#ideally he’d not be made a warden but lady cousland is

[qunaricatnip]

at work and all I can think about it loghain swearing a knights oath to f!cousland after she spares his life

[shannaraisles]

A Rose By Any Name - Chapter 2

In which the princess of Antiva arrives in Denerim, and learns exactly why she’s there. Banner created by the fabulous @kagetsukai!

[Read on AO3] or [From the beginning]

Chapter 2

"If you would just step this way, your highness ..."

Princess Felicita Amelia Braulia Salome of Antiva ignored the seneschal trying to usher her out of the courtyard, taking a moment to lower her hood and look around the gray walls of the royal palace of Denerim.

It was not what she had been told to expect; indeed, it far surpassed her father's dubious descriptions. He had painted Ferelden as a miserable, cold sort of place, where there was little joy to be found and less color. As the eighth daughter of his line - and four more still to be found a place for, if they didn’t kill each other vying for the succession - he could not afford to be picky, and the plutocracy of the merchants had agreed that placing an Antivan princess on the throne of Ferelden might do very nicely, for all its shortcomings. They, too, had warned her that the southern country was a drab place, lacking in the refinements she was accustomed to; some had even gone so far as to suggest Ferelden was lacking in basic good manners.

Yet this description did not mesh with the country as she had seen it thus far. Amaranthine had certainly been a sallow sort of place, but justifiably so - they were still rebuilding after the catastrophic darkspawn attack after the end of the Blight. Even so, the people there had been smiling about their work, eager to take a look at the nobles who disembarked. Word had reached them well in advance that these ladies of Antiva, Nevarra, and the Free Marches were prospective queens, and the welcome they had given was warm, indeed. As for a land that lacked color, well ... Felicita had seen green fields beneath snow, blue skies, bright clothing. She had seen dried flowers in red and white and deep purple, familiar and unfamiliar to her Antivan eyes, and in some places, fresh growing by the side of the road, even here at the waning end of winter. Far from misery, she had witnessed cheerful good nature at the inns and noble homes opened for herself and her party to stay at on their journey from the port city. These people were fiercely proud of their land and heritage, possessed of a deep love for their king, whose history as both a bastard and a hero were points they elucidated on with equal pleasure. Indeed, as soon they identified that she was from Antiva, not Orlais, the people she had met had gone out of their way to sell their King Alistair's finer points to her.

Admittedly, she had not known until her ship had docked at Amaranthine that this was to be a competition of sorts. It had been a surprise to note that her traveling companions to Denerim were Ladies Callista Damaris of Nevarra, Ceridwyn Ardvale of Kirkwall, Leona Charing of Starkhaven, and Amandine Orrick of Tantervale, all of whom had also been invited by Arl Eamon Guerrin to attend upon King Alistair of Ferelden for a full month in the hope of being asked to become his queen. Felicita could foresee all sorts of problems in the days ahead, especially given the gossip that had been filtering through to them. They five were not the only ladies invited to Denerim for this bride-finding event, it seemed; they were simply the five who necessity dictated should arrive at the same port at the same time. There were, apparently, five others to contend with, also.

Of the ladies she traveled with, however, Felicita saw only two as potential problems - Callista was of the numerous Pentaghast clan, but her lack of that name made her all the more ambitious to snag a crown of her own if she possibly could; and Amandine was a picture perfect proposition for the king ahead of them, hiding her own ambitions behind sweet manners and an easy wit. Ceridwyn clearly already had her cap set toward the Teryn of Highever, who had met them in the port city to escort the group to Denerim, and despite himself, he was clearly flattered to be the beneficiary of the vivacious redhead's attentions. As for Leona, well ... that girl would be happier in a Chantry, anyone could see that. She said and did all the right things, but her fervor for Andraste's teachings were a little too much for anyone who wasn't expecting the zeal to erupt from such a pretty face. Felicita herself was not entirely sure she wanted to be a part of this rather demeaning display of women squabbling over an eligible man, however high his rank, but her father had spoken well of King Alistair. She was prepared to wait, and use her own judgment as to how closely she would fight this battle.

But here she was, in this gray country that was looking forward to the first flush of spring, and despite everything she had been told, she found she rather liked it. It was wholly different to Antiva City, but no lesser for that difference. Her soft amberite eyes scanned the thick glass windows above her, hesitating for a moment on the sight of someone male looking down at her.

"Your highness?"

Blinking out of her contemplation of that indecipherable face high above, Felicita turned her attention back to the seneschal, finally accepting his invitation to enter the palace as she laid her hand over his own.

"Thank you, my lord."

She smiled warmly as he escorted her into a drafty vestibule hung with heraldic tapestries depicting the dual mabari of both Ferelden itself and the royal house, crimson against gold. The floor was gray stone but clean, a sturdy reed mat laid out for visitors to scrape the mud from their boots before advancing further into the castle itself. The seneschal lead her into the next room, a wide antechamber dominated by a large double door, and two flights of steps leading upward on either side of it. The space was bustling with servants and nobles, deep in preparation for the feast that evening; a feast that was as much to welcome the arrival of the various ladies as it was to mark Wintersend. Again, the walls were hung with bright tapestries, this time an array of heraldic devices, most notably those of Highever and the Couslands, and of Amaranthine and Denerim and, perhaps surprisingly, the Grey Wardens. Though the gray stone of the walls lent a chill to the air, the effect was warmed by the thick rugs that covered the floor and the steps leading upward. Felicita felt no hesitation in removing her gloves as the seneschal left her side, her eyes turning to the rotund gentleman in bright purple hose and deep green doublet who approached her.

"Ah, Don Carmello?" she asked, recognising him from her father's description. White beard, black eyebrows, deceptively friendly smile. That was definitely him.

The Antivan ambassador bowed low, his gaze sparkling cheerfully as he let forth his greeting in the familiar rolling syllables of the language they both shared, kissing her hand more as though she were a favored grandchild than a princess of his country.

"In Common, if you please, ambassador," Felicita interrupted him gently. "We should not be so rude as to conceal our thoughts from the ears of those who are here to watch over us. We are guests, not enemies."

The ambassador frowned, glancing at the bustle of humans and elves all around them. "Ah, your highness," he said in a wary tone, careful to choose his words now he was under orders to speak in a language everyone here understood. "Your father, the king, was most concerned that you should have some means to communicate without fear of being overheard."

"And why is that?" Felicita asked in an innocent tone. "I have no secrets. My father's inability to tell me that my invitation was to take part in a competition, however, would suggest that he has a few secrets of his own."

"Nonetheless, princesa, my orders ..."

Felicita turned to face him fully, uncaring that others could hear plainly. "Ambassador, if you insist upon speaking in Antivan, you must become accustomed to hearing me state in Common every word you say," she informed him. "We are guests in this land, not spies, and not enemies. I will not be so rude to my hosts, nor will I allow you to do the same."

Carmello stuttered for a moment, but Felicita was used to the Antivan way. Women were theoretically to be seen and not heard, pieces of mobile beauty to be pampered and sweetened and considered uneducated. The reality was that many Antivan women were highly educated, and often doing the work of their entire household. But still the pretty ideal persisted, especially in those men who had been away from home for a while. She held his gaze steadily, sweetening her expression with a small smile. And he gave in, sighing and muttering in Antivan about spoiled princesses.

