Luhan expected to encounter a large party of travelers, given that Baekhyun claimed they'd taken down the whole bandit raiding party. (“What you saw were just those who tried to run away! As if.”) What they found instead was only a small caravan made up of three men including Baekhyun, and one horribly ugly young woman. Luhan tried not to stare, but on second glance he altered his impression and decided the lady wasn't actually ugly, it was just her expression that was. She had long blond hair that looked a little worse for traveling, an ill-fitting blue dress, and the meanest looking scowl on her face. There were twigs in her hair and dirt on her gown and big feet encased in stupid looking leather shoes, and she frowned at everybody as if the world was out to get her, which it probably was. She looked of noble birth, and Luhan didn't know a single noble lady who would enjoy the great outdoors like this, especially when sitting against a damp tree and drinking water out of a flask that three other sweaty men were also probably drinking out of. And who knew how long they'd been on the road.

So this was an party, Luhan concluded. Although he had apparently been staring at her too long, because after a few moments the woman seemed to positively growl at him, and Xiumin — somehow more gentlemanly than Luhan — kicked Luhan's ankles as if to remind him of his position. Baekhyun followed Luhan's gaze to the lady and then back again, noting in particular the templar's chastised demeanor.

“Ignore the.. err.. lady,” he said off-handedly. “She's just a bit grouchy. But here, let me introduce you to the rest of the party!”

The rest of the party turned out to be a shield warrior by the name of Jongin who glanced up at the newcomers and inclined his head in a rough, callous greeting before turning away to continue wiping down his sword. It looked clean already but now it was starting to shine from all Jongin’s lathering and attention to detail. Even the grooves in his jeweled handle were spotless. It seemed he was dead serious about his weapons, and Luhan guessed this wasn't a person to cross lightly. 

The other warrior was a giant of a man named Chanyeol with a long two-handed sword harnessed to his back, a broad smile, large ears, and a dog across his lap. A mabari hound to be exact. Alistair to be exacter, although the dog wasn't making Chanyeol's current task-at-hand any easier. It slobbered on his lap and nudged him for pets and only when Xiumin whistled angrily for him to come did the animal lazily get up and trot over to its actual master.

Chanyeol cried out happily now that he could get back to business. He sat on a stump and around his feet was an assortment of piles of loot, most of which looked like it had come off the backs of dead bandits.

“Okay, final count - here it comes! We have... three common daggers. Four pieces of iron. A silver emblem with... absolutely nothing interesting about it. One shield, or at least only one that isn't totally dented in from where you bashed it — Hey, Jongin, how good is your shield? Is this one better? You want to come check it out?”

“No, thank you,” said the other warrior. Jongin didn't even bother to look up. 

“Did you at least salvage any good arrows for me?” Baekhyun inquired as he trotted over to inspect the goods. 

Chanyeol shook his head. “Nope. Their stuff was pretty cheap. It splinters when you just look at it, and I know how particular you are about using only the best — I learned that the hard way — I do have a medium armor helmet you could try on for size though. Also... a mage cowl charmed with some kind of enchantment but I don't know how to tell what it is, and... oh!” He looked up as if just remembering the introductions from a minute ago. “Oh! That’s right. We have a mage now. Excellent! He can wear this then! I've also got a staff too. Not a great one, mind, but you're welcome to use it.”

Luhan choked back a retort. However, Xiumin chuckled, winked at Luhan, and playfully held up his arms as if to receive the weapon. Only his fingers opened wide, since his wrists were still bound. Chanyeol just looked confused, but he stood up as if to approach the bound mage and took one step closer like he was under a trance. 

“Can you... do you want it?” he asked Xiumin, even in the face of Luhan's growing alarm. The mage smiled, positively twinkled, and Luhan experienced a strange feeling in his gut. It was fear, he told himself. It couldn't be anything but. And that finally induced him to speak.

“Excuse me, but this mage is in my custody, he is bound for the Circle, and he is absolutely not allowed any weaponry of any kind!” 

