Interlude

CONTENT:
Rating: Teen
Flavor: Hanging Out?
Language: probably
Violence: no
Nudity: no. some underwear.
Sex: no, don't think so
Other: none

Author's Notes:

While I figure out where all the pieces of the Landsmeet Book go, how they fit together, which ones I need to actually write, and how to make the already-written pieces work with them... enjoy the Timeless Time At The Camp!

Interlude

==#==

Dinner Conversation

Morrigan's turn to cook was always an adventure, whether in unique new spices or just wondering if the witch had decided to poison everyone. Speaking of poisoning, why didn't Zevran have a turn to cook? Surely he should by now.

"Thank you, Morrigan," Bannon said, accepting his bowl. "It smells good."

"It has a cave mushroom the dwarves call 'baby ear.'"

"Oh boy, dwarven mushrooms." Bannon tried not to make a face as he speared one up for inspection. It was rather small and wrinkled and convoluted, a lot like a... yes, if you turned it this way, a little round ear. At least it wasn't pointed.

"Don't play with your food, just eat it," the witch growled.

"Yes'm!"

Alistair said, "Baby Ear Stew! I bet your mother had a recipe for that already."

"No doubt" was all Morrigan said. She seemed to be in a mood.

"As long as it doesn't have any nug ears in it," Leliana said. "How anyone can kill and eat such adorable little creatures is beyond me."

"Adorable?" Alistair asked, echoing Bannon's sentiment. Nugs. Naked rabbit-pigs. Sure.

"They're sweet."

"No," Morrigan assured the bard. "No nugs were harmed in the making of this stew. 'Tis rabbit stew."

"Morrigan," Wynne chided.

Oghren grumbled. "Nugs is good eatin', but I can't wait to get away from here and away from everything to do with Orzammar."

"Me, too," Bannon agreed heartily. Then he choked on a baby ear and blinked. "Oghren?"

The dwarf looked up from his stew. "Warden?"

"What... are you doing here?"

"I joined up to fight this battle of yours."

The elf blinked some more. "Oh you did?" He looked around at the others, none of whom seemed surprised. He looked at Alistair, who shrugged. He was a lot of help. "Nobody told me this."

"Branka went and got my whole family killed. Then your clomping golem killed my wife. There's nothing left for me in Orzammar."

Leliana added, "You can't turn him away. Wardens accept help in all forms."

"Wh-? No," Bannon said. "I didn't say he couldn't... Just... nobody asked me? I'm kinda in charge?"

Morrigan said, "We like to let you think so," with a catty little smile.

Bannon palmed his face. "You at least told him the rules?"

"Rules?" the dwarf scoffed.

"We have rules?" Alistair quipped.

"The new guy has to dig latrines the first few weeks," Bannon insisted.

"What's a latrine?" Oghren asked. Of course, he had no clue about outdoor camping!

"Argh! Alistair, you and Zevran are in charge of Oghren."

"Me?" the Templar asked.

"Why me?" the assassin echoed.

"Look, I babysat Zevran when he showed up-"

"Babysat!?"

"Not by yourself. I watched him, too, you know."

"I babysat Zevran," the elf insisted. "Now it's your turn to babysit Oghren." He turned to the dwarf. "Can you at least wash dishes?"

"I'm a warrior. We don't wash-"

"Don't wash, not even your underwear, yeah, we got that." The elf rolled his eyes at Sten.

"Those that serve-" the giant began.

"Look, people! We don't have an entire entourage of servants and washerwomen and cooks and tailors...! We are a self-sufficient small group. So learn to dig latrines, wash dishes, do laundry, and mend your own socks!" He shot a glance around at everyone. "Them's the rules!"

They continued eating.

Conversationally, Morrigan said, "The dwarves will come to rue the day you decided to destroy their Anvil."

"It was evil," Oghren growled.

"An object is neither good nor evil. Merely a tool."

"Branka went nuts obsessing over that thing, threw away the lives of members of her House. They killed dwarves to make golems." Oghren paused to suck a shred of meat from between his teeth. "I call that evil."

Morrigan said, "They were not killed, but transformed. They gave up their mortal bodies for immortal ones, ones better suited to fighting their foes."

Alistair said, "They were unwilling victims. They were turned into slaves."

"Again, that was the action of those who used this tool. It need not always be so."

"It's Blood Magic, Morrigan," Wynne said with finality.

"Even Blood Magic is not inherently evil. It is possible to use only oneself, or willing participants, in the rituals."

"Possible" the old mage allowed, "but unlikely. The temptation of power is too great."

"Nevertheless, mark my words. The Kingdom of Orzammar will wish they had the ability to make more golems."

