Alistair blinked, trying to force his vision to focus. So tired... he thought blearily, feeling himself succumb to the inevitable drain of adrenaline shock. When his eyes finally cleared, he realized that all of the enemies had been dispatched at last. Thank the Maker, he sent in a silent prayer. We survived another ambush. He started to seat his sword and shield on his back and winced as the pain from a rather deep cut in the bicep of his shield arm suddenly flared up. Right, that bastard Alpha that got past my guard. A feral smile touched his lips. Heh, takes a bastard to kill one.

A hand touched his elbow. Turning, he met the gaze of his fellow Grey Warden. "Alistair? Are you all right?" Her jade eyes shimmered in the light of the setting sun as she examined his face for any evidence of injury.

"Just the usual collection of ignominious insults from our dear enemies," he joked, turning slightly so that she wouldn't see his arm. He didn't want to worry her any more than necessary, not here, not now, not after- "Nothing to concern yourself with, dear lady."

Her brows furrowed. "Damn, you really are hurt." Overriding his protestations, she started a rather direct examination of his person and quickly found the gash on his upper arm. "By Andraste's sore throat," she snapped at him as she pulled out one of their precious healing poultices from the stores gifted to them by Lady Isolde. "That wound is no laughing matter!" Ripping the top of the bottle off with her teeth, she practically forced the red liquid down his throat before he managed to take it from her and drink it voluntarily. She watched him grimly as if making sure he finished the entire flask before pulling out the small dagger she kept in a sheath at the small of her back.

Alistair tried to ward her off. "Whoa, Kal! Let's not waste-"

Her glare scorched him into silence before turning to his arm, leaving Alistair wondering in a slightly detached fashion how that same glare could fail to rip right through him. Ruthlessly, the petite elf removed his armor without regard to the pain caused by the motion, then cut the sleeve of his shirt off at the shoulder before slicing it lengthwise to remove it entirely. With a critical eye she examined the wound. "That's better," she said grudgingly. "At least the supplies given to us by that shem bitch work well." Returning the knife to its sheath, she reached into her pack and took out a small injury kit and two clean cloths. "Hold still," she commanded.

He watched, bemused, as she wet one cloth to clean his wound, then laid the kit over his injury and meticulously tied the other cloth around it to hold it in place on his much-maligned arm. As always when she was concentrating on a delicate matter, the pink tip of her tongue emerged from between her lips in a surprisingly enticing fashion. And, as always, Alistair found himself completely absorbed with remembering the feel of that tongue when she would-

His daydream was rudely interrupted when she tightened the makeshift bandage with an abrupt jerk. "Ow!" he said, caught by surprise.

Her face softened slightly. "Sorry," she murmured. "It's just-" She glanced away, eyes overlooking the battlefield around them. Suddenly the harshness returned to her expression as she looked at him. "No other life-threatening injuries you're trying to hide from me?"

"No, ma'am, I promise!" he assured her quickly. She looked at him suspiciously for a few more moments before moving away. Fracas curiously sniffed at Alistair's knees before issuing a short bark of admonition and trotted after his mistress. Groaning, he bent down and retrieved his armor and the shredded remnants of his sleeve. Maker, I wish... Sighing, he turned to follow her as she gathered the others around her and began issuing orders to return to camp.

Back in camp, after he had removed the remainder of his armor, Wynne clucked over his wounded arm. "There's nothing more I can do, young Alistair," she told him. "You'll need to rest a few days before using that arm again." Seeing the weariness in his eyes, she chuckled and patted his arm. "Don't worry, you're not the only one who needs a few days of rest. Kalindra-"

"What?" Alistair interrupted her. "What happened to Kal?"

Wynne blinked. "You were there, were you not? I would have thought you noticed-"

Alistair cut her off with a curt hand gesture. "Just tell me."

Grimacing, the woman said, "A genlock snuck up behind her and got a knife in her back." Turning away from Alistair's intense gaze, the old mage continued, "I was able to heal most of the damage, but the blade got close enough to her spine that I told her we should stay put for a few days to avoid unnecessary secondary damage."