Xiumin pouted. Chanyeol pouted.

“You mean he's a bad mage?” the tall warrior asked. Luhan nodded uncertainly. “Apostate? Maleficar? Does he do... blood magic?” Suddenly even Chanyeol looked frightened.

“I don'y do blood magic,” Xiumin sighed and rolled his eyes. Chanyeol looked a little relieved. From the other end of the clearing, the woman was finally paying them attention, and also Jongin had finished with his sword. He sheathed it in a loud display and observed them mutely. Everyone was waiting for an explanation, Luhan realized. As if he was the one who’d done something horrible by tying up such an adorable looking mage. 

“He's my prisoner, so just... don't... he's not... don't give him anything… without going through me first,” Luhan stuttered, and then he cringed. Did he really just consider Xiumin adorable?

Baekhyun smirked finally and gave a good, dramatic shrug, totally unconcerned with the whole situation. He hadn’t even batted an eyelash at the possibility of bringing in a rogue apostate mage. “I found them cuddling so I'm thinking he's not all that bad.”

Luhan's face turned red. He didn't have a mirror, but he knew it must be red from the way his cheeks suddenly burned warm. Xiumin didn't say anything, but the elf continued anyways. 

“And apparently the dog belongs to the mage, and it's fine with its owner being lead away, seeing as how it didn't attack the templar when called to do so.” Baekhyun smiled.

Chanyeol nodded at this, mouth hanging open. “Oh. Oh, okay then. Maybe the dog just has good taste in people then?” he proposed.

“Clearly not,” said Baekhyun. “Since it adores you!” He tilted his head back and laughed loudly, but his words had incited a string of back-and-forth insults between the two individuals which grew exceedingly more heinous as they continued — if one considered the worst thing Baekhyun could do was accusing Chanyeol of being an elf. The human went into a glorious fit after that, covering his large ears with his hands as he frankly denied it.

“Excellent discernment, indeed,” scoffed Xiumin under his breath, and even though it was directed at the warrior, Luhan took vague offense to that. Alistair had after all come to accept him too. 

Xiumin and Luhan stood side by side, watching the match wide-eyed without having anything to inject. The two squabbled with all the fury of two like-minded strangers; familiar enough to know what hurt, fresh enough to throw new and unused insults. It continued seemingly without end until finally Jongin, who they'd almost forgotten existed, stood up and drew his sword in a fierce clashing of steel against steel. The sound echoed across the clearing making Luhan’s teeth screech, but it did to catch their attention. 

“Battle mode!” Chanyeol froze and cried suddenly, pulling his weapon.

“To arms!” charged Baekhyun just as quickly and he drew out his weapon. They fumbled in their haste but then hunkered together back to back, their bodies on the defense, alert for every possible movement as they scanned the area around them. “Where are they! Where are they?!” cried the elf, fitting an arrow to his bow. 

And still Luhan and Xiumin stood silently next to each other, heads tilted identically parallel. Alistair yawned loudly, stretched, and sunk to his belly, and the lady just pulled at her blond locks in a bored manner. 

“Jongin, I don't see anyone!” said Chanyeol, ever wary.

The hardened warrior — although Luhan noticed now that he was still exceedingly young looking — trudged over to them in a menacing fashion. 

“Jongin?” said Chanyeol, now more confused than ever. “Are… we under attack? I don’t see any attackers…”

“That’s because... there aren’t any,” said the stoic warrior, glaring between Chanyeol and Baekhyun. His eyes narrowed as he spoke, slowly and deeply. “I drew my sword to make you two quit squabbling. You're loud and upsetting the peace of the forest, and if anyone is after us, they'll hear us for ages, so shut it, will you? Or I will.”

It took several moments for Chanyeol and Baekhyun to realize they'd been played — played, not threatened — and they lowered their weapons finally in joint embarrassment. Chanyeol shook it off by taking his seat again, and he pointedly ignored Baekhyun as he opened up scroll after scroll of requisitions list, tallying things up against their acquired loot. 