Felicita laughed politely as he gestured for her to accompany him up the left-hand flight of stairs. "Ambassador, I still understand Antivan," she reminded him in amusement. "I did not suddenly become Ferelden by virtue of extending a simple courtesy to these people."

"Ah, forgive me, your highness." Carmello cleared his throat, apparently changing his preferred approach. He'd been away from Antiva too long. "You are to be quartered among the other ladies. This palace is laid out unusually - there is an entire floor dedicated to the comfort of guests, above the royal quarters."

"I see." She nodded as they walked. "What can you tell me of this arrangement, ambassador? I know only what little my father told me, and scant detail from the other ladies I found myself traveling with."

"Your highness, this is an unusual occasion," Carmello explained as they mounted the stairs, steering the way to the next flight upward that would take them to the guest quarters. "The nobility of Ferelden have lost patience with their King. As a Grey Warden, there is a risk that he will never produce a child at all, yet the longer he waits to wed, the greater that risk becomes. The Landsmeet - the gathering of banns and arls - have set his wedding date already. King Alistair will wed on Summerday."

"If they have set his date, why have they not also chosen his bride?" Felicita asked, more curious than offended. It seemed reasonable enough to put this kind of pressure on a King who had already had ten years to secure his line and had done nothing to prevent civil war upon his death.

"King Alistair is a very popular man among the common people," the ambassador explained to her. "He is one of their heroes, one of the Grey Wardens who ended the Blight; a man who bears the stigma of illegitimacy, and yet became their king. He has a bad habit of looking them in the eye when he speaks to them, as well. If it were to become known that he was being forced into a marriage, the people would rise to prevent it, most are certain. As it is, he has agreed to this arrangement - that he will choose, by the first day of Drakonis, which lady of birth he will wed."

"And if he does not choose?" the princess asked, glancing at the man beside her sharply.

Carmello winced. "The Landsmeet will choose for him," he sighed. It was a good arrangement, but he'd met the king on more than one occasion. It wasn't a fair arrangement for that man. "With a civil war only ten years in the past, the issue of succession is a hotly debated point."

"I see." Felicita nodded thoughtfully as they came to a halt. "Then Mama's cryptic comments about seeing me soon were not her attempt to cheer me into embarking upon the journey with a light heart."

The ambassador had the decency to look discomforted. "Alas, no, your highness," he admitted. "The invitations for the wedding have already been sent. The, ah, the name of the bride will, of course, be announced on the first day of Drakonis."

Felicita felt her usually warm expression settle into something that was decidedly put out. This was not the situation she had been allowed to believe she was walking into. A bride-finding competition, where the groom was not entirely willing, and the wedding date already set ... this was a small nightmare in the making.

"This ... contest," she said carefully. "Would I be right in thinking it is not the king's idea?"

"Sí, princesa," he agreed, seemingly more comfortable to admit to this than to the rest of it. "Arl Eamon Guerrin is the king's chief advisor. He has been pressing for a marriage for quite some years now, and it is known that he favors Orlais."

Felicita snorted, hastily turning the unladylike sound into a delicate cough. "Even I know, Don Carmello, that Ferelden will never stomach an Orlesian queen," she pointed out, surprised and a little pleased to note the smile that blossomed suddenly on the face of the elven servant stepping past them as she spoke. "Come, show me where I am to be quartered, and tell me about this ridiculous situation in greater detail."

"Of course, your highness."

The ambassador lead her from the staircase through an imposing door, into a wide corridor from which other doors lead. The rug runner on the floor was a deep shade of crimson, bordered in gold thread that glittered in the light of the torches illuminating the dark space. Some kind of incense was burning to fragrance the passageway, no doubt as a fop to those of the ladies who objected to the smell of honest sweat and the vague hint of musky mabari that clung to everything in this city. Felicita could hear voices behind some of those doors, yet there was a louder collection of feminine voices where the passageway opened far ahead. She glanced curiously at the ambassador.

"A common area, your highness," he explained, drawing to a halt beside a door that had been hung with the Antivan royal crest, no doubt to make it easier for her to find her resting place while she was here. "I believe it was thought that the princesses and ladies of rank would like a place where they might engage in traditionally feminine pastimes in relative privacy, and to build social ties with one another."

Felicita raised her brow, biting down on her smile as she passed through the door beside him. "A man made that decision, yes?" she asked, raising her hands to undo the clasp of her cloak.

Carmello chuckled lightly, knowing exactly what she was thinking. "Indeed. Arl Eamon does not appear to understand people so very much."

With the door closed behind him, Felicita finally laughed at the prospect of being expected to make nice with nine other women for an entire month, while all of them were vying for the matrimonial advantage of being Queen of Ferelden. It was utterly ridiculous. This arl was a fool if he thought there would be no unpleasantness simply because they were all women of rank. Noblewomen could be vicious when cornered. It would actually be easier to handle if they could draw knives and fight it out like men, but sadly the noble ranks didn't like to encourage their ladies to learn useful skills. Well, most countries' noble ranks did not. She could name at least two other women in this little contest who could likely draw a blade with confidence.

Still, perhaps the arl had thought that the noble ladies invited would prefer not to go to bed at ridiculous hours if they were not at the king's beck and call. The room Carmello had brought her to was spacious, certainly, but it was definitely a bedchamber. A wide hearth dominated one wall, the fire crackling in the grate more than welcome in the chill of the winter. The warm cast of firelight complimented the weaker spill of winter sunlight through the thick glass that filled the window between leads, illuminating the arm chairs that had been placed about the hearth. The bed, of course, dominated the room. Not a four-posted monstrosity, nor a dark-wooded maw; it was carved of pleasant oak, sturdy and simple, laid with soft linens and thick blankets, a bright quilt turned back to reveal the Theirin crest on the uppermost blanket. Felicita bit her lip as she fought to hide her smile, imagining the reaction of certain of her traveling companions at the thought of sleeping underneath the family crest of the man they hoped to marry. Scandalous.

"Oh ... please be seated, ambassador," she said belatedly, gesturing toward the armchairs by the fire as she removed her cloak, laying it over the folded quilt at the end of the bed. Her own chest had already been brought in, and judging by the sounds coming from beyond the door set the wall opposite the hearth, a maid was busily hanging her gowns and preparing to order a bath.

Carmello waited politely until she took a seat herself before easing himself down into one of the armchairs comfortably, letting out a low sigh of relief. "I, myself, am not quartered in the palace proper," he told her, "but should you need me at any hour, do not hesitate to send a message. My purpose here is to ease your way, your highness."

Settling her skirts comfortably, Felicita leaned back in her chair. "Tell me what I am to expect from these weeks ahead of me, ambassador," she answered, her momentary levity set aside in favor of thoughtful discussion. "How, exactly, the king is expected to woo ten women in the course of a single month."

Carmello sighed, shaking his head. He, too, thought it was an ambitious plan of the arl's, but it was clear that Arl Eamon believed he could sway his king toward a wife perhaps already chosen.

"In truth, your highness, I am uncertain quite how he is to make such a choice," he admitted. "The full detail of the month has not yet been decided. I believe the king has insisted upon being allowed to make his own decisions for some few days as to the entertainments and so on, but has yet to confirm those decisions."

That was encouraging, at least. It appeared that King Alistair was not the weak king some suspected he was, though Felicita had not truly believed him weak to begin with. He had killed an archdemon before taking the crown; he had resisted marriage for a full decade, and drawn his people slowly out of the depression left over them by the Blight. Even the eruption of the mage-templar conflict within his borders had not overwhelmed him. She tapped her fingertip against her lower lip as Carmello went on.

