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[Sarah1281]

My twelfth one was 'A Most Awkward Reunion' where Anastasia Theirin runs into her old friend Nathaniel after she greatly enjoyed killing his father and Oghren's presence does nothing to make it less awkward.

Anastasia Theirin – and didn't that sound weird? – finally made her way down to the dungeon to see this mysterious prisoner everyone was talking about. She had known that rebuilding the Grey Wardens in Ferelden wouldn't be an easy task when she'd…volunteered, for lack of a better word but this was ridiculous. She hadn't really wanted to leave court and her brand-new husband in order to deal with Howe's old land but Alistair had pointed out that it was either her or some Orlesian Warden. Needless to say, she was going to have to trust Eamon to help Alistair rule while she was gone.

So while she had agreed to go, she had expected problems between the Orlesian and Ferelden factions and maybe a little resistance from the banns who had suffered due to the old Arl's fall from power but this…The walls weren't good enough, the basement wasn't safe, the other Wardens were all dead, the stock of explosives were out, Wade was too cold and bored to do anything, there had been an attack by talking darkspawn…and now she had to deal with some sort of thief. And the nobles still probably hated her. Joy.

Her new Mage Warden, Anders, had opted to stay inside the Keep where it was warm but Oghren had decided to follow her down to the dungeons. It wasn't like Anastasia wasn't happy to see him, of course, but she was a little concerned that he'd shown up out of the blue demanding to be a Warden. The last she'd heard, he'd married Felsi and had a child – named after her, no less – and now he showed up here, alone? Still, there was no way to find out what happened if he just left and she did need capable fighters, so she let him stay.

"So I heard there was something about a prisoner?" Anastasia asked the guard, not bothering to glance the prisoner's way. She could deal with him after she had all the facts.

"Yes, my lady," the guard confirmed. "He's been locked up for three nights so this one was protected while others died."

"Being locked up didn't seem to help half of the prisoners in that other dungeon I saw," Anastasia noted. "Why was he in a different prison than everybody else?"

"I have no idea," the guard confessed. "It was Captain Roland's decision and, as you know, he died in the attack."

"So who is he?" Anastasia inquired.

"We're not sure," the guard replied. "He won't say."

Anastasia rubbed her temple in annoyance. "And you couldn't interrogate him because…? What do I pay you people for again?"

"Apparently to guard mining expeditions to the basement," the guard deadpanned.

Anastasia reddened slightly. "Well, I tried to explain that it really wasn't necessary since if they were to somehow encounter any problems the guards would be within shouting distance, but Herron pointed out that I had to slaughter my way to the ore deposit, so I decided to just humor him. And he was kind of right…"

"If you say so," the guard said dubiously. Then it was his turn to look sheepish. "We've been calling the prisoner 'Mr. Who.'"

Anastasia snorted. "That's original."

"I am nearly positive that 'originality' is not one of the things you're paying us for," the guard returned.

"Evidently not," Anastasia agreed. "Why do I have to deal with this anyway? Couldn't you just execute him? If this was before the attack then the Seneschal was under no obligation to wait for me to arrive before making the decision."

"We could have," the guard confirmed. "But the Seneschal said he was going to leave it up to you. Technically, ,all he's guilty of is attempted theft, but for all we know he's here to murder us all in our beds."

"And Maker forbid anyone but me actually make any real decisions," Anastasia murmured, rolling her eyes. "Fine, whatever. Leave me with him."

"Very well, my lady," the guard nodded. "I'll go get the Seneschal."

"You do that." Anastasia's eyes flickered over to the prisoner for the first time since arriving and she froze. "Well, if isn't Nathaniel Howe."

"What, so it's not 'Mr. Who' but 'Mr. Howe'? That's great," Oghren laughed.

Nathaniel had previously been sitting on the floor of his cell and watching the goings-on without much interest but at that he rose to his feet and stepped forward. "Recognize me, do you?"

Anastasia nodded vaguely. "It's been, what, eight years since I last saw you but you used to be friends with my brother before…"

"Before you brutally murdered my father?" Nathaniel helpfully supplied.

"The Commander's not really one to 'brutally murder' people," Oghren interjected. He paused. "Well, there was that one guy…"

"And this is his son," Anastasia explained.

"Oh. No wonder he wants to kill you," Oghren said bluntly.

"It wasn't that brutal," Anastasia claimed.

"Your husband says he still has nightmares," Oghren countered.

"I told Alistair to leave the room!" Anastasia exclaimed.

"So it wasn't enough that you killed my father, you had to do it in such a way as to give the King of Ferelden nightmares even a year later?" Nathaniel asked slowly, his eyes narrowed.

"Well, it's not like I woke up one morning and thought 'you know, I really don't have enough to do between deposing our Queen, ending a civil war, plotting the death of Ferelden's other Teyrn, and stopping a Blight. I think I'm going to go kill an old family friend,'" Anastasia said defensively.

"Then why did you?" Nathaniel challenged.

"He killed my family!" Anastasia burst out. "Whatever I did to you, surely you can understand my reasons why."

"Your family was planning to sell us out to the Orlesians," Nathaniel insisted, crossing his arms stubbornly.

Anastasia groaned. "Maker, you sound like Loghain…"

"I sound like the Hero of River Dane who tried to hold our nation together after King Cailan tragically fell alongside most of the army at Ostagar?" Nathaniel repeated sardonically. "I understand that he died at the Landsmeet, but you can't deny he tried to save us from Orlais."

