Aug 4, 2016
character sheets for forest’s wardens and inquisitors
art of ariana credit to @bandicutes
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character sheets for forest’s wardens and inquisitors
art of ariana credit to @bandicutes
SHADOW DRAGON is the name of the Jaeger piloted by Rangers Ariana Cousland and Raylan Tabris. Shadow was designed by the beautiful and brilliant Genevieve Amell, who is constantly improving upon it. Shadow utilizes two blades but also packs a pop-out pulse-firing crossbow mechanism in it's right arm. Cousland and Tabris are the youngest daughter and adoptive son of veteran Ranger, Eleanor Cousland and the deceased hero, Bryce Cousland and are considered the best and brightest in the Shatterdome, despite their seemingly reckless and impulsive behavior.
Ariana sighs. "Do you trust anyone?"
"I trust you," Alistair replies in a soft, sincere tone that makes her legs feel like jelly.
Ariana's face does something very strange then, her lips pursing while her cheeks puff out and her brows knit together. It's like she's trying very hard not to smile and she's annoyed about it. "Stop that!" she hisses, swatting at his chest.
"Ow!" Alistair wheezes. "Stop what?"
"Stop being-" she gestures at his person angrily. "you!"
"What's wrong with me?" Alistair whines, looking very much like a kicked dog.
"Nothing! Ugh!" Ariana growls, shoving his shoulder once more and stomping off in a fit of pique.
Alistair watches her stride away and frowns. "I'm confused," he whispers into the night.
"She is, too, friend," Raylan supplies, materializing at Alistair’s elbow to pat him on the shoulder reassuringly. "Give her time. she'll come around."
Ariana is lounging against a part of the tree that has been painted with a large red dragon. It is her favorite part of the tree. Raylan is propped up against a root beside her, with Genevieve's head on his stomach.
“Hey, look!” Ariana crows, gesturing across the field that surrounds the tree. “It's the love of my life.”
Gen and Raylan peer in the direction of her hand and see Alistair walking with a shorter man with tanned skin and bizarrely white hair. “Who's the twink?” Raylan asks.
“Dunno. Maybe it's Fenris? His friend from his photography classes,” Ariana shrugs and pushes her fingers into her mouth to let out a shrill wolf whistle. When Alistair's head snaps over to them, she hoots and cat calls. “Heeey, sexy! You lookin' good, boy!”
Alistair winks and blows a kiss back at her and continues on his walk. Genevieve snorts. “You're both morons,” she says.
“I know, that's why we're perfect for each other,” Ariana chirps.
**
“Friend of yours?” Fenris asks, smirking.
Alistair beams with sickening adoration and pride. “That's my fiance.”
Fenris squints across the field until he can make out the ginger woman's face. “Ah, yes, Ariana. The one you take pictures of all the time.”
Alistair flushes and rubs the back of his neck. “Yeah. Well, I mean, she's beautiful and she has a...bit of an exhibitionist streak? The picture of her just in her panties in bed that won an award? She has the picture and the award framed in the living room.”
Fenris chuckles and watches for a moment as Ariana pushes her brunette friend's face into the ginger man's stomach while frowning. “She's out of your league,” he says finally.
“I know!” Alistair declares, looking absurdly pleased with himself. “She's way out of my league and she can and has had whoever she wants but for some reason she wants to marry me.” He sighs in a way that can only be described as dreamily and smiles at the clouds. “I am a lucky, lucky man.”
She wins. As her prize, she makes Cailan carry her around on his back for the rest of the week.
“Your sister is mad,” Cailan tells Fergus, wheezing slightly with his laughter as Ariana kicks his ribs.
“Isn't she wonderful?” Fergus chuckles.
“Fergus, you carry Raylan!” Ariana chirps.
“What? That wasn't part of the deal!” Fergus whines, but Raylan is already climbing on his back.
“He weighs, like, two pounds, don't be a baby,” Ariana replies, sticking out her tongue. “Let's go!”
Eleanor is horrified to find her daughter riding the prince like a pack mule and says as much in her quiet, intense Angry Mother voice. “No, no,” Ariana says, insistent and stroking Cailan's hair. “It's more like he's a halla. Prince Cailan's my friend!”
Eleanor quietly turns purple as Maric and Bryce appear, laughing merrily at the sight.