"There is, of course, the Wintersend feast this evening," the ambassador told her. "I am told there will be dancing, though it will undoubtedly depend upon the arl's whim. There are days set aside throughout the month for the king to spend with each lady - the names were drawn by lot, to prevent rank or partiality on the part of the arl from weighting the dice, so to speak."

"That does make sense," the princess mused, glancing up as an elven servant-girl slipped from the chamber briefly, took one look at them sat together, and abruptly skipped straight back into what she assumed was the dressing chamber. She smiled faintly, making a mental note to reassure the girl that she had not been intruding. "In that case, I should imagine I will have at least a week, if not longer, to observe the king and come to my own conclusions?"

"Certainly, your highness," Carmello assured her warmly. "The day set aside for your accompanying the king is the thirteenth. Of course, before then, you will have ample opportunity to at least form your own opinion of him. A theater troupe has been invited to perform at the palace; there is an evening planned to celebrate the different cultures of the ladies attending the ..." He groped for the right word.

"Meat market," Felicita provided in a wry tone. She was definitely not impressed with the fact that she had been sent to partake in a competition for the hand of a man who apparently didn't want to get married in the first place.

"I would not say that, princesa," Carmello said, attempting to placate her.

"Ambassador, these ladies are here seeking a crown," she pointed out to him in a weary tone. "Were it only the crown as the prize, perhaps I would choose to engage in such sport. But the crown is worn by a man who has shown no interest in marrying for ten years, and does so now only because his noble ranks will rebel against him otherwise. This is a troubled land, and I feel sure it has a troubled king. What they want is a queen; what he needs is a wife. And I will not engage in deceptions simply to be named queen. I will do my duty, I will play my role, but I will not actively seek to become Queen of Ferelden unless I see more in the man than his troubles and his crown."

Don Carmello stared at her for a long moment, his mouth working silently as he made a valiant effort to draw this display of spirit together with the picture King Fulgeno had painted of an obedient daughter who showed no inclination to fight for her right to rule and would be better suited to a life away from the political machinations of Antiva.

"Then, your highness, I will hope that the man behind the crown earns your interest and your respect," he said finally. "King Alistair is a good man. A little impulsive, perhaps; certainly not as well bred as many of his court, but his manners do not suffer for that. He is a little overwhelmed by his duties, I would venture to say, yet he expresses himself well, and his people are very fond of him. Still, the life of a lone monarch is an isolated one. If I may be so bold ... he would be lucky to have you as his wife. And Ferelden would be blessed to have you for their queen."

Felicita smiled her public smile, her fingertip pressing into her lower lip as she eyed the ambassador. "I think you are attempting to both humor and encourage me, Don Carmello," she accused in a gentle tone, "but I thank you for it. It promises to be a long month."

"And soon to begin," Carmello agreed, rising to his feet to bow to her. "I will leave you to your preparations, your highness. Please, allow me to welcome you to Ferelden once again."

"Thank you, ambassador. I will see you this evening."

"Princesa."

The ambassador bowed once again, letting himself out through the door. Felicita sighed at the sound of a particularly strident voice in the corridor outside, broad Orlesian tones expressing displeasure at a volume that was quickly shut out as the door drew closed in his wake. A full month living in close proximity with nine other women, all of whom were eager for a crown. She was going to have to check her belongings daily.

"Just like home," she mused, rolling her eyes as she rose to her feet, moving to look out through the window at the gray winter sky. There was the possibility, of course, that no one here was going to be actively trying to kill her, but even so ... Hands folded at her waist, she turned her head toward the dressing chamber. "You may come out now."

A pinched face came into view, worry dominant in the slanted eyes that looked over at her as the elven servant bobbed several curtsies in the doorway between the bedchamber and dressing room.

"Begging your pardon, my lad- ... your highness, I mean," she apologized. "I meant no offense."

Felicita smiled at the girl. "And you gave none," she assured her. "Are you to be my assistant while I am here?"

The elf nodded, a half smile of her own flickering proudly on her face. "Aye, mil- ma'am. Marta said to make sure you know that if you don't want an elf, she can send someone else in my place."

"Nonsense," the princess said easily. After all, though elves were still second-class citizens in Antiva, they seemed to hold higher respect simply for existing there than they did in other lands. Her smile gentled as she spoke again. "What is your name?"

"Andra, your highness." Another curtsy, this time with her hands thrust firmly at her back. Clearly Marta - who must be in charge of the ladies-maids - was formidable enough to have drilled them ruthlessly.

"Well then, Andra, it is a pleasure to meet you." Felicita felt almost embarrassed by the grateful smile on the girl's face as she bobbed yet another curtsy. What was life like for elves here if a simple polite greeting could be taken with such warmth? "It has been a very long journey. Would it be possible to take a bath before I must dress to impress the king and his guests, do you suppose?"

Andra nodded quickly. "Oh, yes, mi- your highness," she said, stumbling over the high rank of the lady she had been assigned to. "I'll order the water in, and fetch everything you'll need. Will you be wanting to wash your hair?"

"Do you think we can dry it in time?" Felicita heard herself ask, trying not to show her amusement at the eagerness the girl showed her.

"Oh, certainly, your highness," Andra insisted, evidently confident of her skills, even if this Marta was not. "We'll use hot combs and warm towels. You'll be dry in no time, I promise you."

"Then I should very much like to wash my hair," Felicita told her, unable to keep the relief from her voice. A chance to wash all the filth of travel from every part of herself was the best means she could think of for preparing herself for what was coming.

"Very good, your highness."

As Andra curtsied yet again and slipped from the room to organize a bath for the princess of Antiva, Felicita turned back to the window with another low sigh, wincing at the shriek from the chamber opposite her own as the inhabitant made some discovery not to her liking. Yes, the month ahead promised to be long, indeed. She felt a pang of sympathy for King Alistair, being set up as little more than a crown and a prize for the most suitable lady invited to this rather humiliating display. Still, she was here, and for her father's sake she would behave as a princess should. For her own sake, however, she would bide her time and come to her own decision. Andraste's blood, there must be something in this king, this man, that would welcome a companion for his years. Perhaps she would find an appropriate wife for him among these other ladies; coach her into a position of success.

Perhaps this month of being on display would not be so bad, after all.

[sky-scribbles]

Six Proposals

(A Dragon Age story featuring six pairings, three games, and two worldstates.) 

1.

Sophina Cousland hates doing it, even as it brings her joy.

She feels the eyes of every noble in Ferelden burning into her as she steps forward, and she knows what she’ll be called for this. Power-seeker, manipulator, opportunist. It won’t be true, but it will still hurt. And it hurts even more to think of how very... not right this is. A proposal should be a private thing, a moment for two alone, not something announced in front of the eyes of a nation.

Maker, this can barely even be called a proposal. She’s not even asking, she’s telling.

It’s not as if they haven’t discussed it. They have, countless times, curled together in her tent in the camp at night. They knew they had to talk about it from the moment they learned that Alistair might be dragged onto the throne. If the crown fell to him, Sophina told him, he would be expected to marry someone, sooner or later, and he laughed and made a joke about how he’d better start working up the courage to ask her before anyone else got there first. And she wondered aloud whether it would make the nobles at the Landsmeet more likely to accept him, if he were married to a Cousland, to someone who could back up his blood claim to the throne with the political support of all Highever.

