Music in the firepit

It was late, but it seemed no one had wishes of going to their cots. The night was so bright with that enormous, beautiful fullmoon, and the pain in his stump was a bit sweeter than other nights. Gunnar Karanir was feeling happy for the first time in many, many months.

''Hey Wolf. Why don't you sing something?''

Calliara, who was checking her arrows as she always did when nervous, bored, or just thinking about other things and wanted to have her hands busy, gave him a deathpanned look. Gunnar laughed.

''Easy, girl! It's just that it's such a beautiful night to pass it in silence. How was that song...''

He thought about the song he had been thinking on. It was a song that Calliara liked, all the Wardens in the Denerim's quarters loved, and loved to hear her sing. Most of all, it was a song that made you want to dance.

The blacksmith remembered the rythm, and started to play it on the tree stump he was sitting on, singing with his hoarse voice

''They came for him one winter's night.
Arrested, he was bound.
They said there'd been a robbery,
his dagger had been found''

Bowen was attracted to that firepit when Gunnar started to sing. That song...

Heck, why not?

The Nevarran grabbed Calliara's guitar and started to play the same song (and he played really well. The guitar was a Nevarran instrument after all, and it had been him the one who taught Calliara to play it)

With his bass-baritone voice, he followed the song

''They marched him to the station house,
he waited for the dawn.
And as they led him to the dock,
he knew that he'd been wronged''

Surprisingly enough, the next one to join the firepit was Alistair.

Of course, he had been attracted by the rythm and the song, and because those three were the only Wardens that connected him with his past life as a Warden, even more than Nygozy and the old group did.

Those three had been there when he was just a recruit, those three had been there during his Joining (Bowen was the one that officied the ritual), those three seemed to be larger than life itself.

That song had been played many times in many parties back in the Warden's estate in Denerim, when life had been happier and easier, even with the Blight approaching. Cailan was King, he was just a Grey Warden (and happy and proud of it), and he had many brothers, a sister and a father (Duncan) that cared for him.

Now all of that was gone. Everything. But that song... it made him smile, and he joined the music.

"You stand accused of robbery,"
he heard the bailiff say.
He knew without an alibi,
tomorrow's light would mourn his freedom''

The King turned and offered his hand to the Wolf, smiling

Fools

Damned, but adorable fools

Calliara had been looking suspiciosly at Gunnar when the dwarf started to talk about songs and this and that. And when he started to play in the tree stump that rythm that carried many bittersweet memories, she knew she was right.

Creators above, how I missed them

The Wolf couldn't help it, but she smiled when Gunnar started to sing, and laughed when Bowen joined him. She wasn't expecting Alistair to join the song as well, but what surprised her the most was him offering her his hand.

Calliara blinked once, and then twice, and suddenly a bright, dashing smile blossomed and accepted his hand to stand up, and the King and the Wolf started to dance around the fire while she followed the song

''Over the hills and far away,
for ten long years he'll count the days.
Over the mountains, cross the seas,
a prisoner's life for him there'll be''

Gunnar smiled wide under his beard when both Bowen and Alistair appeared. Well, things seemed to be getting better. Maybe soon more people would join them and maybe all could become brothers as they should be.

''He knew that it would cost him dear,
but yet he dare not say...''

''Where he had been that fateful night,
a secret it must stay...''

Maker, but he was enjoying playing a guitar again. It had been a couple of years since the last time, when he taught Calliara the basics, but he hadn't the heart to play for himself and such.

Lucia... She loved that he would play Nevarran and Antivan songs for her, and he had loved her bright smiled and her loving eyes when he did so. It had been years, but the pain was still there but...

But now there was another lovely face where there had been just one, and he knew that somehow Lucia approved that he continued with his life, for the years that he had left.

Both Calliara and Alistair were laughing like children while dancing around the fire, faster and faster, following the song

''He had to fight back tears of rage.
His heart beat like a drum''

Caterina was lifting the flap back from her tent, having just finished stripping from her armor and cleaning after the day's ride when a haunting, jauntry tune reached her ears, and she looked up in curiosity, searching for the source. Her eyes landed on a familiar group - Calliara, Gunnar, Bowen, and the King himself - singing and dancing by the fire. For a moment, she was held fixed by the sight, and then she smiled, and she could feel her feet moving before she was really aware of it.