"No, I suppose I can't deny that," Anastasia admitted. "And he did save us. He just couldn't stop trying to save us even when we had bigger problems. And for the record, my family would never work with the Orlesians under any circumstances ever."

Nathaniel chuckled darkly. "So you say."

"So I know," Anastasia corrected. "If nothing else, my family has always hated Orlesian accents. Every time one of them says something, my ears attempt a mutiny. Yes, we could put up with listening to them when we had to, but why willingly seek them out? And why invited them back after what happened the last time they tried their hand at ruling our nation?"

"Well, my family wouldn't side with them," Nathaniel said firmly. "My father fought with King Maric to help him reclaim his throne."

"So did mine!" Anastasia pointed out. "But my family wanted Orlais gone from the start and your father only joined King Maric after your grandfather was hung as a traitor for supporting the Orlesians."

"I'll…admit I don't know what happened to the Couslands," Nathaniel said carefully. "By all accounts, it was horrible."

"I watched my father bleeding to death in our larder and my mother refuse to leave his side because she wanted to give me a better chance to escape," Anastasia said softly, pointedly staring at the ceiling. "I found my sister-in-law and my nine-year-old nephew lying dead in my brother's room. I had no idea what happened to my brother for an entire year but given that he was at Ostagar I often suspected the worst. I was dragged away from my dying father and my soon-to-be dead mother by a Grew Warden who insisted that I join his order as the price for saving me. I would have refused to go, of course, but my father told me that it was my duty. My family always does our duty. You know what else was our duty? Not selling our King out to the Orlesians."

Nathaniel was quiet for a moment. "Fine, so maybe they weren't planning that," he conceded. "I already told you that I wasn't here and we can't ask my father for his reasons since you brutally murdered him."

"After he described to me my parents last moments in explicit detail, you could hardly expect anything else. Besides, he attacked me first so it was self-defense," Anastasia informed him.

"You killed him in his own home!" Nathaniel objected. "Of course he attacked first.

"If you want to blame anyone for us being there, blame Anora," Anastasia sniffed. "She up and got herself captured and even though we all knew it was a trap – because seriously, how was her Orlesian maid able to get out and warn us and how did Ser Cauthrien know your father was dead so quickly – Eamon made me go 'rescue' her anyway."

"Didn't you have Anora executed?" Nathaniel asked rhetorically.

"Alistair did, after the Blight," Anastasia confirmed. "She kept inciting those guarding her to rebel and try to help her escape so it was really a matter of practicality."

"So since she's dead, I'm blaming you," Nathaniel said coolly. "I can't even get anyone to tell me how my father died, either."

"That's probably for the best, kid," Oghren spoke up. "It wasn't pretty."

"Death rarely is," Nathaniel responded dryly.

"By 'wasn't pretty' I meant 'by the time she was through with him the walls were soaked with blood and he was in more pieces than I can count.' You'd actually be surprised how much of that he lived through…" Oghren trailed off, looking thoughtful.

Nathaniel paled. "You're right. I really didn't need to know that."

"Oh, come on," Anastasia protested. "It had to be done."

"I'm seriously rethinking my decision to not try to kill you," Nathaniel announced.

Anastasia blinked, surprised. "You weren't trying to kill me?"

"Or anybody else, either," Nathaniel verified, "which is how I got captured."

"Then why were you here?" Anastasia pressed.

"I wanted to try to reclaim some of my family's things. It's all I have left," Nathaniel admitted, looking downcast.

Anastasia looked positively pained. "Oh, no! Bleeding heart!"

"…Pardon?" Nathaniel asked, unsure if he really wanted to know.

Anastasia coughed. "Never mind. So, just for the sake of discussion, what kind of skills do you have?"

"Hunting, trapping, poisons…why?" Nathaniel asked suspiciously.

"Are you good with a bow?" Anastasia wanted to know. "Since Leliana took off to inspire pilgrims or whatever the Chantry was having her do, I've been sorely lacking a decent archer."

"I am, indeed," Nathaniel answered in the affirmative. "Why?"

"Really?" Oghren demanded. "Him?"

"You know I'm hopeless with a bow, mages are far more useful when using magic, and you refuse to even try your hand at archery," Anastasia pointed out.

"If you fight at a distance with no chance of gushing blood then you're not really fighting," Oghren announced.

"So we need him, then," Anastasia continued.

"Fine…" Oghren sighed heavily. "Hey, do you remember that one recruit with the nice rack? The one who died in the Joining?"

"What about her?" Anastasia asked, curiously. It wasn't like she was happy Mhairi had died by any means, but her life would certainly be easier without a straight-laced knight critiquing everything she did. If she had problems with recruiting Oghren and Anders…well, she certainly would not approve of anything else she did during the course of straightening out the Arling.

"She thought it was such an honor to join and then you let me and Anders in. Imagine, the very idea of the Wardens having standards," Oghren laughed at the thought.

"We do too have standards!" Anastasia insisted. "You have to be a decent fighter and not have an Orlesian accent thicker than Leliana's to be allowed to join."

"…What are you talking about?" Nathaniel demanded, having given up trying to figure it out for himself.

"You'll find out soon enough," Anastasia assured him absently. "How would you feel about working to redeem your family name?"