“Why were these guys even carrying halla leather?” he muttered once, almost under his breath. “And where in Thedas* do people find phoenix feathers? Who’d even want to kill a phoenix?” After a few minutes of this, he seemed to jump tracks and remembered their breakfast, simmering above a fire in a trench behind him. Remembering their guests too, he glanced up with a roasted potato in each hand and decided to ask Luhan first, “Hey, is it alright if I feed it?”

“Feed what. The dog?” Luhan asked in return.

“No, the mage.”

The mage? It? Luhan fumed, slowly and silently. “His name is Xiumin, and... sure you can feed him. And me, if you have any leftovers.” They were both rather hungry after all, since Baekhyun had interrupted their second morning together.

By mid-morning they were ready to go. Jongin helped the lady climb onto one of the only two horses they had, and it was a clunky affair just doing that. Luhan tried not to watch as the lady figured out how to sit side-saddle, and he’d never seen her scowl harder. Chanyeol loaded up the spare horse with saddle bags after spending an age deciding what of their loot to take and what to drop. Baekhyun stood around with his bow in his hand impatiently bouncing on his heels and then they were off.

Luhan had conferred briefly with Jongin about their route since the warrior appeared to be their best leader, but other than determining which direction they were riding — north, northwest — Luhan couldn’t get anything more out of him. 

“Something seems weird with this party,” said Luhan to Xiumin as they made up the rear of the . 

“Weird, how?”

“I don’t know…” he admitted. “But something’s off.”

“I’d say it starts with that girl,” said Xiumin. 

They were walking side by side, Alistair doing his normal round-about trotting. Ahead of the saddle horse, the blond-haired lady bobbled uncomfortably on her perch, almost falling off one or two times when the horse maneuvered over fallen trees on the path.

“I think you may be right,” said Luhan. “What kind of noble lady can’t ride side-saddle?” 

“One who’s possibly not a—”

“Wolves ahead!” cried Chanyeol loudly. Luhan couldn’t see them but he heard them. He also heard the steel of Jongin's and Chanyeol’s swords, the pews of an arrow, and knew he needed to assist. 

“Stick to the horses, and don’t you dare run off!” he directed Xiumin hastily before flying forward, shield before him. 

They made short work of the beasts. Three swordsmen, a bowman and a hound even larger than the wolves themselves saw to that just fine. Only the horses seemed all that nervous having wolves underfoot, and by the time the warriors trudged back to where they'd scampered — Xiumin leaning by a tree, bored —  the lady was having some difficulty controlling her horse. Jongin grabbed the reigns and quickly calmed the animal, and Baekhyun sent the woman an almost scathing look of incompetence. Chanyeol merely looked on with something akin to pity before he ran after the other pack horse. 

“You were saying something?” Luhan said to the mage when he returned to his side. Xiumin looked terribly amused at the whole thing, however, and he didn't seem to be paying Luhan any mind. Instead he began scratching against the tree like a bear and didn’t look up until Luhan questioned him. “What's the matter. Got an itch?” Luhan asked. Xiumin finally looked at him, a smile beginning to etch across his face.

“Well, obviously. I've got my hands tied. How else do you expect me to scratch my back? Unless you'd like to do the honors??”

Luhan observed him warmly, especially the expanse of arm muscle and the markings along his biceps. The thought of touching the mage, however, seemed suddenly too personal. “Why would I scratch your back?” he said instead.

Xiumin shrugged. “I don't know? Maybe for good behavior since I didn't run off?” And then he smiled and Luhan was nearly a goner. 

“Hey, lovebirds, you ready to go again?” called Baekhyun from off in the distance. Luhan groaned, but it did save him from a possibly harrowing ordeal.

Back at the front of the party Chanyeol had captured the second horse and was now engaged in a debate with Jongin about whether he could skin the wolves before they moved on. 