She was dancing before she even reached the fire, and offered Calliara and the King a smile as she did a twirl and gracefully entered herself into their dance, her bare feet carrying her around the fire. She she rounded to him, she smiled at Bowen, a wide and happy smile that only could have come from letting herself go completely to the dance and song. She wasn't familiar with it, personally - the songs from Antiva were very different - but it made her want to be a part of it nonetheless.

''For with the wife of his best friend,
he spent his final night of freedom!''

Maker's breath, but he was enjoying greatly! Maybe more than cheese. Wait, no. Nothing was greater than cheese. Or Josie. But this was close at the moment.

The feeling of... being part of something. When Calliara and Bowen got back from Weisshaupt and met him in Denerim, knowing right then that he was the King, Alistair had felt that something, the connection they had, was... maybe not broken, but surely damaged. It was a long distance, being a Warden or being a King.

But now... now things were the way they should have always been, and when he started the next strophe, the three of them joined him

''Over the hills and far away,
he swears he will return one day.
Far from the mountains and the seas,
back in her arms he swear he'll be.
Over the hills and far away...''

Caterina suddenly appeared, smiling brightly, and Alistair laughed and offered her his free hand, seeing that Calliara was offering her free one as well

And as if summoned, she appeared.

Caterina was a vission. It didn't matter what she wore, the way she had her hair, bare feet or fully armored. She was gorgeous.

When she smiled at him Bowen smiled her back, unaware that he was showing his own feelings openly, but had he known, he couldn't had care about it. All his life he had lived with honesty. He loved her. Deeply. Strongly. That was all.

The enormous Nevarran blinked at her while following the song, his calloused fingers playing with surprising skill

''Each night within his prison cell,
he looks out through the bars.
He reads the letters that she wrote.
One day he'll know the taste of freedom''

And Bowen's girl joined the dance. Things were working the way he planned. The dwarf smiled for himself, just playing while the other three followed the song. It was too much for his throat. Too many years working in the blacksmith's, with the smoke and the fire.

''Over the hills and far away,
she prays he will return one day.
As sure as the rivers reach the seas,
back in his arms he swears she'll be.

Over the hills and far away,
he swears he will return one day.
far from the mountains and the seas,
back in her arms is where he'll be''

Argos barked at her tent at something outside, and Macha looked up from the book she'd been reading by her candle at him.

"What's the matter, boy?" She asked, and then she heard it too. The sound of music, probably coming from the campfire. She smiled a little to herself - she must have been too entranced by her book to really hear it - and put her book down, climbing out of the tent with a pet at Argos's back. The large mabari barked happily again, and ran ahead of her to join the dance, running between the dancers' feet, and yet still being careful enough not to trip any of them up.

She approached at a much slower pace, her arms crossed against her chest to ward off the night air, chillier now that she was out of her tent. She was only in a long tunic and leggins, but she was already starting to warm up as she came to the fire, and she stopped next to Gunnar with her hands on her hips, grinning as she watched the three dancers, plus dog, turn about.

What a nice treat, after a long day's ride. She hadn't thought that anyone would have the energy for dancing, but here they were, and the mood was infectious. She found herself tapping her foot, and though she didn't join in, she did lend her voice to the familiar song.

Calliara smiled brightly at Caterina when the Antivan girl appeared, and took her hand to make her join the dance. Alistair was making them dance and swirl faster and faster, following the rythm that was faster as well.

Argos joined them, and the Wolf laughed when almost immediately Fenrir appeared from nowhere to join them as well, excited with all the movement and the other dog's presence. Macha was standing there, and the Wolf smiled briefly at the Cousland girl, but the rythm was owning her at the moment.

Caterina took each hand offered to her, joining their dance with a short but free burst of laughter. It felt a little silly, but silly was good, because they lived so hard and so seriously the rest of the time that sometimes she just needed to let go and dance with her friends, her love's fingers playing the tune. It was a little bit of paradise amidst their big chaotic world.

The mabari danced between their feet, and she cast her eyes to the ground every now and then to make sure they weren't underfoot. Argos could take it, big as he was, but she had to be careful of the rambunctious pup.

The music was fun and cheerful, the wardens who joined were enjoying themselves as were the ones who were not wardens. She stood at the edges of the circle within a dark copse of shrubbery, leaning against a tree and listening but not moving to go join them. They needed their time of joy and revelry so she was not going to go into the circle in her current frame of mind.

Nygozy smiled then turned, petting Torture's head as she turned away.