Astrid’s delighted by that spark of light, even small as it is: she watches it crystallise and shape itself and even claps her hands a little. She can’t do anything besides what she can accomplish with her bare hands, so in terms of party tricks, he’s got her beat.

“Yeah, there’s Wardens,” she says, thinking aloud, squinting. “I dunno know how exactly they fight the Blight but I know they’ve something to do with fixing it. Maybe it’s something similar.”

It was so mythical that her impressions of it were painted in such vague shapes: all she knew was that the Blight had happened, things were awful, and then it eventually ended, leaving only the scars left on the landscape. And yet: darkspawn, lingering still.

“It’s too bad you’ve just gone from one blighted shitshow to another, but— at least it’s familiar?”