"What do you think it's like to have a normal family?" Alistair leaned sideways to poke at the fire, only half surprised at the quiet question. For Grey Wardens, supposedly without ties beyond their duty, there'd certainly been no wanting for personal drama over the past few months. He shifted back into his former, more comfortable position and hugged her a little tighter where she leaned against his chest.

"Normal how?" He'd considered making a joke of it, but he couldn't quite read her tone, and her face was hidden in his shirt and the dancing shadows the fire made.

"You know, just normal. A father and mother living in a little house, with children they love and work to care for. Ordinary." He heard something unsaid, and waited. After a moment of silence (broken only by the sounds of a mabari hound slobbering all over a leftover deer bone), he felt her sigh. "With brothers who don't try to kill you."

"Or sisters who aren't hateful, vicious shrews?" She turned, almost flush against him, and if the conversation hadn't been so serious he would have let his mind wander to the feel of her breasts pressing against him and the way her leg was hooked over his thigh. She'd purchased a simple set of clothes before they'd left Orzammar, and the fabric was soft and still smelled faintly of the place. Of rocks and heat.

"Fathers who aren't kings," she said, dully, and he was reminded of how she'd learned of her father's death—from a guard who'd called her a kinslayer, right before she was tossed headfirst into brutal politics and horrific battles. He felt a sharp pang of guilt at his sudden relief that he'd never really known his father. The amount of politics he'd been privy to had been enough.

He didn't know what to say, but he knew enough not to fall back on silliness. She needed to make the first move out of this gloom on her own; if he tried to push her, she'd retreat. His prickly, dangerous, beautiful lady. Carefully, he laid back against the sloping grass a bit more, watching how the fire made her hair glow golden and vivid red. He didn't know what to say, so he said nothing, but he did continue to rub her back— gently, but sexual enough that it wasn't pitying. He would never pity her.

"It probably would have been terribly dull," she said eventually, after a long time of staring silently into the night. He had watched carefully, and was sure that the light behind her eyes had travelled all the way to the depths of Orzammar and back again. "Being a farmer's daughter. Learning to milk—what are those huge smelly things called? Curs?"

"Cows," he answered, knowing full well that she was striving for levity. In this, finally, he could help. "You'd probably be married off too young to a strapping, but rather dim farmhand. He's a sweet boy, your mother would say, but you'd still have to help him cut his meat. And then were would I be?"

"Married to me, farmhand." She grinned up at him, and his heart soared that he could help her survive this darkness. This, at least, he could keep from destroying her. Not all things in their lives were so simple.

"Oh ha, ha."