"You healed-" Alistair stopped. "Why didn't she use one of the potions before coming back to camp?"

The mage shrugged, her attention on the party's healing supplies. She held a bottle of lyrium potion up to the fading sunlight to gauge its contents. "She just said that they had been needed for more important matters." Turning back to him, she started to ask, "Would you say this bottle is half-full or-?"

But he was already gone, marching to the small stream that abutted their camp. She always sought water after fighting. Always.

He pushed aside the final tree branches that separated him from the creek, looking around for his fearless leader. He saw her sitting next to the stream with her feet in the water, her back to him. Dressed as always in a loose linen shirt and trews, she seemed oblivious to his presence. Fracas lay next to her, head cocked and ears twitching with anxiety, his little stump of a tail waggling intermittently. As Alistair approached them, the Mabari whined uncertainly at his mistress before turning to growl at the human Warden.

As if startled out of a sound sleep, Kalindra's head snapped up and she turned to regard him with a cold gaze. "Oh, it's you." Taking in his glowering expression, she sighed and looked away. "Come to yell at me again, have you? What is it this time? Upset I killed a Hurlock?" The growl from the Mabari increased in volume. "Did I somehow disgrace the Wardens again? Tell me, oh Master Warden!" she hissed. "Was one of those I felled in fact not a Genlock, but a child Darkspawn? Or a close friend to Eamon? Will you have to defend your precious honor to him even more assiduously when he awakens?" The Mabari issued a loud bark and moved to stand between the two Wardens, hackles raised.

Shocked by her onslaught, Alistair halted in his tracks. "What? No, I-" He started to move forward again, only to be stopped by a menacing growl from Fracas. "Dammit, Kal, Wynne said you were hurt! I came to see how you-" Hearing the anger in his voice, he forced himself to stop. Snapping his mouth shut and taking a deep breath, he inhaled slowly until a semblance of calm came to him. Continuing in a more conciliatory tone of voice, he said, "Please, Kal, I just want to make sure you're all right." He looked away from her burning viridian gaze. "I-I'm sorry for disturbing you."

"Oh, suddenly I matter to you?" she demanded acrimoniously. "I feel honored."

Suddenly something snapped in Alistair. For weeks since their argument about Conner, it had been like this: angry words, heated glances, stiffened shoulders, biting insults. The trip to Denerim had been filled with this rancor, and it seemed that it would continue during their journey to Haven. No more!

Heedless of the warhound in his path, he surged forward and grasped her upper arms in an unbreakable hold. Meeting her startled gaze with his own, he said, "Enough, Kal. Enough!" The pain, worry, and fear rose in him, forming a heat that spread throughout his body. "You keep telling me that I'm a selfish bastard, and guess what? I am a selfish bastard. When it comes to you, I will never be anything but a selfish bastard." He suddenly pulled her close, trying to be careful of her back but at the same time unwilling to have her further away from him than the space of two breaths.

"By the Maker," he whispered intently into her delicately pointed ear, "do you have any idea of what it would do to me to lose you? Do you understand how much I need to know, each and every morning, that the sun rises to shine on the glory that is your hair? That every night, the moon worships the beauty that is your face? That the very wind caresses the wonder that is your skin?" He burrowed his face in the crook of her neck, inhaling the scent of lavender that always seemed to linger in her presence. "Maker, Kal, I can't live with this... this distance."

She shuddered slightly in his arms. Abruptly concerned that he had hurt her, he forced himself to let her go and slowly withdraw. "I-I'm sorry." He grinned ruefully. "I did it again, didn't I? I hurt you." He started to get to his feet. "I'll leave you alone."

Abruptly her hands lashed out and pushed him - hard. Unprepared for the assault, he fell flat on his back. Before he realized what she meant to do, she had straddled him, one hand pressed against his unwounded shoulder, the other holding her small knife against the pulse in his throat. Panting heavily, she stared down at him, her jade eyes glowing with an eldritch light in the gathering gloom. They remained in that position for a few moments, neither able to speak the words that had remained unspoken for so long.

