediately, despite the rain?" he asks, eyebrows raised in question.

"Yes. If the soldier is sixteen years old, it is."

"Ah." Blackwall nods. "The Andersfeld lad."

"Yes. He can stay, help the blacksmith, I just don't want him to fight. Will you please talk to him?"

"Aye, I will."

They fall silent, both listening to the rain. She expects Blackwall to smoke some more, but he does not, and lets the rain drip into the pipe.

"Why are you outside is such a weather?" she asks.

Blackwall shrugs. "I like rain."

When she looks up, there is a strange expression on his face.

"Any story to it, ser?"

"Just Blackwall, lassie," he corrects, and briefly smiles at her, and his smile is warm like the dying embers in his pipe. "Well, if you're a Grey Warden who's walking out of the Deep Roads, sticky with darkspawn blood and covered in dust, with no river or lake in sight, and then you step to the surface and it doesn't rain, but it pours, the rain seems a gift from the Maker himself," his voice is quieter than usually, with a slightly softer quality to it. There is something in this memory he is fond of. "It's a beautiful feeling, when it washes away all the grime."

"Yes," she agrees softly. "Yes. I can imagine," she adds, in an afterthought. I remember, she thinks, and Maker, it was beautiful. She smiles at him. "I wouldn't have pegged you for a poet."

He laughs out loud, his trademark laughter which can shake walls, and which cracks the shell she has carefully built around her heart a little more each time. She feels lighter, and her smile widens.

"I'm not a poet, lassie. But I do read, from time to time, and that's bound to leave a trace."

"You are a poet, Blackwall. The way you live..." Her smile gives way to seriousness. "Honour, protecting the innocent. Knightly things, aren't they?"

"Aye, and an ale in a tavern at night, and songs some of which should never be quoted to a lady." He grimaces. "Very knightly." Then he laughs again. "Is this your subtle way of suggesting I'm an old, naive fool?" He is smiling at her, and there are crinkles in the corners of his eyes that appear there whenever he truly laughs, which is often, and the look in his eyes is warm and friendly.

"Not a fool. And I don't think anyone who's spent a few years among the Wardens can be naive." She smiles again. Usually she does not smile half as much as in his presence, and he is bound to notice at some point. "And older, ser, doesn't always mean old." He is not that much older than her, he simply does not know it.

"You look very young," he says, watching her face.

"The silver strands prove me otherwise every morning when I brush my hair," she responds. Only after the words leave her mouth it strikes her that maybe it was not quite a proper image to use, because seeing a woman with her hair down is a thing reserved for... closer acquaintances.

She pauses. And laughs inwardly. How did it ever occur to her to think of him in that context? He is a Warden, and among the Wardens those lines are blurred, or nonexistent. There is a moment when her thoughts come to a pause and then it dawns on her. Ah. Maker, now, of all times? She turns away, so that Blackwall would not see the embarrassed look on her face.

She is falling for him, she realises. A knight, not perfect, but human, just as she is, with his little faults, just as she has hers. It was bound to happen at some point.

"Whatever it is you've recalled just now must be most interesting, lassie," he observes. When she turns back to him, he is smiling at her. "A sovereign for your thoughts?"

"That's quite a price for something so insubstantial." She smiles briefly. "I was thinking about tales and ballads, and poems," she answers. "I grew up on them."

"Meeting the real world hurt, didn't it?" he asks, with a not quite serious kind of sympathy.

If you only knew, she thinks. Aloud, she says: "My parents never tried to convince me the real world looks like ballad stuff. And also told me tales that were more like the world, when I was older. But they took care that some of that idealism would remain in me."

"And does it?" Blackwall asks with a smile.

"I thought not." She pauses. This is hard for her. But... He deserves sincerity, more of it that she can give him now. "The Blight happened. I've lost my family, and escaped. Then I sought out my mother's cousins, in the Free Marches. They accepted me as their youngest daughter, and because I took after my mother, no one ever doubted that. It... It was not really a time out of tales."

"No, it wasn't," he agrees sombrely, then offers a gentle smile. "But I find it hard to believe there hasn't been a single knight, wishing to prove himself to win the lady's favour."

There was, she thinks sorrowfully, there was, and he was my friend, and he died for me. And there was another, but he had a family and his lands to save. But she forces herself to let go of those thoughts, and lets Blackwall's smile soothe her.