The next time they meet, Ariana is fifteen and Cailan is twenty, but she looks older. Fergus has been horrified for the past year as his baby sister began to fill out across her chest and hips. Cailan does a double take when he sees her, mentally attempting to assimilate the chesty young woman swinging a sword through the courtyard with the young girl who had climbed onto his shoulders.
She twirls a bit dramatically and buries the point of her blade into the practice dummy and then winks at him from across the way. Cailan smiles goofily and Fergus pointedly stomps on his foot. “No.”
“I don't know what you mean, old friend,” Cailan says, making a big deal out of fixing his gaze on something not Ariana's swaying hips.
“Cailan, she's my baby sister,” Fergus pleads.
“I'm not a baby, Fergy,” Ariana pouts, sliding up to them.
“Yes. Yes, you are,” Fergus insists. “You're a baby now and you'll be a baby when you're forty and leading our forces. You are my baby sister.”
“You're worse than Lord Bryce,” Raylan mutters, materializing at Ariana's elbow and making the older men shout in alarm. “Ariana can make her own choices.”
Fergus makes a pitiful noise, but is prevented from protesting further by Nan's howls across the yard for them to come to dinner.
That night, Ariana presses herself into Cailan's hands. “Have you ever?” he whispers against her lips.
“No,” she admits, quietly, but there is no shyness in her eyes or hands. “Not all the way, anyway. There was some foolishness with the prince of Starkhaven, but it didn't go anywhere.”
“Are you sure?” he asks, because that's important. He won't take this from her if she's not ready to give it.
“Yes, Maker's breath, don't be such a woman,” Ariana hisses, pushing him back onto the bed and climbing into his lap. “I'm not going to break.”
It isn't perfect, of course, but it could have been worse. When they're done, Ariana leaves, because she wants to, because Cailan is her friend, but not her lover. The next day they go hunting, and they kill a boar and that night, Cailan knocks on her door and they fall together again.
It's much better the second time. And the third, the fourth, the fifth.
Cailan marries Anora and they stop. Ariana doesn't like Anora, but Cailan seems to. Cailan wasn't her only one, not even close, but now he's married and Sebastian's been shipped off the the Chantry. It's annoying.
But she's fine. Cailan is her friend first and her lover when they had no one else. They are still friends, although Anora sneers suspiciously whenever they meet, no doubt imagining woodland trysts and secret love letters. Ariana has no mind to disabuse her of her foolish notions. A little jealousy never killed anyone.
In any event, if Anora thinks she can keep Cailan leashed and collared like a neutered mabari, she's in for an unpleasant surprise.
Maric disappears and Cailan is crowned. They hold a funeral with no body and Cailan stands, regal in the royal armor, with his hands clenched at his sides.
When it's over, Ariana finds Cailan in a storage closet, armor piled in the corner, with his head in his hands. She sits beside him and curls one hand into one of his. He lays his head on her shoulder and she kisses his hair.
“Can I do this?” he asks, voice rough from disuse and unshed tears.
“You can,” Ariana says with conviction. Cailan is a good man with a good heart. Anora is smart, shrewd and politically savvy. Ferelden will be fine. “You've got me, remember? A king will not fail with a Cousland at his back.”
“Thank you,” he says, quietly and squeezes her hand.
Ariana hunts all over Ostagar for Cailan while Genevieve and Raylan chat with Alistair and the other recruits. She finds him, finally, back in his tent, frowning at his maps. He looks older than he is and very tired. “Cailan?” she says, to announce her prescence.
He looks up suddenly and smiles. “Ariana! My friend, I'm glad you found me.”
“You are remarkably difficult to pin down for a man so large in such shiny armor,” Ariana smirks, stepping in to take a seat at his table.
“I'm sorry we haven't gotten a chance to talk before now,” Cailan says with such genuine sincerity, her teeth ache. “I'm so sorry about Highever. I swear to you, we will bring Howe to justice.”
Ariana forces her smile not to waver. “You're a good friend, Cailan. Perhaps we should focus on the battle here, hm? It won't be easy.”
“No,” Cailan replies with a heavy sigh. He stares at the maps and then glances at her. She tilts her head encouragingly, making her eyes wide and non-threatening. “You have been a good friend for many years, Ariana. May I be honest with you?”
“Of course, my lord,” Ariana replies.
Cailan shakes his head as he always does when she addresses him formally in private. “I am not as confident in our success as I would have the others believe.”