"Oh, brilliant," Nathaniel drawled. "I'll just run right out and join King Alistair's service. I'm sure he'd be thrilled to give a Howe a second chance."

"He will if I tell him to," Anastasia declared. "Besides, he'd probably feel awkward about what happened with your father…"

Just then, Seneschal Varel arrived. "Have you decided what to do with the prisoner?"

Anastasia nodded. "Indeed. I hereby invoke the Rite of Conscription."

"Wait, what?" Nathaniel demanded. "No. Absolutely not. Hang me, first!"

"You may not realize this, but 'conscription' kind of means 'force people to join a military order'," Anastasia said wryly. "And surely this is better than hanging you? Well, unless you die in the Joining. I've always thought that looked rather painful…"

"You really want a Grey Warden who wants you dead?" Nathaniel remained skeptical.

"I'll have you know that some of my best friends have wanted me dead," Anastasia sniffed, somewhat affronted.

"…Well, alright then. Do note that if I try to kill you again, it's not like I didn't warn you," Nathaniel requested.

"Will do," Anastasia agreed cheerfully. "

After he was lead away, Varel turned to her. "Commander, are you sure about this? I'd recognize those features anywhere; this man is a Howe and they are implacable enemies."

"Oh, it will be fine," Anastasia assured him. "Besides, once I make him love me and realize that his father was evil, my revenge will at last be complete!" Needless to say, she chose to indulge a bit in some maniacal laughter.

"You don't think you've done enough?" Oghren asked incredulously.

Anastasia tossed her hair back. "Not. Nearly."

"As you wish," Varel said dubiously. "Though for the record, I still think a noose would be easier."

"That may be so," Anastasia conceded, "but I really do need someone who can use a bow…"

[Raonar]

Sarah1281 wrote...

After he was lead away, Varel turned to her. "Commander, are you sure about this? I'd recognize those features anywhere; this man is a Howe and they are implacable enemies."

"Oh, it will be fine," Anastasia assured him. "Besides, once I make him love me and realize that his father was evil, my revenge will at last be complete!" Needless to say, she chose to indulge a bit in some maniacal laughter.

"You don't think you've done enough?" Oghren asked incredulously.

Anastasia tossed her hair back. "Not. Nearly."

"As you wish," Varel said dubiously. "Though for the record, I still think a noose would be easier."

"That may be so," Anastasia conceded, "but I really do need someone who can use a bow…"

eGAD... you're wicked... you're a bad person...
...is what Alistair would say.

Modifié par Raonar, 29 juin 2010 - 08:17 .

[Sarah1281]

My thirteenth one was 'Greatness Thrust Upon Him' which shows Harrowmont's perspective of the events of the DN origin and A Paragon of Her Kind with the DN Warden since I already did a Bhelen one.

Lord Pyral Harrowmont, High-General of Orzammar and trusted advisor to the late King Endrin, never thought he'd find himself in this position. Endrin was a well-respected King and he reestablished communications with the only other dwarven city known to be in existence, Kal-Sharok. There was no reason at all that his heir would have any trouble ascending to their father's throne – widely regarded as the Aeducan throne as Endrin was the ninth successive Aeducan king – and there were three potential heirs to choose from.

Trian was the natural heir. He was the oldest and had a healthy respect for tradition. He and Aunn could barely be in the same room together without getting into a fight, but that was because the Prince worried about his sister's ever-rising popularity. No one could deny that his diplomacy could use work, but that was what advisors and seconds were for. Orzammar under his rule would have continued much the same way it had under Endrin and that was no failing.

Aunn was the popular choice for Queen. She never was much for holding grudges and always made sure to treat the people she met respectfully – not that she had much interaction with the lesser castes. Her father worried that the lesser castes would take advantage of her tendency to at least hear people out to inundate her with their problems and a Princess of Orzammar simply could not personally solve everyone's problems for them, as much as she would have liked to. If the unthinkable hadn't happened, the Assembly might very well have chosen Aunn to rule instead of her brother and that would have benefited Orzammar, too.

Her skills in dealing with people would have served her well and though she was not as big a supporter of traditions as Trian, they were still very important to her. The only way she would have assumed the throne, however, would be if the Assembly chose her of their own accord. Aunn would have made a capable Queen but her interests lay more in taking an active role to protect Orzammar than in being an administrator. He couldn't even count all the times he'd walked in on Aunn attempting to convince King Endrin to let her go off and become a Grey Warden, though of course her request was always denied. He hoped she had managed to achieve that particular dream, after all.

And then there was the third heir, Bhelen. Harrowmont had always known that while it was highly unlikely that a third son would ever inherit the throne, he was still more likely to inherit the throne than anyone else save his two older siblings. He supposed that if Bhelen had proven himself to be Aunn and Trian's superior than the Assembly might choose him – for hadn't the first dwarven king been the youngest brother Bloadlikk? – but he had not. In fact, his siblings had been the talented ones and he had been the one left to his own devices as he had shown himself well-capable of keeping out of trouble. Managing to be a Prince of Orzammar while appearing to be so innocent and helpful and not have his fellow nobles walking all over him should have been their first clue that something wasn't right.

