Chapter 53: Adverse Effects

Tomas finally called a halt to the revelry and insisted we get moving towards Soldier's Peak. I showed Leli how to use the music app and gave her free reign to pick songs to listen to while we walked. Everyone stuck close, wanting to listen to the strange sounds coming from the speakers, and even for me it was nice to have even temporary easy access to music I'd grown up with. I hadn't realised how much I'd missed it. The day passed quickly, and enjoyably. The group were quite scandalised when they heard the lyrics to some of the songs, but I noticed Zevran watching me, expression unreadable, and I winked at him. He laughed. Alistair remained sort of pink-faced throughout most of it.

Dariel and Gorim asked me more questions about Earth, which I answered openly for the most part, and how I got to Ferelden, for which I had no answers. At least they seemed to believe me, though I supposed that disappearing into thin air and returning with an iPhone helped my case. I pondered whether the outrageous alternate universe theories that had been exploited in so many science fiction novels were truly that outrageous. Maybe there were hundreds, thousands of universes, and sometimes, some way, it was possible to travel between them. I mean, there was more than one origin in the game – maybe there were other universes out there where Aedan had died and a different person became the Warden. If David Gaider somehow had access to all of them, that could be why there were multiple origins...

I was interrupted in my musing when the music stopped; Leliana jumped, though managed not to drop the phone, and handed it over to me quickly in fear that she'd broken it. I realised the battery was dead – we'd been walking, listening to music, for probably eight hours. After all the video taking in the morning, I wasn't surprised. I plugged the thing into one of my two chargers and slipped it back into my pocket. It occurred to me to look into solar chargers when I went back to Earth next. Tomas wanted to walk about another hour before setting up camp; Bodahn, miraculously as usual, knew the location of yet another hot spring along our path, so we decided to push through until we could make it.

After supper, we took turns as usual using the hotspring. The guys had won the right to go first (teaching them rock-paper-scissors had been hilarious), so when they were done, the women wandered down and spent a good half hour relaxing. I had been managing to ignore it, most of the time, but I ached after a full day of walking. When the rest of the women went back to camp, I decided to stay and soak a little longer.

The water was heavenly, and it only got better when Alistair quietly slipped in beside me. We soaked and cuddled together for a while, until he became impatient and pushed me up onto the bank. He took his time exploring my body, and when he finally took me, I was so over-stimulated that I was sure they could hear my shout all the way to Denerim.

We cleaned up, again, and finally headed back to camp. Almost everyone had gone to their tents already, but Zev and Shale were talking together quietly when we approached. Zev spent a few minutes teasing us about our vocal performance; Shale was totally disgusted, which I'm sure was why he did it. Blushing, Alistair and I ducked into our tent and promptly fell asleep.

In the morning, I tucked the Iron Man figurine into Alistair's bedroll. I'd realised I had forgotten to give it to him, and I wanted to do it when we had time to talk, so bedtime seemed to make sense. At breakfast, I decided to show everyone the videos I'd made of the computer game. I sat in the middle, with everyone taking turns crowding around me, as I showed my character talking to one after the other of my companions. Everyone was completely amazed at seeing themselves on the little screen and hearing their own voices come out of the speakers. It was fun to watch. The ones I didn't have video of – Dariel, Gorim, and Aedan, for obvious reasons – just laughed with me at the looks on everyone else's face.

We got packed up, but as we walked my phone got passed around from one to the next as they watched the little video. Finally after watching it for about the third time, Aedan approached me, where I walked hand-in-hand with Alistair, chatting with Tomas.

"So ... why exactly don't you have a picture of me? And who is this woman who's talking to everyone?"

I glanced over at where he was pointing and froze. Oh crap. I had taken the video of my Cousland interacting with everyone. My female Cousland. I had never planned on explaining the multiple origins in game. I'd never planned to admit it was a game. It was hard to explain, and I worried about the reaction if they learned that people on Earth thought of their lives as a game. I took a deep breath, mind racing, and Alistair leaned down to speak quietly.

"Are you okay? You're looking rather pale."

I stuttered and finally tried to explain.

"I ... in the performance, I think to try to expand their audience, they allowed the person viewing it to ... choose the appearance of the character they were inhabiting."