"I found out that in life, noble knights usually have a kingdom to save, or their castles, or something else. No time for winning a lady's favour."

Blackwall shakes his head. "Ah, lads these days... Someone should really tell them sometime that the two are not mutually exclusive."

She laughs out loud. That startles him, but then a smile appears on his lips.

"That's a most welcome sound," he says, and his eyes are smiling down at her, too. "You should laugh more, lassie."

"I used to laugh more."

It is a good moment for a question from him, but he says nothing. Only looks at her knowingly, thoughtfully. And then he wipes the frown off his face with another smile.

"Ah, worry not, lassie," he says in a tone suggesting that lack of noble knights in her life is the worst of her troubles. "We'll find you some proper knight yet."

She laughs again. "Why, thank you. That's very kind of you to offer."

"And now let's go back to the keep, before you freeze," he suggests, and offers her his arm, and she accepts. They walk in silence, but his warmth at her side is more comforting than any words could ever be.

Inside the keep, they stop by the door, and she shakes the water off her cloak, then looks at her dripping braid.

"Need help, lassie?" Blackwall asks.

She nods, and undoes her braid. He reaches for her hair and carefully wrings water out of it. It comes naturally, despite the sudden closeness, despite everything. And no reason it should not, she thinks, when he is a Warden. When she reaches up to bind her hair, their hands touch briefly.

"Lass, your hand is freezing!"

"As is the other one, I guess." Her hands are cold most of the time, despite the fingerless gloves she always wears even around the keep to hide the Fade scar.

"Can't allow your hands to freeze, can we?" he asks, smiling, and takes her hand in both of his. He rubs her hand until it becomes warmer, then raises it a little, leans over it and huffs, blowing warm air over her palm.

"Thank you, Blackwall," she says tersely. Her voice is quiet, but has an edge to it, a warning. It is too much, too soon, and she is too confused, and she does not want to make a fool of herself in front of him, when he...

"I apologise, lass." He lets go of her hands and looks at her.

"Don't," she says simply. She stares at him, and there is something in his eyes. A thought strikes her. "What exactly did you have in mind when you mentioned looking for a knight for me, ser?" she asks quietly.

"Nothing you don't want it to mean," he answers, and she can tell he is honest.

She can also finally decipher the look in his eyes. Fondness. Oh. So he... That makes things much easier. And much more complicated. And she cannot allow herself to lose focus. Too much is at stake, now. She blinks, then frowns a little.

"I don't want you to read more into our friendship than is there."

He looks into her eyes, hesitates, but in the end asks. "And is that more than is there, lassie?"

She looks away. "That is more than I can accept now."

"And that is more than it is proper of me to give," he admits. There is an undertone to his voice that sounds like regret. "That doesn't change my friendship, lassie."

"Thank... Thank you, Blackwall."

"No trouble, lass." He reaches into his pocket and presses a golden coin into her hand. "Here. I owed you a sovereign."

She looks up at him, at his smile, and laughs out again, laughs so hard she is shaking, laughs as heartily as she has not done in what seems like ages. She cannot help it, just cannot, not when knowing he does that to make her smile, to chase away her sorrows. He is like rain after the darkness of the Deep Roads.

All the while he watches her, a small smile on his lips, one that almost completely hides under his facial hair, and you need to know where to look to find it. She is somehow embarrassed at the discovery that she already knows.

"A sovereign for your thoughts?" she asks, looking at that smile.

"They're not for sale." Despite having agreed to her earlier words, he touches her cheek gently. "They're for free. But you wouldn't let me say them." He withdraws his hand and cracks a smile. "Stuff of ballads, you know. Fair maidens and the like."

She looks at him, long and thoughtfully. Finally, she gives the coin back to him. "Keep your sovereign, ser."

He looks at her, truly baffled now, and huffs. "And what is that for?"

"Teaching me that rain, sometimes, can be a gift from the Maker." She has just told him not to read too much into their friendship, and yet here she goes. No wonder he is looking so puzzled. "And... After we save the world, perhaps one day I will ask you to help me find a proper knight. Perhaps."

Blackwall takes her hand and bows over it, gracefully turning all the seriousness and awkwardness of the situation into a jest. "Perhaps, m'lady" he says with a smile, "you will find the knight waiting."