Things had started to fall to pieces the day Aunn took up her first command post. The day before was very promising and she had won the Proving held in honor of the event, partly for the glory and partly so the fighters she beat would not try to impress her with their performance. Harrowmont knew that Aunn was not amused by his attempts to find her a nice noble boy but it had to be done. Trian was going to marry Jaylia Helmi and strengthen House Aeducan's traditional alliance with them and Bhelen was barely grown so he had time yet. Since her taste seemed to run more towards the warrior caste, the noble winner of a proving seemed like a good bet to catch her attention. She would have none of it, however, and bested them all. It wasn't like anyone expected her to step aside once she was married, but he knew she feared an untimely pregnancy would get in her way.

Aunn winning her own Proving – while unusual – should have been a sign of good things to come. It wasn't. She and her second, Gorim, were tasked with finding the legendary Shield of Aeducan, wielded by the Paragon Aeducan himself when he saved Orzammar during the first Blight while the majority of the troops headed further in. Bhelen had looked grimmer and grimmer as the expedition went on and finally Endrin asked what the problem was.

Hesitating ever so slightly, Bhelen confessed that he'd been concerned about Trian's hostility towards Aunn as of late and so had warned her the day before that he might try something. This morning, however, the brothers had had a discussion that convinced him that he was wrong and that Trian wasn't plotting against Aunn after all. As she didn't know that and they were both wandering around nearly alone in the Thaig…well, who knew what might happen.

A quick glance told Harrowmont that Endrin didn't believe Aunn would start something serious but that he was unwilling to risk it and so they immediately set off towards where they'd left the Princess. When they found her, Aunn was standing over her older brother's body seemingly in a state of shock with Gorim, Frandlin Ivo, and a dwarven scout he did not recognize hovering awkwardly a few feet away.

Bhelen's second, Vartag, broke the silence by lamenting that Bhelen was right to worry. Gorim immediately spoke up to insist that they had arrived moments before themselves, but his loyalty was not an asset in this matter as it meant his word could not be trusted. The scout was the next to speak, accusing Aunn of murdering Trian in cold blood. Almost before he finished speaking, Aunn threw a knife at his head for his insolence.

Since Aunn was the one being accused of fratricide, Gorim was clearly biased, and the scout was both insignificant and dead, Endrin turned to the second son of Lord Ivo to illuminate the situation. House Ivo might have been relatively inconsequential, but it was still a noble house and so when young Frandlin agreed with the scout's version of events, Endrin had little choice but to arrest his only daughter.

Harrowmont could hardly believe what was happening. Trian, dead? Aunn, suspected of his murder? It was impossible. The fact didn't lie, however, and nothing was going to bring Endrin's heir back. There was simply no way Aunn was responsible and surely the Assembly would see reason. The deshyrs loved Aunn and she was clearly innocent so this whole matter would be cleared up soon enough. That's what should have happened. It didn't.

The first warning sign was the way a great many of the deshyrs did not seem very surprised to hear that Trian was dead and Aunn had been arrested. Had the situation been reversed and Trian stood accused of murdering Aunn, he could see that having been the case. Trian wanted the throne and Aunn was the biggest threat to him inheriting it, after all. Aunn had little interest in the throne, however, so why would she kill the one person standing between her and having to assume it?

The next warning sign was when Ivo's word alone was enough to convince the Assembly of Aunn's guilt. While Ivo was a noble and thus his words must be considered, he was from a lower house and Aunn was a Princess and next-in-line for the throne now that Trian was dead. Ivo's story – which he looked strangely hesitant to tell and kept glancing over to Bhelen for whatever reason – was apparently so compelling that the Assembly felt confident in convicting the accused without even calling her before them. That simply was not done. Law demanded that she be called forth to defend herself. Tradition demanded that she be given that opportunity. The Assembly did not think it necessary.

The final warning sign was when it came time to decide what the punishment should be for fratricide. Gorim, of course, was sent to the surface. It was a fitting punishment for such a crime (though if Aunn were innocent surely he was, too) and that was settled with little fuss. Aunn, however…he had reluctantly moved for her to be sent to the surface as well but to his great surprise, the deshyrs had a problem with that plan. Killing the heir to the throne and her own kin was enough to be sent down to the deep roads in rags and barely armed, it seemed.

This was a travesty and everyone knew it. Endrin looked sick but he agreed to abide by the Assembly's decision. Harrowmont understood. Trian was dead so he could no longer become King. With Aunn convicted by the Assembly she could not become Queen. There was only one winner that day and that was Bhelen. It was clear that he must have been involved and if a proper inquiry was done into Trian's murder and any evidence was found that the youngest Aeducan Prince had set all of this up…Endrin was old and the scandal would not abate before his death. He could either save his family's throne or save his daughter's life.

Harrowmont knew what he would decide almost before he did. He'd been King for many years, after all, and had worked too hard to willing put his family out of power. Aunn's fate, it seemed, was sealed. Except. Except the Grey Wardens had delayed their departure and were likely even now still making their way through the Deep Roads. If Aunn could find them…

He couldn't tell her personally, of course; he was a deshyr. Instead, he called her second to him. Gorim looked angry at the world and terrified for Aunn's sake. Clearly he'd heard the news then. Harrowmont told him about Duncan and gave him leave to deliver the message, watching as the hope grew in the warrior's eyes, both at being able to see Aunn one last time and at being able to save her.

When the time came to see the former Princess off to the deep roads and her fate, Harrowmont was there. It wouldn't be appropriate for the King himself to come and Harrowmont knew casting her out to die like that would kill him. He had brought two swords with him: one for if he was right and one for if the Assembly was.