Without relaxing her grip, Kal said hoarsely, "You are a selfish bastard, aren't you?" Abruptly, without a change of expression or moving the dagger, she leaned down and claimed his lips in a searing kiss. Using her lips and teeth, she explored his mouth with bites that bordered the line between pain and pleasure. Stunned, Alistair tried to respond in kind but froze when the knife pricked at his throat. Breaking the kiss, Kal put her face over his own. "Let me show you what a selfish bitch I can be, hmmm?" A quick jerk of her wrist, and suddenly his shirt was sliced open, exposing his body to her suddenly hungry gaze. Again he tried to reciprocate, and again the knife flashed to his neck. "My knife, Alistair. My rules."

The knife remained rock steady at his throat as her head moved down his body, her mouth leaving a trail of bright red marks as her teeth claimed him for her own. His breath started coming in short pants as she moved lower until finally she paused at the top of his breeches. He could almost feel her smirk against the suddenly incredibly sensitive skin of his lower stomach as she verified the effect she was having on him before she reversed the direction of her mastication and worked her way up his body. She seized his mouth again, tongue and lips devouring him in a possessive manner that he never knew dwelled under that calm, intense, and above all focused demeanor. He didn't notice when the knife withdrew from his throat and her arms wrapped around his neck, so caught up was he in the heat and passion of the bewitching creature sitting astride him.

When the kiss finally ended, she placed her arms on his chest and pushed herself upright. Both of them were panting now, their short, sharp breaths filling the night around them. The air literally crackled, and Alistair realized that he had unwittingly unleashed some of his Templar skills during the amorous assault. "Maker-!" he exhaled explosively. "Kal-"

She laid a finger on his mouth. "Don't. Say. A. Word," she bit off slowly. Whipping her head to the side, she hissed at Fracas, "Back to camp!" The warhound whined, then reluctantly turned and trotted back in the direction of the camp. She turned a smoldering gaze back to the ex-Templar still pinned under her. Her fingers toyed with his chest hair as she said, "Did you want to say something?"

Trying to concentrate beyond the feel of her fingers on his chest, he said, "If he goes back alone, won't everyone know-?"

His question trailed off as she leaned down slightly, a wicked grin on her face. "They're not that far away." Her fingers reached up and started slowly unfastening the clasps of her shirt. "I think you can make certain that they know exactly what we're up to."

A wave of heat washed over him at those words, and with a hungry growl of his own, he grabbed her arms and heaved with his feet. The quick maneuver put him in the place of dominance on top of her. His breath caught as he glanced down and saw the moonlight glinting off the rounded curves of a pert, perfect breast. "Maker, what you do to me, woman," he said huskily as he bent his head and applied himself to the tempting expanse of flesh.

Suddenly remembering her injury, he forced himself to stop the ravishing for a moment. "What about your injury? I don't want to aggravate it with..." he paused, searching for the right words.

She chuckled throatily. "Overly strenuous activity?"

He nodded, forcing his gaze away from where his attention had been focused. "Yes," he gasped.

Kal looked at him, head cocked. Suddenly a mischievous smile lit her face. "Don't worry, Alistair. My injury looks worse than it is." Alistair grinned and leaned down to continue his ministrations. He almost didn't hear her continue, "I made sure of that."

Somehow the implication of her words registered through the rising red haze of lust. Gaping, he pulled back from her. "What?" he asked, stunned.

The elf laughed at his expression. "I had to get your attention somehow."

"Yes, but..." He shook his head as silent laughter gripped him, the pent-up tension and self-recrimination finding a sudden outlet at her startling revelation. "Really, Kal?"

She shrugged, causing shifts in her anatomy that distracted him again. "We all needed a few days rest from the road, anyway. I figured this way, you and I would have some time to get...reacquainted." She shifted underneath him, driving herself into parts of him that suddenly very much wanted his attention. "Now, where were we?"