Ariana nods and leans forward, placing one gloved hand on his gauntleted wrist. “I know,” she whispers, conspiratorially. “But that's alright. That just means you aren't stupid. No victory is assured, my father used to tell me. To believe otherwise is to invite failure. A good leader must be prepared for the best and the worst.”
Cailan breathes, processing her words, then nods sharply. “Your father was a wise man,” he tells her.
“Aye,” she whispers, swallowing against the grief still churning in her gut. “And remember, no king shall fail with a Cousland at his back.”
Cailan laughs and covers her hand with his. “Thank you, my friend.”
“Of course,” she replies with a king smile.
The king died at Ostagar, they say. At the hands of a ogre.
She doesn't hear them. She can't.
A king cannot fail with a Cousland at his back.
She must stop the Blight.
The uneasy dread settled in her stomach as soon as Cailan's name left Elric's lips. She hears the disgust and anger mounting in Alistair's voice as they find more of Cailan's things on the bodies of darkspawn. She strips them away viciously, shoving them in her pack to clean.
Alistair takes Cailan's shield and Maric's sword reverently, like they're holy and will disintegrate at his touch. As his fingers close around the hilt, Maric's sword flares briefly, humming in Alistair's grip. “It recognizes you,” Wynne says. Alistair's jaw tightens.
They cross the bridge, making for the Tower, just like old times. Raylan sees it first, lets out a quiet, horrified gasp. Wynne whispers Cailan's name and Ariana freezes. She can see it, blurry, out of the corner of her eye, but feels frozen. Looking at it will make it real.
It's already real, she tells herself. Don't be a child.
She looks up and the horror and sorrow that sweeps over her at the sight drives her to her knees. She stares, slack-jawed and glassy-eyed, at Cailan, stripped to his smalls and pinned like some corrupted idol. His eyes stare, lifeless and unblinking, down at her and a sob wrenches through her throat. She feels a hand on her shoulder, but she can't hear anything. She may be speaking, may be screaming, but hears nothing except her own words ringing in her ears. A king cannot fail with a Cousland at his back.
Lighting crackles past her face and her head whips around to find a genlock emissary summoning corpses at the end of the bridge. With an enraged howl, she stands, unsheathing her sword and barreling down the bridge. The others shout after her, but she is gone too far into the beserker rage to hear them.
Her rage carries her through the tower, through the tunnels and onto the battlefield. She sees an ogre, Duncan's swords buried in its chest and she knows.
That one killed Cailan.
Then it rises, brought back from the Fade by the twisted necromancer across the snow-strewn field. Time slows for long moments as it rounds on them, then snaps back and speeds up. Rage engulfs her and her vision tunnels on the beast in front of her, Duncan's weapons still lodging in it's flesh. She throws herself at it with renewed vigor, slamming and slicing and leaping onto its face to drive her sword between it's eyes, taking revenge for Cailan's death a second time. She stands beside it, panting and bleeding.
Alistair's hand closes around her wrist. “Ariana,” he murmurs. “It's over. Come, love.”
She sags against him for a moment, then straightens and stalks back the way they came.
Cailan's body burns and Ariana allows the tears to flow free. “I am sorry, Cailan,” she says, barely loud enough to be heard above the crackle of the flames. “You were a good friend, a good lover and an excellent king. Go in peace to the Maker's side.” Alistair slides a hand across her back and she curls into his chest. “I want to leave,” she whispers.
“Let's go,” he replies. They leave Cailan burning, bright like the sun, like a beacon for his fallen soldiers to follow their king in the beyond.
“You look ridiculous,” Marian sighs, kicking at his ankle. “What are you doing?”
“I need to hide,” Anders hisses, shuffling when Garrett attempts to turn to look at him. He gives up and peers around for the cause of Anders' bizarre distress and spots nothing, except -
“Look, It's Isabela!” he says, preparing to call out to her when Anders claps his hands over his mouth.
“Shht!” the mage hisses. “She's not alone.”
She isn't. There's three people surrounding her, three fairly intimidating-looking people who have apparently reduced Anders to a meek and frightened rabbit. “Friends of yours?” Marian smirks.
“Once,” Anders sighs. “It's complicated.” His statement is met with three expectant stares, causing him to sigh and gesture for them to follow until he's hidden in an alcove, out of the line of sight. “Did I ever tell you how I became a Grey Warden?”