"You call this justice?" she had asked bitterly, defiance flashing in her eyes.

Harrowmont hadn't answered. He hadn't needed to. Instead, he asked for the truth, or at least her version of it. He was probably the only one who had. "Look me in the eye and tell me that you did not slay your brother, for your father's sake!"

Her eyes had softened a little at that. "I swear to you, I had no part in Trian's death."

He hadn't thought that she had, but it was nice to hear some confirmation from her since Ancestors knew he wouldn't be getting it anywhere else. "That is all I wish to know. Take this sword and go seek a glorious end."

Aunn had taken the sword curiously. The startled look she shot him showed that she knew that that was a finer blade then the one the convicted were supposed to receive, but he knew that if she were to live to reach the Grey Wardens she would need all the help she could get and if this better blade would make the difference between life and death for her…well, he was willing to go against tradition then, just this once. "Tell my father…" she started to say, her voice shaking a little. She closed her eyes. "Tell him I go to a warriors death."

"I will," he had promised.

And then she walked through doors separating Orzammar from the deep roads and she didn't look back.

As Bhelen had managed to take them all by surprise with his hitherto unseen political prowess and set himself up as next in line for the throne with no rivals, everyone was sure to keep a much closer eye him from then on, particularly Endrin and Harrowmont. What they found was…distressing.

"Tradition means nothing to him," Endrin had finally concluded after days of denial. "There's no one else to take the throne, but if he truly cares so little about the ways of our people…"

Endrin's health had taken a turn for the worst from practically the moment Bhelen became an only child and this new insight into Bhelen's character just made things worse. It was then that Harrowmont made the decision to reveal his part in giving Aunn a chance to survive to her father, who wasted no time calling for Gorim and the Shield of Aeducan, which had been sitting in storage since it had been recovered. While they waited for Aunn's former second to show up, the King quickly wrote out a note.

When Gorim did arrive, the hatred in his eyes quickly died and was replaced by pity at the sight of the old King.

"Give this to my daughter," Endrin had commanded, holding out both the shield and the accompanying note.

"If I ever see her again, it will be done," Gorim had vowed. He had been putting off leaving for the surface for some time, but after that he quickly left the city.

More time passed and more of Bhelen's character was revealed. It really did seem that tradition was only something that mattered to him as long as it would personally benefit him. For instance, he seemed to love the notion that the throne of Orzammar was the Aeducan throne. It wasn't, of course, but the last nine generations had provided fine rulers and while this generation was no exception, Bhelen had gotten them out of his way. The merchant caste loved him for his valuing wealth and trade above their culture, which simply wasn't done. He spent far too much time with the casteless and that casteless girl he had gotten pregnant was often at the palace. As each new day revealed more of what a wretched ruler Bhelen would make, Endrin grew sicker and sicker with grief and regret.

"Find my child," he had all but begged. "Please."

And Harrowmont had tried. Bhelen was against it from the start, of course. At best it was a wasted endeavor and at worst it could succeed at finding Aunn and ensure he was never getting anywhere near the throne. As Bhelen often reminded them, the scandal would hurt House Aeducan more than recovering Aunn would help it, but Endrin was past the point of caring. Several expeditions into the deep roads were lead, but no traces of the exiled Princess were found. That was, Harrowmont often had to remind himself, a good sign.

And then had come the day when Endrin knew that he would not live to see his daughter again and could not, in good conscience, leave Orzammar in Bhelen's power-hungry hands.

"My son must not succeed me," he had declared, looking as though the words pained him.

"I'll start looking for an alternative among the Aeducans immediately," Harrowmont had started to say.

Endrin smiled sadly at that. "There is no one else."

"Then what would you have me do?" Harrowmont had asked, feeling helpless. It would figure that there would be no one else capable of ascending the throne. With three potential heirs, why would they need anyone else?

Then Endrin said the words that had sent Orzammar into chaos. "I need you to succeed me."

Whatever Harrowmont had been expecting, that certainly wasn't it. "You want me to…a Harrowmont has never been King, you know that! Surely there must be someone else-"

"There isn't," Endrin had insisted, cutting him off. "And even if there were there's no one I trust more than you. Please, Pyral. Orzammar needs you."

That was when he realized he was trapped. He was far too old for this and taking the Aeducans out of power – even with Endrin's blessing – would be no easy feat. "I will not turn my back on Orzammar if it needs me."

Soon afterwards Endrin died and Orzammar did need him.

Bhelen had expected to assume the throne smoothly and so when Harrowmont stood to oppose him, it took the arrogant young Prince by surprise. Their battle of wills had been going on for three weeks now and while it was starting to feel like this would never get anywhere, the most recent votes revealed that he had forty deshyrs on his side – exactly half of the Assembly. Bhelen's support was weakening, it seemed. It made sense. The longer he was keeping a tenth generation of Aeducans off the throne the more the other houses could see him actually succeeding and they all wanted their turn to be the royal family. Still, the fact he could not safely leave his own house was more than a little pathetic. At least Bhelen could not safely leave the palace, either.

There was a knock on the door. "Come in," he called.

Dulin pushed open the door and stepped inside, looking a little uncomfortable.

Apprehensive, Harrowmont asked, "What happened?"

"Aunn is back," Dulin replied shortly.