"Why would that expand their audience?" Leliana had joined us, bringing Morrigan with her.

"Well, I suspect that, for example, women who were watching would feel more comfortable if they were looking through the eyes of a woman, instead of through Aedan's."

There was a stunned silence, and I looked down, afraid to see everyone's reactions. Aedan barked out a laugh. "So that woman ... is supposed to be me?"

I looked up, noting Zevran's amused grin and Aedan's incredulous stare. "Uh, yeah, well, sort of. I suppose." I took another breath. Busted; I might as well tell them everything now, before I get caught in a half-truth again. "But you could actually choose to be an elf, or a dwarf, or a mage too. The overall story didn't change, but the first few minutes you were somewhere other than Highever. The theory went that Dun ... Tomas could have gone anywhere looking for a recruit, not just Highever. He could have gone to the Circle Tower and chosen Solona or an elven mage, to Orzammar and chosen Sereda or another dwarf, to the Brecilian Forest and picked a Dalish elf, or to Denerim and gotten an elf from the Alienage. And any of those options could have been male or female."

I finally got the reaction I'd been expecting. Aedan started shouting. "What sort of sick performance was this? So in some of these, what – I didn't survive? I died in Highever with my parents?"

"I don't ... know. Probably. They never gave any details about any of the other origins once you'd chosen one. There were hints – you'd see a dead dwarf in a Carta dungeon in Orzammar, and if you'd ever tried being a dwarf you'd know that that was where one of the origins died, since Tomas hadn't been there to rescue him – that sort of thing. But if you were an elf, for example, they just never mentioned the Couslands in detail. They showed Howe gloating over being Teyrn, but didn't explain exactly why."

I tried to explain my multiple alternate universe theory, where perhaps somehow David Gaider could see into many alternate realities, and not just this one, but also one where an elf or dwarf was chosen as the Warden recruit. Aedan's face was red, angry, and I wasn't surprised when he growled and stormed off. Zev gave me a sympathetic look and then hurried off to follow him; Tomas stopped walking, looking around, and finally sighed and sat down, right in the middle of the road.

"We might as well have lunch here."

Everyone else settled nearby and pulled out rations; Bodahn and Sandal kept going in the cart, knowing we could easily catch up. Leliana tried to force out a conversation to cover the awkward silence, but everyone was too deep in thought to easily keep it up. Alistair hadn't said a word since I'd explained, and barely ate; I watched him, concerned, but he didn't even seem to notice me staring.

After maybe a half hour had passed, Aedan reappeared with Zev in tow. He didn't look at me, just growled out a demand for the group to get moving. He deliberately started walking at a quick pace, ahead of everyone else. I snuck a glance at Zev, and he shook his head slightly, obviously not thinking I should try to discuss it with Aedan yet. Before I had a chance to think much more about it, Alistair brushed past me and joined Aedan, and the two men walked silently together, Zevran trailing behind. I stared at Alistair's back in shock – never had he been less than courteous to me, even before we'd been in a relationship. I didn't know what to think.

Morrigan had changed into bird form and taken off, Sten and Shale were already following Aedan, and Wynne followed them with Dariel. Leliana, Gorim, and Tomas were left, looking from me to Aedan and Alistair and back again, expressions worried. Mine must have looked miserable; Leliana took one of my hands, Duncan put his hand on my shoulder, and we followed at the back.

I was upset, torn between feeling guilty and confused. Maybe I should have told them the whole story to begin with, but what could have happened in an alternate universe shouldn't have mattered. This was the universe we had to deal with, and we couldn't go back even if we wanted to, so why did it matter?

I hadn't noticed who'd ended up with my iPhone, and I didn't particularly care at that moment. I walked sadly, head down, barely even paying attention to the road, while Leliana pulled me on by the hand. No one spoke; the usual amusing party banter was conspicuously absent, and the quiet was unnerving. Clearly neither Tomas nor Leli were angry with me, and I wasn't even certain that everyone else had heard, but I wasn't sure what would happen with Aedan, and apparently Alistair was also upset, for some reason he'd yet to explain. Just what we need: drama.