They made light of it, the way they make light of everything, but the thought still hung unspoken in the air between them – we shouldn’t have to talk about this now. We should be able to talk about this after years of being together, not mere months. And we should talk about this because we love each other and we’re ready to make it binding, not because it’s a political convenience. This is wrong, so very wrong.

But she knows that once the crown falls to him, they could so easily be torn apart. And she knows that this is the surest way to make sure that doesn’t happen. She promised him she wouldn’t let him go, and she intends to keep that promise.

‘Alistair will be king,’ she says. ‘And I’ll rule beside him.’

They don’t have much time to discuss it, once the Landsmeet’s finished, because having an archdemon bearing down on you tends to cut short your talking time. They have a few minutes, and they’re enough to let her know that he is at least happy with this, and for them to grin at each other at the thought of the future they’ll have if they both make it out of this alive. Everything else will have to wait. And so they wait, and once everything is over – once the Archdemon has fallen and the crown’s on Alistair’s (still somewhat reluctant) head, and the celebratory feast has been eaten and the palace has fallen silent… they finally have a moment to look at each other, and find a quiet corner, and smile.

‘And breathe,’ Sophina says, and Alistair laughs.

‘Thank you for the reminder. I’m not sure when we last had a chance to do that. A week ago, I think.’

‘It does feel that way, doesn’t it? We should have told the Archdemon how bad its antics were for our health, I’m sure it would have crawled back into the Deep Roads and hidden from the guilt. But now, at least, we have a moment to relax.’

Alistair nods slowly, and glances over his shoulder. ‘We do indeed. Which means…’

He rubs the back of his head and shuffles his feet. ‘Soooo… I know we’ve already done this, officially. But it wasn’t exactly… you know. And I know I said it saved me from having to ask you, but I’ve been thinking, and I realised – I want to do this properly. The way I’d have done it if we’d had the time to… do this the way it’s normally done. Am I rambling?’

Sophina chuckles, and squeezes his hand. ‘Just a little, you great goof. You do, occasionally, have a tendency to engage in a touch of rambling. But I can live with that. What exactly is it that you want to do properly?’

‘Well – this.’ Alistair draws in a breath, closes his grip a little tighter around her hand, and sinks onto one knee, for all the world like one of those knights in the oldest and best tales. ‘Lady Sophina Cousland, Hero of Ferelden, future Commander of the Grey, vanquisher of the Archdemon, befriender of witches and assassins and Qunari warriors, archer extraordinaire, embodiment of general incredibleness  - will you marry me?’

Sophina bursts out laughing and spends a moment beaming at him before pulling him to his feet. ‘Maker, yes. Yes, of course, I thought I’d already made that clear. And for the record, Alistair?’

‘Yes?’ he says, and he elongates the word in that ridiculous way that always makes her laugh.

‘I know the whole declaring-it-before-the-Landsmeet thing was a bit… odd. And un-private. And not how we would have wanted it to be.’ She reaches up, smoothing down the front of his tunic, straightening his collar. Alistair smiles, and Sophina knows that the gesture is familiar to him, comforting. She did this a thousand times on their journey together – brushing dried blood from his armour, smoothening his hair where his helmet had ruffled it, cleaning the dust of their travels from his face. ‘But this… this is what I want. Because I love you. Forget the politics, forget the Blight and Loghain and everything else – I love you. I know that, ideally, we’d have waited a while, but – ’

‘I know.’ Alistair presses a hand to her lips to stop her.  ‘And I feel the same. That’s why I’m asking.’

Sophina closes her eyes, and presses her forehead against his chest.

‘And it’s why I’m accepting.’

She knows that it’s still not quite how they would have planned it, but somehow… somehow, that’s all right. Nothing in their lives has happened as they would have planned it. And maybe it won’t be easy, maybe it’s sooner than they would otherwise have done it, maybe it’ll take work, but that’s fine. Because they’re willing to work at it, they’re willing to fight to keep what they have. Because now, standing still and utterly content in each other’s arms, they know that they don’t have to be alone any more, that they will never be alone again.

And by the Maker, but that is worth fighting for.

2.

Firion aches for every moment that Zevran is away.

He scours the horizon every morning for signs of a yellow-haired figure returning towards him. He unfastens the golden ring from his ear and turns it over and over in his fingers, pressing the metal against his skin. He packs his bags a dozen times, intending to march out to Kirkwall and make certain that his lover is safe. ‘Something I have to do myself be damned,’ he mutters, but every time he shoulders his pack, takes up his staff and takes a resolute step in the direction of the city, he has to sigh, turn back, and unpack his bag again.

I must have faith in him, he tells himself. I’ve waited for him before. I waited for him to be able to love me. Now I can wait again for him to come back to me.

But it still isn’t easy, knowing that his lover is so close to the cold grasp of the Crows again. Firion lies awake at night, playing and replaying in his mind the scene that might happen when at last Zevran comes back to him. He pictures Zevran appearing in the distance, and himself running out to meet him (and slowing to a properly dignified walk before reaching him, if he has the self-control), and he pictures the longed-for embrace. And then he pictures himself finally, finally asking the question.

‘You will ask him,’ Firion growls, but he never quite manages to convince himself.

Weeks stretch into a month, and the news arrives. Kirkwall is burning, thrown into war by a rebellious apostate and the Knight-Commander’s madness, and Firion can bear it no more. Zevran was there, hiding with the Dalish close to the city, and he cannot, will not stand by when the man he loves might have been caught in the chaos. Again, he packs and sets out, and this time he stays on the path.

He’s only been travelling in the direction of Kirkwall for three days when he passes through a little copse of trees and hears, without warning, a voice from above him. ‘Why, mi amor, you promised to stay safe. I did not expect to hear such falsehoods from you.’

Firion jerks his gaze upward in time to see Zevran drop from the branch where he’s been perching – probably been watching Firion trawl across the wilderness for hours, just for the fun of it. He gives his lover no time to say anything more, but steps forward and sweeps him into his arms. Zevran chuckles, holds tight to him for a moment, then pulls their lips together.

Ask him, Firion snarls at himself, but when they break apart, the words die on his tongue, just as they knew he would. So instead he asks, ‘What took you so long?’

Zevran laughs. ‘Oh, I was waylaid by the world-changing events in Kirkwall. It was that old friend of yours from the Wardens who started it all, the apostate. All in the name of mage freedom, so I knew you would never forgive me if I didn't provide a little assistance. When I saw that things were becoming interesting, I... slipped into the Gallows, provided an extra pair of blades.'

Firion stares. ‘You helped fight Meredith?’

This meets with an aren’t you proud of me? sort of grin. Firion draws in a long breath.

‘Zevran,’ he says, ‘you are wonderful.’

‘But of course. And now, my dear Warden, shall we find a tavern?’

Firion almost suggests that they retreat to his tent first, but he decides that a tavern trip could be beneficial. He needs to ask the question, and liquid courage could help him on the way. So he takes Zevran’s arm, and together they head down to the nearest village, a small farming town that nestles in the crook of a rise of hills. The inn is small, but packed with farmhands clad in homespun tunics and earth-stained jerkins, none of whom have the look of men who have ever travelled more than a few days’ journey from their farms.