Harrowmont drew back in surprise. That Aunn was not only alive but back in Orzammar? He knew the guards to the surface were letting no one in so how did she…? The treaties. She wanted to become a Grey Warden and knew Duncan was her best hope of survival. Duncan himself was only there to confirm whether there was really a Blight and if there was and she was calling upon the treaties she would have to be allowed in.

"Where is she?" Harrowmont demanded. "I would like to see her."

Dulin sighed. "I thought you might say that. She's supposed to meet me at the Tapster's soon and I can bring her here directly."

"Why is she meeting you at Tapsters?" Harrowmont asked suspiciously. "What aren't you telling me?"

"She might have just won the Proving Bhelen was hosting in King Endrin's memory in your name," Dulin admitted. "Even though she was exiled, she was able to compete because she's a Grey Warden now."

Harrowmont blinked. "You made her win a Proving before allowing her to see me?"

Dulin was unrepentant. "I needed to be sure she wasn't working for Bhelen."

"You thought Aunn, of all people, would be working for Bhelen?" Harrowmont couldn't believe it. "I know these are uncertain times, but you'd think Aunn would be the one person we knew we could trust, given the circumstances behind her exile."

"I thought you might say that, too," Dulin replied. "But you know how the Aeducans can get about these things. They think that just because they've held the throne for nine generations they are entitled to it and since helping you removes her family from power she may have decided to work with Bhelen either way. You know that if she won him the throne he'd reinstate her in order to neutralize her if nothing else. I couldn't take that risk."

"Winning the Proving in my name certainly does help my cause," Harrowmont mused. "I did not believe there was any hope of anyone beating Piotin Aeducan since Baizyl and Gwiddon withdrew."

"As it happens, they both competed in the Proving and did quite well," Dulin looked quite pleased with himself. "Baizyl and Gwiddon even fought alongside Aunn in one of the matches."

"And you think this was Aunn's doing?" Harrowmont queried.

Dulin nodded. "Their resignations were unexpected but probably Bhelen's doing. If anyone could convince them to change their minds, Aunn could."

"Very well. Bring her here immediately," Harrowmont instructed, wondering just how this reunion would play out.



Harrowmont did not turn around when he heard her enter his study. He knew it was her because unlike Dulin she didn't bother knocking and because the rest of the household knew not to interrupt him. "Your father missed you sorely in his final days. I am glad you found a new place among the Grey Wardens."

"And I am glad that you chose to practically throw me at the Grey Wardens," Aunn replied, sounding a little amused. "I never did get a chance to thank you for saving me."

"I just wish I could have done more. Perhaps then we would not be in this mess," Harrowmont told her, glancing behind him. Aunn was alone and looking better than she had the last time he had seen her. Her long blonde hair was braided and pinned up like it always was but instead of rags she wore what appeared to be dragon scale armor and was armed with a glowing blue sword and the Shield of Aeducan. "You found Gorim, I see."

Aunn's eyes flickered. "I ran into him in the human capital of Denerim," she informed him. "He's working as a merchant for his father-in-law. Between his pregnant wife and the injuries he sustained making his way from Orzammar to Denerim, he could not accompany me."

"That's a shame," Harrowmont told her sincerely. Gorim was loyal to a fault and would have proven useful to have along. "You received your father's note, then?"

Aunn nodded. "I did. Father finally noticed Bhelen's allergies, I take it?"

"His…allergies?" Harrowmont repeated, uncertain. "I've heard you mention them before, but surely your father would not include a medical matter in his final words to you?"

"That was how I always referred to his hatred for tradition," Aunn explained. "As he probably would have killed me had I actually come right out and told people that."

"So you knew what a disaster his rule would be?" Harrowmont asked, surprised. "Your father was the first one to realize it once you'd left and that was only after weeks of observation."

"Of course I knew," Aunn replied, sounding a little affronted. "He is my little brother, you know."

"Why did you never tell anyone then?" Harrowmont demanded.

Aunn shrugged. "It seemed unlikely to ever be relevant, honestly. He claims he doesn't hate tradition, he just doesn't want to be held back by it."

"And what do you think?" Harrowmont questioned, wondering if she was going to come out to support her errant brother after all.

Aunn didn't answer for a moment. "I don't think Bhelen being King would be the unmitigated disaster some people seem to think. He is right that we are slowly dying off and unless we want the surface dwarves to be our only legacy then we need to do something to change that. Just the same, I want there to be something worth preserving so we can't so easily abandon our culture. My brother has some good ideas, but he's too impatient. He wants too much too quickly and he'll never get the Assembly to approve it."

"So you will stand with me, then?" Harrowmont inquired.

Aunn nodded again. "Absolutely," she said firmly. "I'll confess I almost wish I could support Bhelen, just so Trian's death and my exile would be worth something and I certainly don't wish to remove my family from power but I have to put Orzammar first and I worry that I won't recognize an Orzammar under Bhelen's rule for a few years."

"Your brother has a lot of support," Harrowmont told her. "And if it were not for your father's wishes he would be King by now and then Ancestors help us all. My support is growing, but I'll need to do something to show that I can still get things done, despite my age. Have you heard of a woman named Jarvia?"

Aunn bit her lip, thinking. "I might have," she answered at last. "One of the shops I stopped at before the Proving had a few thugs demanding ten sovereigns for 'protection' and I thought they mentioned a Jarvia."