“I know you had a cat,” Garrett supplies.
“That was after,” Anders says. “It was after my seventh escape from the Circle. The Templars were talking be back, but stopped at Vigil's Keep – ah, the Grey Warden headquarters in Amaranthine – to restock. That's when the darkspawn came, they killed the Templars and I was finishing them off when, lo and behold, in walks the Warden-Commander and her second, Bann Raylan.”
“The Warden-Commander?” Garrett repeats. “You mean the Queen?”
“The one and only,” Anders replies. “She conscripted me. Stood up the Templars that came with her husband, King Alistair. I didn't want to be a Grey Warden, but it was better than being shipped back to the Circle.” He stops and sighs. “We became...friends. Raylan, too. Good friends. She's the one who gave me Ser Pounce-A-Lot. And then, I ran. I...didn't expect them to let it be, really. Ariana, she's-” He pauses, looking for the right words. “Big on loyalty. And a very good woman. Raylan is an excellent tracker.”
He stares mournfully over Garrett's shoulder at the people assembled around Isabela. Two women, by the looks of it, and a slight man, probably an elf. He's dressed much the same as the shorter woman, in black leathers with hoods pulled low on their faces. The gold accents on their clothing betray their wealth, for all that they seem to be attempting to blend with the Kirkwall commoners. The taller woman wears no hood, her brown hair ruffled by the breeze. She looks like a bodyguard, in her silvery light armor with the sword and shield on her back. The man is armed, too, with the most beautiful long bow strapped to his back, nearly dwarfing him, as is the shorter woman, who's hand rests on the hilt of a curved longsword that shimmers when the light catches it.
Garrett frowns at them and Anders says, “Looks like they found me.”
There's a stretched, stunned silence while his companions process his words. Garrett is the first to speak. “Them? The-Queen Ariana? Here?”
“Why would the Warden-Commander come to drag you in personally?” Varric asks, bewildered.
“I told you we were friends, I'm sure she took my abandonment very personally,” Anders shoots back, mimicking his tone. “She can't see me, I'm not-”
It's too late. Isabela has spotted them (it's not like Garrett and Marian are particularly unassuming) and is pointing. The man and woman turn and Garrett sees red hair spilling from the edge of her hood. Her eyes are hidden, but her mouth tightens and, with a curt nod, she begins striding across the docks, head high and shoulders square. The elf sticks close behind her, but Isabela and the other woman linger back, looking inappropriately gleeful.
“Oh, Maker,” Anders whispers, looking like a trapped rat.
“You slippery bastard,” the hooded woman snarls – Queen Ariana, Garrett's brain supplies helpfully and he resists the urge to kneel. She elbows Garrett and Marian out of the way and looms in front of Anders in a way that no woman of her stature should be able to. It makes Garrett feel about three feet tall. “I should drag you back to Amaranthine by your ankles and hang you from the gates.”
“Ariana-” Anders starts, but she slaps him. The hood flops back and wild red hair flies loose to match the fire in her eyes.
“You will not speak,” she hisses, but her expression is not angry as much as it is.
Relieved.
“Do you have any idea how terrified I have been?” she continues. “Maker's ass, Anders, you disappeared! We had no idea what had become of you! Raylan and Nate and I searched Amaranthine, but we found no trace of you. We thought you'd died!” Her voice is rising in both volume and pitch, betraying the honest emotions she seemed to be hiding. “Then Isabela – of all people – tells me you're holed up in some Kirkwall slum and you've gone and gotten yourself possessed!”
“It's only Justice!” Anders counters, hissing and she smacks his chest.
“You-!” her voice is loud, so loud, and they are beginning to attract attention. Raylan stomps on her foot and she shouts, glares at him.
“This is not the place,” he says quietly, voice deeper than Garrett would've guessed. It makes him miss Fenris. “Nor the time. Remember our company and where they have just come from.”
Ariana deflates visibly, lowering her raised arm and taking a deep breath. She smooths down her hair and slips her hood back up on her head, then looks at the rest of them for the first time. She nods to Varric, who nods back and Garrett is completely unsurprised at the implication that they seem to know one another. Looking at Garrett and Marian, she smiles pleasantly and says, “I apologize for my behavior. I am Ariana.” She bows her head slightly.