“You want to do that now?” said the shorter warrior, calmly indignant. “We are traveling. Kill wolves for leather some other day. I care little for whatever requisition orders you picked up in Denerim. We have a job to do, and that is to the young lo- lady to…” he quietened as Luhan and Xiumin approached, “to our destination in a timely manner. So let’s go.” 

“As you say, then,” Chanyeol agreed, chastised. 

“Hey, cheer up,” Xiumin piped in. “If we find some wolves for you to slaughter tonight near our next campsite, perhaps the templar will spare me a knife and I can help you out. With two people we could do it in double time! I’m really good with skinning.”

He glanced at Luhan as if to goad him, but the templar refused to even acknowledge he’d spoken. Instead, he focused on the surrounding forest which, since the path they walked had finally run into a fork of the Imperial Highway, the treeline was thus pushed farther from the road. A few rundown pillars marked what used to be a grander highway, but all that was from ancient days. In any case, it was mostly easy walking, and the weather had been cool and pleasant for weeks. If they made good time then it would be less than a week before Luhan would need to separate from their very strange party and take a more northernly approach to the Circle Tower. What the templars and tower mages would do with Xiumin then, Luhan did not know, but he was sure it wouldn’t be anything terribly bad. Worst come to worst, they would bump into each other every so often and Xiumin might hiss at him for taking him away from his lovely dump of a shack out in the sticks and mud. 

He had to wonder about their new traveling companions though. The silent warrior, the lanky two-handed giant (although real giants were probably three or four bodies taller even than Chanyeol), and the elf archer didn’t seem all that bad. The lady, however, was something else. There was a big secret here that he was deliberately being kept out of, and although it wasn’t any of his business, he had to worry at least somewhat. Small parties out on the highway, even with a good soldier , often did end up missing, or likely dead, depending on what they were carrying, or who they were carrying. The mystery of the noble lady only heightened Luhan’s senses that it might be a secret they could be attacked for. Or end up dead for. Luhan was happy to travel alongside fellow swordsmen, but he had a purpose and that was only to keep his mage alive and in custody until he reached his own destination.

Not to mention, ladies of such birth were rarely seen out in the wilds, therefore the party was doubly susceptible to bandit attacks. If they were to come upon a party that was even twice as big as the raiders they’d seen yesterday, four men and a dog were hardly going to be enough to repel them. 

Then there was the fact that Baekhyun would at least once every hour hang back from the party to check on their rear. He was scouting for something, keeping an eye out for something, and it wasn’t bandits, of that Luhan was starting to realize. What was it Baekhyun had said when they first met? That they — he and Xiumin — weren’t bandits, yes. But that something had been following them and they weren’t it.

Not who. It. It was enough to scare Luhan into always keeping his sword arm free, and every time Baekhyun reemerged from the forest behind them, either from the right or the left, Luhan examined his face for any sign that Baekhyun was worried. The elf, however, kept a passive expression. Luhan would worry if that ever changed.

They stopped around midday to rest their feet, eat some food, and let the lady take a private moment out in the bushes. Luhan thought it was weird that Chanyeol would accompany her just out of eyeshot, but then if she was important to somebody, it would imply she needed a full-time bodyguard, however unseemly it was.

He and Xiumin remained together while they waited, Luhan crossing his legs quaintly around his robes. The mage plopped down with far less grace since he couldn’t use his hands, and he then proceeded to stretch out on his back in the dirt. He closed his eyes and sighed happily. 

“Taking a nap, are you?” said Baekhyun, who had come by to share a bit of their food. 

“Mmmm,” grunted the mage affirmatively.

Baekhyun shook his head, amused. “I really don’t get you two. What kind of apostate lets himself get captured like this anyways?”

“One who’s got a rebel dog,” Xiumin supplied, eyes still closed, although he smiled upon maneuvering a bit until he his head laid under some shade. 

He wasn’t looking at either of them, and so Baekhyun inquired silently of Luhan the same question. Luhan only shrugged. That was the truth after all, wasn’t it?