Bannon said, "Well, they're not going to blame us, if that's what you're getting at. For all they know, Caridin was long dead and gone, and the golems destroyed the Anvil in the battle. Oops, oh well. Move on."

"You didn't tell them the truth about the golems?" Wynne asked.

"This is a surprise?" snipped the witch.

"What was Morrigan just saying? They could be pissed at us for deciding to destroy their Anvil. There wasn't any reason to complicate things; there was nothing they could have done about it, anyway."

Wynne sighed in exasperation. "Haven't you heard that those who do not learn from the past are doomed to repeat it in the future?"

"No."

"Without knowing the terrible cost, someone else might try to recreate Caridin's process."

Zevran pointed out, "If they knew it required dwarven sacrifice, they would be that much closer to reviving the process."

"They won't be able to, until someone else decides to try some 'evil' way of doing it," Bannon added. "Or, they'll figure out a different way."

"Ugh, you boys do not understand moral lessons!"

The two elves looked at each other, and shrugged.

==#==

Warrior Squirrels

"Hey, Wynne," Alistair called cheerfully. "Whatcha reading?"

"It's called Mistmantle," she replied.

"Ooh, it sounds good. Are you going to read us some?"

Bannon and Zevran popped up out of seemingly nowhere, sharp elven ears twitching. "A story?" Zevran asked eagerly.

"You boys probably won't like this one, anyway. It's um... about warrior squirrels."

All three stopped and stared.

Alistair said, "Warrior... squirrels?"

"Squirrels?" echoed Bannon. "You can't be serious."

"Well, yes," said Wynne. "In this island kingdom, there live squirrels, hedgehogs, moles, and otters." They weren't leaving, so Wynne explained the story so far, and then read her current chapter out loud.

"There," she said, closing the book with a cloth marker between the pages. She rose to get a drink for her parched throat. "That's your story."

"But you can't stop there," Zevran insisted.

"What happens next?" Alistair wanted to know.

"Don't you boys have chores to do? You can find out what happened in the next chapter tomorrow! If you're good," she suddenly remembered to add.

Well, at least she was some sort of inspiration to three grown warriors.

==#==

Returning to the central campfire to gather dishes for washing, Zevran said to his companions, "These warrior squirrels that rule this kingdom, clearly they are elves, si?"

"Elves?" Alistair asked. "No, they're squirrels."

"Yeah, but look," Bannon said, ticking off points on his fingers. "They're small and agile, quick, dexterous, and they have pointed ears."

"The golden one is clearly an Antivan elf."

Bannon added, "The moles must be dwarves."

"That makes the hedgehogs humans, and the otters are qunari."

"Why are the otters qunari?" Alistair asked.

"Because they are the biggest."

"But I want to be an otter," Alistair muttered.

"You can be an otter," Bannon assured him. "It's just a story. You can be a squirrel if you want."

"Rule a kingdom? Oh, hell no."

"Well, an otter it is."

"Are you sure hedgehogs are supposed to be humans? They just don't seem... I dunno. Maybe they're witches? All interested in herbs, and prickly?"

Bannon laughed.

Leliana looked over at them. "What are you going on about?" Morrigan too, looked at them from beyond the bard, having heard the word 'witches' no doubt.

"Just a book Wynne is reading to us," Bannon said.

"Not Tess of Tevinter?" Leliana's nose wrinkled slightly. "I know it's a classic, but so boring."

Zevran said, "It is a dashing tale of a golden squirrel warrior, defending his kingdom against nefarious plots and dangers from across the sea." He struck a pose.

Leliana just rolled her eyes and went off with Morrigan and some laundry. "If you don't want to tell me what it's about, just say so."

Zevran deflated. "Why does no one ever believe me?"

"You just have one of those faces," Bannon told him.

"What faces?"

"The ones that say, 'trust me, I'm lying my ass off.'"

"Pah! My face is surely the most handsome and alluring one in all of Antiva!"

"Those two things aren't mutually exclusive," Bannon said with a quick wink.

Zevran grinned. "You are a honey-tongued devil."

"Hmm... I could be. I do think Bodahn has a jar of honey..."

"And hey," Alistair said, scrambling for a shovel. "I'll just go dig some latrines. More latrines! Can never have too many latrines...!"

==#==

The Depressed Golem

Bannon went to check on the golem. Shale hadn't been him/her/itself since the Deep Roads. He had found a large rock and was actually sitting down on it, facing away from camp.

"So, Shale, how are you holding up?"

"Holding what up?"

"It's an expression. How are you doing?"

"I am not doing anything, either."