“Yes,” Garrett blurts, then, “I mean, we've heard. My lady. Your Majest-”
“Shh!” Ariana hisses, pressing her finger to her lips. “You are Ferelden, yes?” Garrett nods. “Then you're aware of the general prejudice against our people? So, let's not announce my identity to the masses, hm?” It's said gently and with a kind smile, but it feels like a threat. “You are-” she starts, then pauses and frowns around. “Were there not five of you?”
Garrett makes a stricken noise and Marian's jaw tightens. Anders speaks for them, softly. “Their sister, Bethany, she contracted the taint. We intercepted Stroud and I managed to convince him to have her undertake the Joining.”
Ariana makes a soft sound and nods. “I see. I shall send word to the Keep, see what I hear. In the meantime, I would speak to Anders privately. I have business with you two and your mother, as well,” she says to Marian. “I know that you will need time to inform her of your sister's fate. I shall come by tomorrow, I think. If you don't mind?”
Garrett doesn't think he's at a place in his life where he can deny the Queen of Ferelden, Hero of Ferelden and Slayer of the Archdemon, anything, so he nods. Marian does the same, looking similarly pole-axed. Ariana rounds on Anders, who lets out an uncharacteristically girly whimper. “Come,” she demands, striding away from them. Anders follows, casting desperate looks back at Varric and the Hawkes. Raylan bows his head to them and follows quietly. The taller woman – who's name is still a mystery - kisses Isabela's cheek and waves as she scampers after them.
“Well, that was bracing,” Garrett gasps, feeling like he just let out a breath he'd been holding for hours.
“She's terrifying,” Marian whispers. “And the elf! And that other one, just looming there like they were ready to stab first as questions later.”
“Ariana's always reminded me a bit of a hurricane,” Isabela says, looking overly fond in a way that's somewhat alien. “Beautifully destructive with a deadly calm at the center.”
“I'm mildly frightened that you know her that well,” Mariana sighs. “We should head home, brother.”
“Yeah,” Garrett mumurs. He nods at Varric and Isabela. “Drinks later?”
“Wouldn't miss it, kitten,” Isabela replies, squeezing his arm and kissing Marian's cheek. She and Varric stroll off, arm in arm.
“Shall we?” Garrett asks.
“I'm not holding your hand, little brother,” Mariana says, walking off.
“So, he needs four Grey Wardens up there, holding the torch just in case?” Alistiar sighs, dryly.
“It does seem a bit ridiculous,” Ariana agrees, crossing her arms. “And a waste of our talents, perhaps I should-”
“This is not your choice to make. If the king wishes the Grey Wardens ensure the beacon is lit, the Grey Wardens will be there. I wouldn't have thought I'd have to explain this to a Cousland,” Dunan replies with the same stern expression her father would get when she backsassed him one too many times.
“Ooh, the disapproving papa bear look,” Ariana mutters. “We're in trouble.”
Alistair snorts. Duncan frowns. “We must do whatever it takes to destroy the darkspawn, exciting or no.”
“I get it, I get it,” Alistair says. “Just so you know, if the king ever asks me to put on a dress and dance the Remigold, I'm drawing the line. Darkspawn or no.”
“You...have some odd ideas about the king,” Raylan says, hitching an eyebrow.
“I happen to be quite fetching in a dress!” Alistair replies, raising one back.
“I think I'd like to see that,” Ariana giggles.
“For you, maybe,” Alistair murmurs, smirking at her. “But it has to be a pretty dress.”
Duncan sighs.
“That could be a great distraction,” Thyra chimes in. Duncan sighs again.
They are seventeen and they are hunting. It's the first time they've been allowed out on their own, no Father or Fergus or Ser Gilmore hovering and protecting their precious lady. Just Ariana and Raylan, riding hard through the woods, laughing and honing their skills. They feel free, even if it is fleeting.
It's fun, just the two of them. Raylan hits a deer in the throat with an arrow from a 100 yards on a moving horse. Ariana kills a boar with a dagger and her quick feet. It's fun.
But then it's not.
Raylan hears the man before they see him. He's clearly drunk, crashing through the undergrowth, muttering to himself. They're on foot, mounts tied a few yards away while they followed a remarkably flighty deer. He crashes into their clearing, disheveled and smelling so strongly of alcohol that Ariana recoils. A robin soars on his tunic, red and beautiful and completely unlike the creature that wears it.
“Stupid bitch,” he growls. “Fuckin' elf thinks she can scorn me?”