“Seems to me like you could easily get yourself free. And yet here you are walking meekly to your doom.” The elf was definitely no help in this situation.

“I’d be grateful if you don’t give him ideas,” Luhan warned gruffly.

“What? I’m just saying. How tight are those knots anyways?” He reached over to play with Xiumin’s hands and Luhan practically growled. 

“Very tight,” he said firmly. “I am an expert at knots, I’ll have you know.” 

The scout smirked, commenting quickly, “Sounds like you’re trying to convince yourself. Anyways, Xiumin, if you ever feel like setting yourself free, I am very good at undoing knots!” He winked cheekily, completely uncaring of Luhan’s murderous stare.

“How dare you!” the templar cried. “Touch his hands and I’ll have your head!”

“Ooooh, someone sounds possessive now.”

Luhan really wasn’t going to win with this one. He huffed and turned his head away, drawing his knees up indignantly to his chest. After a few moments of Xiumin giggling, however, he whipped his head back to make sure Baekhyun wasn’t trying anything funny. The elf had moved on though from his fun and games, and Xiumin was only smiling to himself, hands still firmly encased in leather bindings.  Jongin had merely observed the entire scene passively. 

And soon Chanyeol was back with his charge, the lady looking just as grumpy as ever. She didn’t bother to look at either Luhan or Xiumin, barely even looked at Baekhyun, but she did tip her head angrily at Jongin, indicating that they should be moving again. It seems she did call at least some of the shots around here, although Luhan realized he hadn’t actually heard her speak yet. That was odd.

Chanyeol rushed to get her on her horse, and the same scene as earlier occurred with the woman trying to find her balance side-saddle. Xiumin sat up for this and watched intently, a squint to his eyes, and suddenly Luhan found himself paying even more attention. She had a long, strong jaw that wasn’t exactly feminine, hands too long and bony to be considered delicately pretty, and then there was the matter of her mostly flat chest. He knew he shouldn’t be staring, but it all made sense the moment her flat slipped off the saddle, and Chanyeol rushed to catch her, and out came a very unmanly shriek, and yet... The tall warrior caught her firmly, arms and legs flinging in a mess of blue garments, but gravity had a hold of her golden locks, her hair, her… wig? 

“Ahhh,” murmured Xiumin, unsurprised. Luhan gaped. 

He… stopped squirming the moment Chanyeol dropped his feet to the ground, and the whole clearing froze in mixed shock, embarrassment, defeat and despair. Before them stood a very pretty looking, but very male young lord. He looked almost relieved for someone caught accidentally mashing his own wig into the dirt. Chanyeol’s face opened in a wide ohhh, Jongin looked annoyed, and Baekhyun actually snorted. 

“Oops,” said the elf. “Guess that’s one secret we don’t have to worry about anymore.”

3,700 words

This chapter brought to you by: every gamer's nightmare at having to do inventory checks and discarding; also... how every single time one character accidentally unleashes a weapon, the rest of the party freezes and prepares for attack. Oh, and Chanyeol is totally the type of character who wants to collect everything and return it for money. Shame skinning wolves is probably lots more work than clicking the A button. (I guess this, because I've never, you know... skinned or even killed a wolf. I like the A button a whole lot more.)

As for the storyline: SO! Our lady isn't a lady. I hope you all saw that one coming at least. Any guesses who?? 

To rehash the characters and their species/class/weapons specializations so far,

• Luhan - Templar soldier, human, one-handed sword and shield
• Xiumin - Human, mage, apostate (currently weaponless, but he needs a staff to perform most magic) 
• Baekhyun - Elf, rogue archer, scout
• Chanyeol - Human, warror, two-handed greatsword
• Jongin - Human, warrior, one-handed sword and shield
• ??? - Human, not-a-lady
• 6 main characters to go, some cameos, and...
• Alistair - Dog

By the way, be sure to leave a comment if anything about this story (or the au) confuses you and I will try to answer! Also comment if you like it!

See you next week,

♡ Rosie