So the two elven men attract stares. Striking, they are, like strange inversions of each other – one pale-skinned and dark-haired, one dark-skinned and pale-haired. No one can miss the blue and silver Warden tabard that Firion wears, the uniform that allows him to openly carry his staff, nor can many of the women tear their eyes from Zevran’s laughing face. There’s one, an elven serving maid, who perhaps hopes that the closeness between the two strangers is simply that of friends. As she passes Zevran his drink, she smiles a little more broadly at him than Firion is comfortable with, and trails her fingers over his shoulder. Firion sets his teeth, then opens his mouth to crush her hopes before they can go too far - but Zevran beats him to it.

‘I must disappoint you, my dear,’ he says. ‘I am engaged.’

And without further ado, he turns to Firion and drops dramatically to one knee. ‘My Firion,’ he says, in equally theatric tones, ‘I have longed for you every moment of my journey. I once promised you that I would storm the Black City to be at your side. There has been no need for such a thing as of yet, but... well, Thedas can be just as threatening as the Black City from time to time, and I would most enjoy taking it by storm beside you for the rest of our lives. Would you do me the honour of becoming my husband?’

The clamour of the tavern dims. And Firion closes his eyes and remembers all those moments when he thought this could never happen, that Zevran would never feel able to commit to anything that would bind him, even love him at all. He thinks of all the times he was terrified that it was his fate to be disappointed and pushed away.

And he looks down at his lover, smiling up at him without a trace of fear, and knows that neither of them ever has to be afraid again.

‘Well, obviously,’ he says.

Zevran jumps to his feet, grinning from ear to ear, and glances at the startled-looking serving girl. ‘Engaged, as you see.’

Firion has a split-second to feel relieved that he now doesn’t have to propose himself, before Zevran kisses him so forcefully that it’s impossible to feel anything but awe. And entire tavern - including the serving maid, to give her her due - breaks out in cheers.

3.

Their latest hiding-place is a deserted shepherd’s hut, lying abandoned at the verge of a forest. There are wards set around the door and the windows, and the place is so remote that the chance of being found is slim to none. But a lifetime of being hunted by Templars makes wariness a part of you, something that cannot possibly be separated from you – and so when the door flies open with the force of a hurricane, Anders lets out a startled cry and lunges for his staff.

‘Anders, look at this!’

He stops with his fingers brushing the weapon, and relaxes with a shaky breath. ‘Maker, Dalton, if you’re going to burst in like that, at least shout ‘I’m not a Templar’ first.’

‘Never mind that, look at this!’ Dalton Hawke pushes the door shut behind him and brandishes a sheet of vellum above his head. ‘You need to read this, Anders, I can barely believe it myself, just look, look – ’

And he thrusts the mysterious document into Anders’s hands.

‘I just went into the village to get some food, and there were Inquisition soldiers pinning them up on every tree and wall.’ Dalton clasps and unclasps his hands while Anders straightens out the page. ‘It’s an official declaration from Divine Victoria herself, and it says – Maker, Anders, you need to read it.’

So Anders, after staring in bemusement at his lover for a suitable amount of time, looks down and reads.

Official Proclamation from Divine Victoria, concerning Mages, declares the title, and Anders feels his heart freeze within his chest. He stops, closes his eyes, tries and fails to steady his breathing, and goes on.

It’s a whole page of politics, and some of it Anders skips over so that he can move on more quickly to the parts that matter most. And when he reaches them, he has to read and re-read them, because it seems unbelievable that servants of the Divine actually set these words to vellum, that this is the new law of Thedas.

Mages, the proclamation says, are the children of the Maker, made as He desired them. No child of the Maker deserves to be faced with oppression and confinement simply on the grounds of how they were born. By the Divine’s order, let it be known that from henceforth, the institution of the Circle of Magi is dissolved, and mages have the same rights as any citizen in the lands of the White Divine. These rights include:

Right to freedom. No mage shall be forcibly removed from his or her family and residence in order to be removed to a Circle.

Right to own property.

Right to marriage and to raise a family.

Right to protection from unlawful imprisonment and harassment on account of their abilities.

The list goes on. There’s an explanation, too, of how mages will be kept safe and how they can learn to control their abilities and resist demons, and promises that phylacteries and Templar hunts will never exist again, and explanations of why all these changes have been made – something to do with restoring order and ‘ensuring that there shall be no repeat of the chaos that has consumed Thedas’ and so on and so forth – but Anders will take all of that in later. For now, he can only read through that list of rights one more time, feeling his own expression change from confusion to suspicion to amazement, and then look up at Dalton.

Who is smiling at him, lips parted, eyes wide in breathless awe.

‘We’re free,’ he whispers. ‘We did it, Anders. All this time, everything we’ve been through… it’s finally happened. Our fight – it was worth it. We’re free.’

Anders lets the vellum fall through his fingers. He stands motionless, his eyes closed. And then he lets out a trembling breath and throws his arms around Dalton's neck, holding him as close as he can get, pressing his face into the fur collar, making no attempt to hold back his tears. His mind is whirling, his thoughts reeling, the spirit within him is dazed as he is, and the joy and triumph erupting inside him are so immense, so overwhelming, that he can barely think, barely breathe, barely register anything brought to him by his mortal senses –

And so he almost doesn’t hear the words that Dalton breathes into his shoulder.

‘Marry me.’

Jolted firmly back into the physical world, Anders freezes. ‘What?’

‘I mean, if you want…’ Dalton lets him go and steps back, resting his hands on Anders’s shoulders. ‘Will you, Anders?’

He waves his hand at the page lying on the floor next to them. ‘We are free men.  We have the same rights as anyone. No one can tell us that we don’t have a right to be happy in the way we choose. And this is - you are what I choose. We’ve been fighting for so long, and now we don’t need to any more. And if I could stand in front of the world and call you my husband, I’ll know for certain that we won.’

Anders looks at him, meets his eyes. They’ve even more huge and hopeful then they normally are. The words rise on his lips to tell him that they can’t, that he doesn’t have that kind of future, that there can be nothing permanent when he has a spirit woven into his flesh –

And then they stop. Because it is no longer true.

The part of him that is Justice has been calmer ever since they left Kirkwall. Seeing the mages finally begin fighting, being away from the constant injustice of Meredith’s reign – it has helped so much. And now he no longer has to fear Justice becoming a demon. Because that is what happens to a spirit whose purpose is prevented, and now – now Justice’s purpose is fulfilled.

And here is Dalton Hawke, gazing at him with love and delight in his eyes, and Anders knows that for the first time in his life, there is nothing, nothing, to stop him from being happy.

So he breathes out the words that truly make him a free man, a free mage, a man with a future.

‘Yes,’ he whispers. ‘Maker, yes.’

4.

Conan Hawke raises his hands, and the earth before his feet splits apart. His face creased with the kind of single-minded concentration that only a young child can really manage, he pushes his palms higher, and a shower of pebbles rises from the gash he’s opened in the ground, soil cascading back down into the hole as the stones rise. For a few seconds, he holds them in place, his lips pursed tight from the effort of casting the spell. At last, he can sustain the magic no longer, and he has to step back, letting the rocks pour back down into the earth again.

His aunt beams at him. ‘That’s very good, Conan. With some practice, you’ll be able to draw up larger rocks. For now…’

Bethany twirls her arm, bringing a shimmering wall of magic into being in front of her body. ‘See if you can direct the rocks you summon, rather than just holding them. Throw them at my barrier – don’t worry, you won’t hurt me.’