"That sounds about right," Harrowmont confirmed. "She took over the carta in Dust Town once Beraht died a little before your exile. She made sure to keep under our notice until your father died but has since taken advantage of the chaos to operate openly in the commons. Every day the Assembly is petitioned by more and more people begging someone to do something about her. As we can barely keep the peace in the Diamond Quarter itself these days, no one has managed."

"So if I do manage to take them out and I'm working for you that will show that not only do you have the power to defend Orzammar but that you're concerned about things other than politics," Aunn surmised. She headed for the door. "I'll be back in a few hours."

"Aunn," Harrowmont called after her. She stopped and turned back to him. "I apologize for Dulin forcing you to win the Proving before allowing you to meet with me."

"Don't worry about it," she assured him. "I'm still an Aeducan after all, no matter what the records say, and if I thought there was any chance that Bhelen would be willing to compromise with the Assembly…well, I don't and let's just leave it at that."



Aunn returned, still alone, looking much more somber than she had when she'd left. "The carta is dead."

"So I've heard. You did well to take them out with only three other people," Harrowmont told her.

"With all the dragons, drakes, and ogres I've taken on lately, killing a few dozen dwarves, elves, and qunari was child's play," Aunn said flatly.

"You look upset," Harrowmont noted.

"I did what had to be done," Aunn replied. "They wouldn't back down and so they died. Still, I've never been to Dust Town before."

Harrowmont chuckled. "I should think not; your father would never allow it."

"It was so much poorer than anything I've ever seen. I thought I'd seen poverty amongst the refugees at Lothering but this…" Aunn trailed off, at a loss for words.

Harrowmont knew what she meant. Even if they were only casteless or criminals (and often both), seeing the conditions the dwarves of Dust Town lived in was difficult, especially the first exposure to that world. "It is unfortunate that it came to this, but of course they could not be allowed to threaten whoever they pleased. We must have order."

"I know," Aunn said quietly. "Tell me…how did my father die? I was told that he died in his sleep of grief but I've heard whispers of poison. Surely Bhelen wouldn't have killed Father, right? Even if Father's reluctance to hand him the throne disturbed him, setting the precedent for killing the King would be a bad idea for him."

"I have also heard those rumors," Harrowmont confirmed. "The more people see Bhelen's true character the more inclined they are to believe that he killed Trian and – until you returned – caused your death as well. If he could have his brother and his sister killed – becoming a Kinslayer twice over – it would not be too much of a leap to assume he would not balk at killing his own father."

"Did he?" Aunn sounded urgent.

Harrowmont shook his head. "No. At this point, I'm not sure I would put it past him but he had no opportunity to. When your father knew he was dying he would have nothing to do with Bhelen. I was the only one there in his final hours and, in my view, King Endrin died of a broken heart. Losing Trian was hard on him but no one could claim that was his fault."

"It wasn't his fault what happened to me, either," Aunn insisted. "I mean, yes, he could have technically stopped it but it would have caused more problems than it solved. While it would have been nice if I had a father willing to put me first, I forgave him for casting me out a long time ago."

"He did what he had to," Harrowmont verified, "but that doesn't mean he didn't regret it. He regretted it every day for a year and in the end Bhelen did kill him, but only through what he did to you. He asked me to look for you, you know. Bhelen disapproved but searches were conducted anyway. As you can imagine, we didn't find anything."

"Because I wasn't there. Thank you for being there for my father when I couldn't," Aunn said softly. "I wish I had been able to see him again but…such is life, I guess."

"When your father realized what a terrible King Bhelen would make and that he would not live to see you again he asked me to step up and several of my colleagues echoed his sentiment. I never sought the throne and always assumed that Trian would rule or that you would. While I will not deny that there would be some definite advantages to being King, I am far too old to try and take your family out of power and that's why I need your help," Harrowmont confided.

"What else do you need me to do?" Aunn asked.

"You wiping out the carta won me a great deal of respect and Bhelen is well-aware that the more time goes by the more support he loses as more people start to believe that I have a chance," Harrowmont responded. "Naturally, Bhelen has responded by forcing a vote in the next two days. If he can't win a vote now then he'll never win one. Until the vote is settled, we legally cannot address any other business. I feel more assured of my success with the carta gone but I will not be underestimating Bhelen ever again; that is what started all of this, after all. Tell me: what do you know of the Paragon Branka?"

"Branka…she was the smith girl who invented a smokeless fuel that decreased deaths and doubled production, wasn't she?" Aunn asked rhetorically. "She couldn't stand the noble lifestyle so she took her entire house – except her husband and wasn't that a scandal? – into the deep roads a year or so before I left."

Harrowmont nodded. "She hasn't returned and, despite her husband's best efforts, there haven't been any expeditions to find her in quite some time. Still, Bhelen's been looking for her and my men have picked up her trail as well. While I'm not certain that she's even still alive, if you could find her and convince her to support me then the Assembly would certainly crown me King."

"I think I met her husband earlier, actually," Aunn mused. "If he hears that I'm going to look for her then he'll want to come along and he may know something your men don't. What will you do if I find her but she won't support you?"

"If she chooses your brother then clearly he has the Ancestors favor," Harrowmont replied promptly.

Aunn's eyes flashed. "She'll support you if it kills her, I swear it."

Harrowmont raised an eyebrow at her.

