Cyrion Tabris was well-off, for an elf; Acara never went hungry and her clothes almost always fit. But weapons, elves are not supposed to have.

And once everyone's reasonably armed and armored, they can pick up the shem recruits that Duncan acquired before them and start heading south.

Daveth is staying with them, but Ser Jory has another duty to attend to. Elissa takes him aside and explains that she convinced Duncan to let him go because she needs him in Highever; after Arl Howe's takeover, she wants to know there are still loyal knights in her teyrnir. He should keep his head down and not make trouble, but remember who Highever really belongs to and discreetly inform people he trusts of the truth of her parents' murder at the hands of Howe's men. Also, she'd consider it a valuable personal favour if he'd make sure this letter gets to the Highever alienage; an elf she knew there died here today, defending innocent people from harm, and she wants his family to hear it from her.

Ser Jory is appropriately horrified by all of this and swears to accomplish the things she has asked of him.

"You're a good man. Best of luck to you."

And now the rest of them can head south.

Acara would like it if Elissa would tell her about the man she would have married while they travel.

"I didn't know him that well, but he was very sweet and very proud of his work," she says. "Thoughtful, responsible, organized. He didn't have any siblings; his mother was a maid in the castle and his father worked at a stable in the city. He learned woodworking from his uncle. He was the sort of person who'd stop to free a dog with its head stuck in a fence."

Her mabari woofs approvingly.

"It's not nothing. Thank you," she says.

She nods. "I wish I could do more."

"Don't we all," she sighs.

They pass into the Brecilian Forest.

It's a forest. There are trees. It's pretty.

There shouldn't be darkspawn this far north, and yet.

Intellectually she knew darkspawn were horrible. Seeing them is...something else.

Well. Darkspawn die with a little more difficulty than would-be rapists, but not that much more.

One of these darkspawn appears to have been dragging an unconscious elf around, probably for nefarious purposes. She's dressed Dalish and doesn't look well. Also, does anyone remember stabbing said darkspawn with his own dagger? Because that happened.

Well, that is not a thing that Acara remembers doing, and it doesn't really seem like any of the others' style.

She looks at the seemingly unconscious elf.

That elf sure isn't moving at all. Barely even breathing.

Acara checks her vitals.

She is in fact breathing, and her heart is beating, though weakly.

"Is she alive?"

"Yes. I don't know if I can say much more for her, though--her heartbeat is weak, she's been dragged who knows how far by darkspawn--I think she's conscious, though," she adds, gesturing to the bedaggered darkspawn throat.

"Huh. That's something." She looks around for Warden Duncan.

Duncan is finishing off the last of the darkspawn over there. He looks around, though, when he's done, and comes over when he sees them bending over a seemingly unconscious elf.

"We think she might have killed this darkspawn," says Elissa. "Which, if she managed it in that condition, probably makes her recruit material."

"More importantly," Duncan says, frowning, "she's Tainted, and recruiting her is probably the only way of saving her life."

"...All right, what do we do?"

He glances at the darkspawn throat and says, "I'm sorry to ask this of you, but if we're to have any chance of saving your life, I need to know where your clan is. I'm a Grey Warden, and you're tainted; without help, you will die, and I'm going to need your Keeper's assistance to save you."

"n'rth'st," says the apparently not-quite-unconscious elf. "upstr'm."