"If you don't want to talk, you can just say so." When Bannon was upset, he liked to be left alone. However, when dealing with Shianni or any of the women he'd been with, they'd rather be talked to and coddled. Wait, was he supposed to treat Shale like a man or a woman? This was so much easier when the golem was merely a masculine object.

"When are we going to squish things again?"

"Well, I don't know. There might be bandits on the road, but I don't know if they'd be stupid enough to attack us. Then we'll be at Redcliffe with our allies, and then on to Denerim for a lot of talking... But," he added quickly, "after that, there will be a huge battle, with so much squishing, you might even get tired of it!"

"I do not get tired."

"Well, we'll see about that," Bannon cajoled. The last thing he needed was the golem deciding to wander off before the important fighting began. Or maybe he could just send Shale into the horde down south and leave him there, squashing darkspawn day and night. Then maybe by the time the Landsmeet was over, the Horde would only be a few hundred strong. Heh, a nice notion, but as the fight with the ogre had shown, Shale could be injured, or even destroyed. "Is there anything I can do for you?" Bannon asked him. He couldn't figure it out, so maybe the direct approach would work.

"No."

Or not. "All right. Well, I am here if you need me."

Bannon headed back to camp. What does one do with a depressed golem, and no squishable enemies in sight? "Hey, Wynne! Could you talk to Shale?" Wynne was good at that. Oh wait... Wynne's talks were usually designed to make him feel guilty about something. But no, she had a lot of insight, too.

"Yes, I can do that. What did you want me to talk to him about?"

"I dunno. He just seems... depressed?"

"Hmm."

"He didn't even say anything when Morrigan was complaining about us destroying the Anvil."

"Nor at the Assembly or the feast afterward," the mage added, eyes narrowing shrewdly. "I'm sure he's confused about what happened with Caridin, and having been a female dwarven warrior. Yes, you're right, Bannon. I should go talk to him."

==#==

"Hello, Shale."

"Hello, Wynne."

She moved closer to give him a look over. It was difficult to tell with the golem. Though the stones that made up his face were able to form different expressions, it most often stayed in a neutral state. Was Shale sad, or was she projecting feelings onto him? It was interesting that he chose to sit down, now that he'd gotten to try it once in Orzammar. "We missed you at the fireside last night," she said. "Why don't you take your rock over by the fire and sit with us?"

"And watch the squishy ones put mushy dead things in their mouths? I think not."

Wynne chuckled. "Perhaps afterwards. But I wanted to see how you were feeling."

"Feeling? I do not feel. I am stone."

"Now Shale, we know that's not true. You laughed once. You have pride, you have opinions. You can be hurt."

"I am not hurt now. We have not had a fight since we left the tunnels under the mountain. It has been completely boring."

"There, you can feel boredom, too."

"Oh, joy."

"And express sarcasm." Wynne pinched her smile down. She wanted to be serious. "After everything that happened with Caridin and the golems, the truth about your heritage... you must feel something."

"I do not wish to... feel something."

Well, that was certainly a manly trait. "You just think about it."

"There is no point in that, either."

"Then all that's left is to talk about it with a friend." She wanted to be Shale's friend. She was pretty certain the golem felt something akin to friendship as well, being as she was the only one he didn't call 'it' and the only one he would address by name.

Shale sighed. "It was better when I knew nothing of the world or my past. All I desired was to be free. To squish things. Then I found out I was not alone. I... had a people. There were others like me. I never felt that before, not that I remember.

"But they weren't like me. They were... like I used to be. Controlled by others. Slaves. I wanted to help them, to free them, so they could be more like me.

"Yet when I did... nothing changed.

"Now I am alone, and there is no chance that there will ever be more like me."

"Do you wish we hadn't destroyed the Anvil?"

Shale thought about it, studying the ground between his feet. "No," he said at last. "It would only create more mindless golems, not people like me. I wish Cariden had not felt the need to end himself. We were alike, he and I. We could have travelled together. Talked."

"I'm sorry, Shale. You must be terribly lonely."

"I do not like it. It is useless. I wish to stop feeling again."

"So... you want your control rod back? We could see about fixing it to work again."

"The Scourge of Birds destroyed it."

"We could see about fashioning a new one," Wynne amended. "Between my knowledge and Morrigan's wild witchery, I'm sure we could-"

"No!"

"Shale, feeling lonely, and hurt, that's all part of what it means to be alive."

"No wonder I chose to be a golem. Why squishy beings don't end their miserable suffering and just die, I don't know."

"Well, some do," Wynne replied sadly. "Like Caridin did. But that can, in turn, hurt other people."

"How anyone survives to procreate is beyond me."