Seated a short distance away – far enough for them to be out of earshot of Bethany and her pupil, if they speak in low voices – Conan’s parents watch his practice. Bryony Hawke sits with her arms stretched out behind her, grinning openly to see her sister and her son embracing their gift together, cheering every time Conan masters some new feat of magic. Fenris says nothing, but every so often, a smile tugs at the corner of his mouth and something flickers in his eyes. Not many would be able to read it, but Bryony knows him well enough to recognise it as pride.

‘It doesn’t trouble you any more, does it?’ she says.

She nods towards Conan and Bethany, but the gesture is unnecessary; Fenris knows what he means. ‘Conan’s magic? No.’

There’s a pause, and then he sighs, seeming to realise that this is inadequate. ‘Truthfully, it never troubled me. He is my son. Finding out that he was my mage son…. It changed nothing. I fear for him – I fear how people may treat him, or what demons may do to tempt him – but I do not see him differently.’

Bryony squeezes his hand. ‘I remember a certain elf who, not so many years ago, would have been disgusted at the idea of fathering a mage.’

This meets with a chuckle. ‘Thankfully, a certain human taught me to see things differently. When we met, the changes that have been happening across Thedas – mage freedom, the Circles being dissolved – they would have enraged me. Now, I’m grateful. They mean that no one will take him from us.’

‘And that the Chantry will accept him at last,’ Bryony says. ‘Do you remember how angry I was, back in Kirkwall, when Elthina refused to accept him into the Chantry on the grounds of his birth? Now, he can be dedicated into the Chantry as an illegitimate elf-blooded mage and no one can do anything about it other than whinge and jabber a little.’

Fenris smiles, but it doesn’t quite reach his eyes. He opens his mouth as if to speak, then stops, looks away, and fiddles with his lyrium-marked fingers. At last he draws in a breath and says, ‘He doesn’t have to... remain illegitimate.’

He speaks so quietly that Bryony has to lean a little closer to hear him. ‘Care to elaborate on that?’

A short silence; then Fenris breathes in again and does what he once did so rarely, and what he now does so often – he looks into her eyes. ‘If you… If you married me, then Conan would… officially… no longer be…’

The sentence trails away into a silence that’s quickly broken by the sound of Conan’s pebbles rebounding off Bethany’s barrier spell.

Bryony stares at Fenris for a good half-minute, then nods. ‘Mmm,’ she says, drawing out the sound. ‘That’s certainly true. If I married you. Of course, first you’d have to ask me.’

‘I am.’ Fenris almost drops his gaze away, but after a heartbeat he seems to remember that he needs to keep looking at her. ‘I am asking you, Bryony.’

‘And then, of course, I’d have to accept.’

‘Do you?’

There’s no missing the urgency in his voice, something that’s almost desperation. And Bryony closes her eyes and smiles again, and remembers all the times Fenris pulled away from her, all the times he failed to meet her gaze and all the times he protested that he couldn’t be a father to Conan. All the times she thought they’d never get this far. After all of it, after everything, they are finally here, and he is asking her this.

She knows it doesn’t change much, making the whole thing official. She and Fenris and Conan have been the closest and tightest of families ever since they ran from Kirkwall together. They are one entity, one being, and that closeness is something that could never be matched or summed up by a piece of parchment signed by a Chantry sister.

But this question that Fenris has asked her – this proposal – isn’t about that. It’s about making a promise. A promise that he’ll never push her away again, a promise that the oneness between the three of them will be forever.

It’s a promise he’s made silently every time he’s kissed her, every time he’s cut down an enemy who dared to attack her, every time he’s lifted Conan up into his arms. But that doesn’t mean it isn’t beautiful, to have the promise finally spoken out loud.

‘Fenris,’ says Bryony, opening her eyes again, ‘nothing would make me happier.’

5.

There’s only one way to ask her.

Talan Adaar waits for a cloudless evening that promises a warm and clear night, then heads down to his garden. He plucks the roses he’s been growing  around his alchemy herbs, carries them in armfuls down to the glade, that glade, their glade. It isn’t easy, not with only one hand, but his sister helps him, bringing the candles down there for him, setting them out around the fringes of the clearing.

‘She’ll love it,’ Meraad promises, squeezing his remaining hand, and Talan sucks in a long breath and nods.

‘I hope so.’

He pulls the piece of parchment from inside his tunic; earlier, Meraad helped him cut it into the shape of a heart, and he has carefully inked words onto it, a request for Cassandra to meet him here after nightfall. With a final encouraging smile, Meraad heads away in the direction of Skyhold to deliver the note, leaving her brother standing in the glade alone, rocking back and forth on his heels.

When he hears approaching footsteps, he does what he does best; he retreats into the shadows, blurring into the darkness in a way that few would believe possible of a man his size. He watches, and his heart swells in his chest to see Cassandra smiling as she stands among the flowers and the candles - just as she did on that shining night all that time ago - and as she trails her fingertips over the petals and scans the shadows for him.

‘I know you’re there, Talan,’ she calls, and he decides that this is his cue.

He opens the book of poems; it falls open naturally on the page he’s been opening it to again and again over the last few weeks. Talan licks his lips, steels himself, and begins to read.

‘I have a life to offer you A voice within the night A shadow softly watching At the fringes of your sight. I have a world to offer you No longer seen alone Through leagues across the wilderness I offer you a home.’

He steps forward, into the candlelight. Cassandra’s smile widens, and she doesn’t stare at him in startled wonder as she did on their first night. Instead, she leans back against a tree to listen.

‘I cannot offer safety Or the comfort of a hearth But I’ll give my arms as shelter From the blackest of the dark. I cannot offer distance From the seething drums of war – But peace is not our destiny And I can offer more.

I offer eyes to guard your back From death’s unsated jaws Should you ever seek for armour Then my flesh and blood are yours. When battle-horns sound out a call From which you cannot hide You will never be without me Walking silent at your side.’

Cassandra’s eyes close, and Talan wonders if she – as he is – is thinking of the countless battles they have faced side by side, the battles they have come through because each of them was standing at the other’s back. He swallows, lets the words hang in the air for a moment, and continues on to the final, most important verse.

‘And when the horns are broken And the sound of drums has passed I offer you a moment To lay down your arms at last Though it may be just a heartbeat ‘Til we once again must stand – I offer you a promise And I offer you my hand.’

Talan closes the book. On silent feet, he crosses the grove to stand before Cassandra, and – remembering what he’s been told of human traditions – he kneels, setting the poetry collection aside and lifting his head so that her eyes meet his. And he waits.

There’s a long quiet, as Cassandra stares, her eyes slowly widening. ‘Are you asking me to marry you?’ she says at last.

And because Talan Adaar never lies, all he can do is nod. ‘Um. Yes. Yes, I am.’

She keeps looking at him, and a claw of fear grips his heart. What if it’s not enough, what they have? What if she couldn’t do it, couldn’t marry someone like him, a northern savage with no faith in the Maker, a man with horns like a ram and skin the colour of smoke –

He forces the thoughts from his mind. He knows she doesn’t care about his being a Qunari, and he knows that she loves him.

‘Do you remember what you said to me, that first night we shared here?’ The words flood easily from his lips. ‘You said that people would either say that you were tricked by the wiles of a Qunari madman, or that people would say that this – us –  was part of the Maker’s plan, that it was meant to be. Well, I know which one I think is true. This world, it’s split apart and lost its faith and – and some crazy darkspawn magister levitated the ruins of a temple, none of it made any sense. And I fell through a magic mirror and I lost my hand and – and we’re still here. Through all this madness, you’ve still been here, keeping me sane. I don’t... I don't think I can exist in a life when I don’t have you with me.’