They freeze and Raylan reaches up slowly, undoes the tie in his too-long hair and lets it fall down. It obscures his ears, but barely. The man catches sight of them, then and stumbles forward. His eyes are glazed and unfocused. “You! Girl. Girls! Oho!” He shuffles forward and they lurch to their feet.
“Stay back, I warn you,” Ariana says, holding her blade in front of them.
“Feisty!” he crows, but his is not deterred.
Ariana pushes against Raylan's chest and they step backwards, carefully so as not to provoke him into rash actions. Raylan's foot catches on their prey and he falls, the momentum disturbing his hair and revealing his ears. The man howls like a beast and lunges at him. “Stupid elven whores!” he snarls, stumbling and falling, crawling towards Raylan. He is so drunk or so enraged that he doesn't even see Raylan, can't see that it's a man he grabs at, just sees whoever has angered him.
For a moment, Ariana is frozen in terror, and Raylan seems to be as well. Then, he howls and Ariana shakes herself free, feels no fear for herself, only her friend. She launches herself at the man, bringing her blade around as she knocks into him. It plunges into his right eye and he screams, an unholy sound of agony. He rears up and Raylan kicks out forcefully into his chest. The man in the robin tunic sprawls across the ground, clutching at his face. Adrenaline surging through his veins, Raylan wrenches the blade from the man's face and plunges it into his throat.
The man's howls are cut off abruptly, only wet gurgles issuing from the blood-soaked mouth now. Raylan falls back in horror and Ariana drops down beside him, pulls him against her chest and looks skyward. If the Maker exists, if he watches them now, he will understand, won't he?
He must.
They find a stream and scrub the blood from their hands. They ride hard back to Highever, silence ringing between them, but they have nothing to say. They present their kills (their animal kills) to Nan and shuffle off to their rooms. Once the door to Ariana's chambers have shut, they strip off their soiled clothes and hurl them into the flames. They stand there in their smalls, watching the fire devour the cloth.
They dress again, in new, unsoiled clothes and Raylan presses a knife into Ariana's hands.
“My hair,” Raylan says, voice cracking and hoarse. “Cut it. Please.”
“Aye,” she replies softly. He sits between her thighs and she sets to work, chopping his hair off methodically. She cuts Oren's hair sometimes, has a knack for it. After a moment, she says, “When we met, Fergus killed the man who attempted to force himself on your mother.” He nods. “I think...I think men like that, they deserve to die. There are some men, some women too, I suppose, who just need to be killed. No one can fault us for that, no matter how they may try.”
When the last of Raylan's hair falls, he reaches up and curls his fingers around her wrist. “Ari,” he whispers. “Thank you.”
She wraps her arms around his shoulders and rests her chin on his head. “For you, I would kill a hundred men.”
“And I, for you,” he vows.
There is a Dalish man in the nearest market who does tattoos. When they approach him, he eyes them warily, but beckons them into his shop. “I can only do so many designs, you know,” he tells them.
“Do you have something like a robin?” Ariana asks.
“I do, aye,” he replies, showing them a design. It is birdlike, for certain, but only if you study it. Ariana declares it perfect and tells him where they want it. “This will hurt, you know, my lady.”
“I'll be fine,” she snaps. “Do you want our coin or not?”
“Aye, aye, sit then,” he says, gesturing for them to climb into a pair of oddly made chairs.
It does hurt, fiercer than anything they've ever felt. It is worth it, in the end, they decide. The marks on their skin remind them of their resolve. To protect each other, to rid the world of evil men, to never be taken advantage of.
Mother is horrified, outraged that her beautiful daughter would deface herself so. Father frowns and Fergus gives them a subtle thumbs up when their parents aren't looking. They feed a line about loyalty and allegiance to Highever and Ferelden, but keep their true motivation to themselves. This is not something they need to share with anyone. They wouldn't understand.
Ten years later, Alistair brushes a hand across Ariana's face as they are nearing sleep and asks what it means. She looks at him and thinks of the Wardens, of all he's lost, of all he's gone through. They are not dissimilar and she feels...he would understand. She tells him and he holds her and in the morning he sweeps Raylan into a fierce hug and says, “You're the strongest man I know.”
Raylan raises an eyebrow, Ariana points to her face and he nods, tightens his arms around Alistair and says, “Don't you forget it.”