"Well, we have good feelings, too," Wynne said. "Love and happiness. It's the hope that we can experience these things that keep us going. Those two elves are doing their best to embody the principle of 'take joy when and where you can.'" Imagine that, Bannon and Zevran as a good example, for once.

"There is no one for me to love," Shale said.

"Love doesn't have to be about sex. We can love our friends."

"Maybe," the golem begrudgingly admitted. "But I do not know... where to find such things."

"You can start here, with the people you know. Who know you."

"They will all die soon," he said with careless finality. Wynne couldn't argue with the most likely truth. Shale sighed. "I do not know what I seek anymore. Even the thought of squishing things does not make me feel eager. I do not know what the point of me is."

Wynne nodded. "Well, some people find purpose in a cause, perhaps by helping others."

"Like a servant?"

"No, not like that. But in service, in a way. For example, the Grey Wardens. They serve the people, to protect the world from harm; they fight the darkspawn, the Archdemon; they try to end the Blight."

"Hmm." Shale thought some more. "I will be your golem, Wynne. I will protect you."

She blinked, taken aback. "Uh... that's not what- I mean, I'm flattered, but-"

He wasn't listening. "But I am not your servant. I shall not fetch. Or carry you. Or bring you tea and slippers. I will protect you from harm, but you do not own me."

"Thank you, Shale," she said worriedly. "Are you sure you wouldn't rather serve the Grey Wardens? They do a lot of fighting and squishing and protecting." Surely, that would suit the golem better than following an old woman around.

"No, I don't care about them."

"I... all right." She thought about the implications of that statement. "Shale, I am deeply honored. I almost don't know what to say. Thank you."

"No, thank you, Wynne. I do feel better now, to have a purpose."

"I'm glad."

==#==

The Stars

"AAGH! Help me!" Oghren was screaming in the middle of camp.

Bannon grabbed Zevran's kilt and threw it on in one quick motion. He had his swords in his hands in seconds, only trailing the assassin because the latter chose to go out with only smalls and swords.

The elves looked around for any threat, which was obviously missing. "What's going on?" Bannon wanted to know.

"Is he drunk again?" Zevran muttered.

The others gathered around in various states of dress, wakefulness, and armament. The dwarf was clutching one of the campfire logs for dear life. "Help! Don't let me fall up into the sky!"

"Oghren," Leliana said, "we told you, it is not possible to fall up."

"Then who's up there?"

The companions looked up to the empty starry sky.

"They have lamps! It's a whole horde of them!"

Leliana said, "Those are the stars."

"What's stars?"

Bannon said, "They're fireflies. Fireflies that got stuck up there on that bluish-black thing."

The bard scowled at him. "Stars are beacons of light the Maker put in the night sky, so we could find our way."

"Huh?"

"Come look, I will show you the pictures in the stars. They tell a story, and sailors can use them to navigate at sea, where there are no landmarks."

"How's there no landmarks?" the dwarf grumbled in piqued curiosity. He didn't let go of the log, however.

Alistair said, "That's because there's no land."

"No land!? Do you just fall forever?" He clutched the log tighter.

"No, it's full of water."

"Like lava," Bannon said unhelpfully. "You have lava lakes and rivers. The sea is a giant lake of lava. Only it doesn't burn."

Leliana knelt and tries to coax the dwarf to sit up and look at the stars. Wynne said, "Oghren, I've told you. It's impossible for things to fall up."

"No it isn't," the dwarf insisted. "There's tales of caverns in the Deeps, where warriors fall up to the ceiling. They only survived if they dropped their weapons and took off their armor to make themselves lighter!"

Wynne frowned in thought.

The elves got bored and went back into their tent.

Bannon took off the kilt and laid it on top of Zevran's armor. When he turned to the bedroll, Zevran was already curled up in all the blankets. "Hey!"

"You steal my kilt, I steal your covers." The assassin rolled up tighter in them, turning away on his side.

Bannon got down on the mat and tugged at the Antivan's coccoon. "Come on, you don't want me to be cold, do you?"

"Yes."

"I'll tickle you!"

"Pah!" Stubbornly, Zevran didn't budge. He had a good hold on those blankets, too.

Bannon poked him. "Come on, give over!"

"No. I am asleep."

"Fine!" Bannon scooched down and glommed onto him as tightly as he could. The wool of the blankets at least touched his chest and stomach, the insides of his arms and legs. "Don't complain how you can't sleep with me here shivering and my teeth chattering so loudly." He made yammering from the cold noises.

Zevran only answered with an unconvincing snore.

==#==

...to be continued!

Next up: Book I: Origins, Chapter Five: The Landsmeet

s/13198879/1/Bannon-Zevran-Bk-I-Origins-Ch5-The-Landsmeet

==X==