He reaches out, gathers up one of her slim hands in his huge grey one. ‘You know that I don't really know if I can believe in any kind of god - but I believe in you, Cassandra. I believe in us.’

An owl calls somewhere beyond the trees, but Talan barely hears it. It is as if the entire world has shrunk to the size of their glade, as if nothing exists any more beyond where the shimmering ring of candle flames softens the edges of the night.

And then Cassandra bends down so that their faces are level, pressing her palm against the side of his face and drawing them close together.

‘So do I,’ she breathes.

She kisses him then, a kiss that somehow manages to be tender and fierce at once, and when it breaks she touches her forehead to his and runs her fingers through his hair. Talan chuckles, and murmurs against her lips. ‘Is that a yes?’

Cassandra says nothing, but she doesn’t need to speak. The way she laughs is enough.

6.

He ends up proposing in the bloody Fade, of all places. Which is more strange than he can really describe, but it feels right, and more importantly, it works.

The hard part is the waiting. Up until she pardoned him, up until she learned the truth and announced to the entire Inquisition that, somehow, she didn’t care – he never let himself even harbour hopes that he might someday be able to ask her. But then that day comes, and suddenly he has a future, they have a future. And so he waits.

He waits, while she learns to call him by the name Thom Rainier. He waits, while they learn the truth about Solas, while she crumbles to learn that all her faith was a lie. He waits, while she learns to live without one hand. He waits, through all the nights while she sobs into his chest, while she asks him just how much she’s going to lose.

And at last, when he’s made amends as best he can to all of his surviving men, and she has learned to walk as tall and strong as ever, and when he feels comfortable wearing his true name, he asks.

‘Elera,’ he says, one night while they lie curled close together, ‘there’s something I want to show you. A memory. Could you…?’

She understands, and smiles. Elera Lavellan lost her eyesight when she was eleven years old, but the Maker blessed her with magic, and more than that, with the talents of a Dreamer. She can see when she enters the Fade, and under Solas’s tuition, she learned to draw others’ dreaming minds there with her, so that she can walk in their memories. And this is what she does now, waiting while they both slide into sleep, then pulling his consciousness into the strange borderland between worlds and joining him there.

Slowly, the shifting landscape of the Fade changes. The ghostly green and black lights fade, the sky turns from sickly olive to a natural, cloud-streaked blue, and the twisting rock paths around them melt away into green and brown pine trees. A lake stretches away before them, a mirror of the heavens shimmering on its surface.

‘Pines,’ Elera says thoughtfully, stepping up to his side. ‘And hills. I suppose this is… somewhere in Ferelden? And there’s a lake…’

Thom sees the understanding cross her face. ‘Is this where we first met?’ she asks.

‘It is.’

She smiles. ‘You saved my life here. You blocked an arrow intended for me. The first blow of your ongoing war against all enemy arrows and spells aimed in my direction.’

Chuckling, Thom nods. ‘A war I’ll continue as long as I draw breath. But you saved my life here too, by becoming part of it. And I don’t just mean the times you’ve slain some demon that was giving me trouble, or how you got me pulled out of that cell in Orlais. I mean that before I knew you, I… I didn’t know hope.’

The scene around them changes so suddenly that both of them blink in alarm. The lake drifts away into nothingness, the pines become taller and darker, the grass beneath their feet thicker and wet with rain. Ahead of them, a pounding sea stretches away into banks of fog.

Thom’s throat runs suddenly dry. This place. This hill on the Storm Coast, the place where he became Blackwall, the place he brought Elera that day when he meant to tell her that they couldn’t be together and instead simply fell even deeper in love with her, so deep that there could be no going back.

He glances at Elera, and she touches his arm, as if to reassure him. She may have never looked on this place with sighted eyes, but she clearly knows where they are, must have guessed it from the roar of the sea and the hammering of the rain. ‘I was still drawing on your memories,’ she says gently. ‘You must have started thinking about this place.’

‘I… I suppose I was.’ Thom sighs, and rubs the back of his neck. ‘My life changed twice here. Once when Warden Blackwall died and I took the armour and the name from his body. And once when you stood over there and told me that I didn’t need to face all the war and death in my life on my own. It changed everything. It was the first time since – since what I did – that I let myself think that I could have a future. It was only for a moment, but I thought it.’

She edges closer to him, and slips her hand into his. ‘And you were right.’

A new memory occurs to him, and the Fade changes accordingly, the haunting view of the Storm Coast vanishing, the curling mist forming itself into stone bricks that rise up in layers around them. The rain ceases, the sky darkens from ashen grey to twilight blue, and pinpoints of stars blossom across it. They stand in her room in Skyhold, as it was that night when he surrendered, when he stopped fighting what he felt for her.

‘You told me I was a good man.’ His tongue feels heavy, as if somehow weighed down by just how much he's trying to say, and it’s a struggle to get the words out. ‘You told me… you're a good man. I see it. The... the bravest and kindest and most beautiful woman I’d ever known, telling me that – that there was enough goodness in me for even a blind woman to be able to see it.’

Elera is watching him, a fond smile playing about her lips. ‘And sees it still,’ she says.

Thom turns to face her, and as he does, the world around them melts flawlessly, seamlessly, back into the lakeshore again. That’s fine. It’s only right that he should do it here, back in the place where Elera Lavellan entered and changed and saved his life. He looks at her, lifts one hand, trails his fingertips down her face.

‘For years,’ he says, ‘you’ve been telling me that I have a future. And after all this time – after everything you’ve done for me – I believe it.’

And so he kneels, and utters the question he never thought he’d have a right to ask. ‘Will you marry me, my lady?’

He waits in frozen, terrified silence for only a moment before she smiles.

‘I will, ma vhenan,’ she murmurs.

And in a second, hope has become reality. His future is now.

[cometladyicarus-blog]

Before They Were Wardens - Elissa Cousland

Elissa’s also one of my favorite Wardens, so her pre-Origins story is also pretty long. I’m also shameless with my shipping in this one. Shameless, shameless. And fond of “True Love” tropes. 

I was thinking of a “poor man’s Templar” type of order for Andraste’s Shields (completely made up as far as I know, by me) made up of mostly Shield Maidens who travelled the regions to enforce the laws and deal justice between the cities and towns.

I also admit that when I was initially writing this, Elissa was a fairly flat character and I was trying to bring more depth into her, but in this work she’s eight and ten, so she hasn’t developed enough depth to be like herself ten years later.

She watched the Templars in their practice drills one afternoon in the East Yard, watched as her brother joined in because Father was busy running a Teyrnir and forgot he promised to work on Fergus' swordsmanship with her brother again.

Fergus waved at her and shouted a greeting. “El! Come out from the shadows and join us. It would do poorly if I were the only one losing.”

She grinned and stepped from her shadowy watch-spot, mindful of the skirt. “Sorry. You know my mother would get mad if I tore up or muddied another dress.” She offered her apology and resumed braiding her snow-white hair.

Her brother smiled back, but it was that smile of someone who was pretending to be happy. “I’m sorry, El.”

The young Lady Cousland stomped a booted foot. “Mother says a Lady can’t run around with a sword, but she used to be a Shield. And then she won’t let me go with them!”

