The new Grey Warden is an elf.

And a mage.

And a girl.

The first doesn't bother him; the second, not-quite-Templar that he is, sets his teeth on edge. Mages are something to be watched, or hunted, or heckled by (that's him: Alistair, Grey Warden, king's bastard, and mage-baiting delivery boy). They are not someone to fight with, back to back, with the smell of burnt Darkspawn flesh and the taste of lightning under his tongue. It will take weeks before he gets used to the hair-raising feel of the Veil being ripped to pieces around him, before he doesn't jump like a schoolboy at every little wisp of a spell.

But, alright, a mage. Unnerving as it may be, it's still familiar. He knows mages. It is even familiar enough to be forbidden. He is breaking one of the cardinal rules, after all: do not steal cheese from the larder, do not take the Maker's name in vain and do not fraternize with the mages. It is forbidden. So much so that it would make him feel giddy, except that she is a girl. And the word 'fraternize' feels wrong.

What's the right word?

Sister-ize?

Womanize?

Very, very wrong.

He doesn't know woman. Woman is something even more foriegn and forbidden, like the Arlessa, wide false-smiling eyes and impeccably painted lips, all honey-venom perfume and frost; or like the Lay Sisters, who (drunken jokes about nothing-under-the-robes-but-what-the-Maker-gave-them aside) are so very far out of reach that even the thought makes him cringe. Girl is something else too. The new Warden is a girl for her size (he could pick her up in one hand, probably; she's all skinny and pointy, not just around the ears), but no mere girl could shove her hand over a hurlock's face, biting her lip in concentration as she smothered the gnashing mouth and curled glowing fingers into its eyes until he feels the magic catch and the creature just...just...explodes, gore and limbs everywhere so that he ends up wearing a hunk of liver as a hat, and the new not-girl not-woman Warden doesn't even blink.

(He makes a joke about the explode-a-spell later, on the way back from the Wilds. "We could make it a business! Liver-hats, spleen-hats, whole ribcages for special occasions, make a statement at court by wearing a hurlock on your head...No? Bring in a little extra money for the Wardens, get the word out? No?" She laughs; he can't quite tell if she really means it or no, but at least she laughs. The others just look retrospect, what with the Joining a few minutes later and all that, he regards it as another spectacular piece of bad timing.)

It's only later, as he waits for her to wake up from her Joining, that he can put elf and mage and girl aside and actually look at her. The blood on the ground and spattering her robes and on the corner of her mouth is red, and her lips are red, and her hair is even redder. He finds himself wondering, idly, if her hair had ever caught fire; it is something that young mages tend to do in his experience, and her hair is so very red that he thinks it might burn for a while before someone noticed. With his luck it would be him, and then he'd have to pick her tiny elven self up in one hand and shove her head in the water bucket, and then she may very well kill him. Oh, Maker. He does not fancy ending up as little bits on someone's head.

"Worried, Alistair?" He jumps nearly a foot in the air. It is Duncan, of course. Which practically means father, all simple and vaguely embarrassing, as he tries to think thoughts that are Warden and aren't girl and woman and long silky red red hair and –

Silky?

Adjectives? Poetic adjectives? Where did that come from?

He could kick himself.

"Yes. Er. Worried. I'm a bit worried. I mean –" he is babbling again, and is it just him or does Duncan look slightly amused? Duncan never looks amused. He gathers himself. "Shouldn't she be awake by now? It's not like the Harrowing, it doesn't take hours, so..."

Duncan is amused, for certain. He could just kick himself. "Don't trouble yourself, Alistair. She will be fine." He gestures for the younger Warden to walk with him, and they do, away from the blood red mage and along the long battlements where they can see and hear the men preparing for battle (and, far away, feel the Darkspawn preparing as well. Alistair brushes it off with a shudder and drags himself to here). "She came very well recommended," Duncan was saying. "A very talented mage for one just out of her Harrowing. The First Enchanter's star pupil."

"I thought the Circle was refusing to send you any more mages," he says. By Circle he means Chantry, of course; every Circle mage he knows would jump at half a chance to get out of the Tower (sometimes literally; there is a reason that all of the upper windows are welded shut), and from what little he knows of her the new Warden is no exception.

Duncan sighs. "They did."

"But -?"

"Alistair," he says for the third time. "It did not go as I would have liked. The circumstances were...unusual, and –"

"Unusual how?" he asked, all brash Templar insistence, and instantly cringes when Duncan turns at the tone in his voice.

"Don'ttrouble yourself," he repeats, and the words are like a door closing. "With your background you will only worry about it, and there are more important things. We can talk after the battle, if you wish. Or you can ask her yourself." And despite the stony voice the amusement is back in his eyes. "You should try talking to your fellow Wardens, Alistair. Not merely staring at her as she sleeps."

And he turns about fifteen different shades of red, ending with one as bright as her hair. He protests meekly that this is not so, and he resolves to never ask her – he'll have a hard enough time looking at Duncan now, never mind her, never mind talking – and he resolves to shove it out of his mind until after the battle.

Except 'after the battle' never happens.

That is the night the world ends. And she is the one fighting her way up the stairs with him, killing Darkspawn after Darkspawn in the place where no Darkspawn should be. She is right beside him, hair turned all to fire in the beacon-light as they watch the Teryn's army slink away in the night. Watch the ground below boil like ants, black and wet red. Everything has gone wrong, twisted, should not be, he should not be here, she should not be what she is (mage, woman, Warden, here, unafraid, beautiful), there are ten million reasons why both of them should be dead. And they all have to do with Duncan, and the last conversation where he had spluttered like a boy, becauseif he hadn't been such a child then maybe he would be down there instead of locked up in this tower like a mage watching it all fall to pieces –

That is the night the world ends. And she is right there with him, strong and unafraid and just a little bit ruthless, terrifying really, pure mage, First Enchanter's star pupil, and he forgets that he was ever going to ask why.