“Mother and Father are just worried. What if-“

“What if something happened, and you and Father are dead. I know. But I….” She shook her head, and when she looked up again, she smiled. “Sorry, I can only watch. Brother Aldous would have my hide if I were late again from changing dresses.”

“How boring. Shame, I had my old training gear sent to your room for noth-” She cut him off by tackling him for a hug.

The older recruits chuckled and she ran off to change out of the dress.

Brother Aldous smiled and shrugged as she walked into the library tugging her sleeves and making sure she was wearing the dress properly when a leather boot showed from the skirt being at an angle. “Young Lady Cousland, your trousers and boots are showing.”

“Andraste's butt!” She fixed her skirts around again and turned to show him if her less than ladylike clothes would show.

“You’re good now, but I doubt the Revered Mother would approve of you taking Andraste’s name in vain.” He opened one of the texts. “I was speaking of the time the Couslands fought King Calahad.”

“Yes, Brother Aldous.”

Two hours later, she left the library and ran for the dining hall to take her seat before Mother and Father got in. Fergus sported a fading red mark and a wet collar to match his grin.

“Fell a few times, but I won by the end, El.”

She almost cheered, almost, but their parents entered.

Her mother frowned and pointed a finger at the young lady. “Elissa, what is this I heard about you wearing trousers and sparring on the practice field with Templars?”

Fergus stood and tried to speak over Eleanor Cousland. “Mother, I gave her those clothes so she could practice without getting her dresses ruined. She didn’t fall down today either. I did.”

“Elissa, I don’t want you putting yourself at risk, what if-“

“I’m training for ‘what if’ Fergus gets married and has kids." Elissa slammed her hands against the table, and silencing her mother. "He'll need a Captain of the Guard, because I won’t have marriage value. Gilmore will be a Knight of the realm and out doing things for the king and Father, and Fergus when he's Teyrn. All the other noble boys my age are already engaged, and the others are too old. I can’t marry anyone younger than me either. I am making sure I have a place here.”

Fergus' jaw dropped as she paused her rant to breathe. 

“I’m just the Spare, and I know it. Fergus knows. You both know. Everyone knows.” She blinked away tears to keep them from falling. Nothing ruined her attempt at being serious and angry more than crying because she was angry. “So just let me be useful. I’ll marry eventually to someone you will approve of, but we all know I’m not a prize like Lady Anora was at my age. I’m too wild, my hair is the color of snow, my eyes are weird, I argue all the time, and you’re Father’s second wife.”

She ran a hand over her white hair and pulled it over her shoulder. The young Lady Cousland pushed her chair back and got up. “Excuse me. I’m not hungry, and Nan will appreciate me getting Mabar out for a run.”

She didn’t wait for her dismissal.

As the door closed behind her, Fergus sighed and spoke with the wisdom a thirteen year old sometimes could have, revealing how he could turn out as an adult.

“She has a point. You keep telling her these ‘what if' stories about me dying like you don’t think I’ll survive and have kids. She needs to prepare for that, she would need to learn how to fight and lead an army and care for a Teyrn. But she also needs to prepare for if I do get married and have kids. She is a second child, not even a son. All the other ladies are already promised to other nobles, so her prospects are less than ideal even if she were a snow-born. She deserves a chance to find happiness, if she’s to be denied by fate everything else a woman of nobility should have. The Shields and the Templars love her and would both accept her into their orders.”

He also got out of his chair, but left after bowing for a self-dismissal.

Bryce looked at his wife. “Oh dear.”

Eleanor frowned and folded her hands on the edge of the table as she looked at the two dinner plates filled with untouched food across from her. “I might have pushed a little hard, but she's so wild.”

“So were you at her age. And when you were older.”

“What about Eamon's young charge?”

“What about him?”

“He's got to be someone’s bastard child. Someone important.”

“So? He’d be a bastard son.”

Eleanor sighed. “The King's advisors took an interest in him. He's likely Cailan's heir. My understanding is that the young boy's like Elissa, enjoys sword play, reading… And if the worse should happen, he would have her to help win the Bannor. He is about her age as well.”

“Eleanor, I don’t think our daughter will appreciate being married to an unknown on a maybe.” He snorted. “I’m not even sure she’d appreciate potentially being lifted up to the high court.”

“If Elissa is determined to be a Guard Captain, she should have a husband who would be good in a fight with her. She said she would marry someone we approve of.”

“Before planning the wedding, we should wait and see what goes on. She is only eight years old.”

Two years later, she was hiding in Castle Redcliffe with the hounds that lived there, and the ones brought over by other members of Ferelden nobility. Even her own Mabar was with her. She was petting one of Loghain’s hounds when a boy’s voice spoke.

"I'm not sure Teyrn Mac Tir would appreciate you messing with his hounds."

She looked up from her position of the stable floor, dogs of different kinds around her, and one Mabari hound who took residence against her leg.

The speaker was a boy about her age with red-gold hair. He made a hand motion, his face still wearing a smile that looked like he found things to laugh about often. "Most of those are his."

"I know. He said I could pet them." She smiled. "I was getting tired of old guys looking at me as if I were for purchase, and Mabar here needed her dinner anyway. The Orlesian Arlessa wouldn't let me bring Mabar in with me, so I came out here. I'm El. What's your name?"

"Uh, Al, I guess. You have a hound?"

"Sure. Mabar, greet Al, please."

The Mabari wuffed as she trotted to him. And then she sat down and held up a paw with a 'bouf'. When Ali took her paw and shook it, the Mabari reared up to lick his face. The young Lady Cousland giggled.

"Mabar likes you. She only 'bouf'ed at Loghain, and Arl Eamon, and the Arl's wife who kept jumping away."

Ali laughed with her and sat on the ground with the hounds, dogs, and Elissa. "His wife doesn't like a whole lot of things in Ferelden, except Eamon."

"So Orlesian." The girl shook her head as Mabar rolled over and begged for belly rubs. "Father told me stories about how when he, Arl Howe, Arl Eamon, Teyrn Mac Tir, and King Maric fought the Orlesians to free the country. Mostly about how just seeing Mabari would send the fancy lords and ladies into having fits. I mean, how could someone be afraid of dogs, I always asked."

Mabar opened her mouth, her tongue rolled out, and she laughed. One of her back paws twitched as Al scratched at just the right spot.

"So what's your story? Why're you out here instead of there, or inside doing other stuff?"

"Isolde doesn't like me. I'm an orphan, and she thinks I'm Eamon's son, but I'm not."

Elissa placed her hand on his shoulder. "That's unfair."

"But I'm being sent to the Chantry, they'll teach me to be a Templar or something." Al shrugged. "I'll have something to do."

She squeezed his shoulder again. "I wish I had something to do except sit around to see if my older brother dies or not. And he's healthy too."

Sharing a dark look she didn’t recognize as the same one she wore, Al changed the topic back to dogs and Isolde’s discomfort with them.

By the night's end, Al had helped her back up on her feet and they took different paths back inside – he through the servants' doors, and she through the less occupied halls everyone else took to avoid questions about her dress being ruined.

When her mother finally tracked her down and lectured her on her dress’ state, Elissa just smiled.

“I met a nice boy about my age. Someday, and if the Chantry allows him to, I think I’d like to marry him. I know he’s a commoner and an orphan without a family name, but he’s nice, and funny, and he has a nice smile.”

“Where did you meet him?”

“He was at Arl Eamon’s castle.”