Aunn coughed. "Figuratively, of course. It wouldn't do to attack a Paragon…"



Each successive Assembly meeting since King Endrin had passed had gotten more disorderly than the last and this one was no exception.

"Lords of the Assembly, I call for order!" Steward Bandelor called loudly. "This discussion gets us nowhere."

"Then why all these delaying tactics?" Bhelen demanded. His spies had no doubt informed him of Aunn's attempts to locate their sole possibly-living Paragon and he was getting more annoyed at every opportunity taken to stall. If Branka still lived, they both knew Aunn would find her. The only question was whether it would be in enough time to settle the dispute. "My father has but one living child to assume the Aeducan throne." There it was again. The 'Aeducan throne.' Could he sound any more like an entitled child? He was saying nothing of why he would make a good leader and everything about who his father was. Yes, the Aeducans had ruled Orzammar for nine generations but that was only because each of the Kings had proven popular enough for the Assembly to approve their successor and a capable heir had been ready to take over once the previous King was dead.

"Your father made me promise on his deathbed that you would not succeed him," Harrowmont reiterated yet again. He was getting a little tired of constantly having to bring that up but if Bhelen's strongest claim to the throne was his through his father then the fact that said father hadn't wanted him anywhere near the throne also needed to be remembered.

"Excuse me, but the Warden has returned," Steward Bandelor announced. Harrowmont looked up anxiously to see Aunn, Branka's husband Oghren, a golem, and a human man. Branka wasn't with them, which was disappointing to say the least, but Aunn was holding a finely forged crown.

"We should let the Warden speak," Harrowmont spoke up immediately, wondering if it was too much to hope for that this crown had been forged by Branka, who had elected not to return because she was either engaged in something pressing or simply did not want to become too embroiled in politics. There was, of course, a chance that Branka had chosen Bhelen and he could not defy a Paragon so he would have to respect that, but Aunn had seemed determined to make the former smith see things her way. "What news do you bring?"

"I bear a crown forged by the Paragon Branka for her chosen king," Aunn declared boldly, holding up said crown for all to see.

And as Oghren spun his tale of Branka's heroic sacrifice, Harrowmont waited patiently and kept his eyes on Aunn. Her face was impassive so he had no way of knowing who she was about to award the crown to. She had said that she did not feel her brother would be a successful ruler and her admittance that if she had she would have supported him made him believe her. If Branka had chosen Bhelen, he wasn't quite sure what she would do. Convention would dictate that she respect the Paragon's wishes but since she truly did not want her brother on the throne and had spent nearly a year on the surface, who knew how this would play out?

"And we are supposed to trust this?" Bhelen asked incredulously, venom in his voice. "The word of a drunken sot and a murdering exile known to be in Harrowmont's pocket?"

Aunn narrowed her eyes at that and Harrowmont knew then who she would choose, regardless of Branka's actual wishes. He resolved not to ask what Branka had said as even if he got the truth he might not like the answer.

Steward Bandelor, predictably, ignored this. "Silence! Then tell us, Grey Warden, which King did Paragon Branka endorse?"

Aunn was silent for a moment, clearly enjoying all of the attention. Finally, she spoke. "Branka chose Harrowmont."

"I appreciate your forthrightness, Warden. You have acted with grace throughout this entire torturous process," Harrowmont said, relief sinking through him. He had done it. He had actually managed to fulfill Endrin's final request and prevent Bhelen from having the power he needed to destroy Orzammar and it was all thanks to the forgotten Princess. He made his way down to the floor of the Assembly to be crowned.

As he knelt before Steward Bandelor, he could almost feel the favor of the Ancestors upon him. The Aeducans were a fine House, but Bhelen was clearly not worthy of it.

Bhelen, whose face had been frozen in a look of abject horror since Aunn had named his opponent King, moved forward. "I will not abide by this!" he swore.

"The ancestors have spoken!" one of the deshyrs on the winning side retorted.

"Stand down, Bhelen," Aunn entreated, sounding tired and like she knew there wasn't a chance he'd listen. "You've lost."

Sure enough, Bhelen just eyed her contemptuously. "You turned your back on Orzammar when you killed our brother!"

Aunn's eyes darkened. No doubt being accused of fratricide by the one who had actually committed it grated on her nerves.

"Watch out!" another one of the deshyrs on his side cried out. "They brought weapons!"

Harrowmont looked around. Bhelen and a good third of the deshyrs had, indeed, armed themselves. "Guards!"

Aunn went straight for Bhelen but that was hardly surprising. Those two had had unfinished business since the day Bhelen had killed Trian and pinned it on her. They exchanged a few words, though Harrowmont was too far away to hear them, before lunging at each other. Eventually, Aunn triumphed and Bhelen lay dead at her feet.

When the other rebellious deshyrs met the same fate, she turned to Harrowmont. "This might be the one thing I can never forgive; he's made me a Kinslayer after all."

"No one can blame you," Harrowmont was quick to reassure her. "You did what you had to do."

"And that is why I can't forgive him," Aunn said solemnly.

"I admit, I did not think even Bhelen would defy the word of a Paragon," Harrowmont confessed.

Aunn cocked her head. "No? A Paragon has no official power and so Branka's word being enough is just a tradition, which we both knew meant little to him."

"True enough. But that so many would follow him...At least now most of Orzammar has seen him for what he really is and I trust we will bring this insurgency under control," Harrowmont declared, hoping he wasn't being overly optimistic. Even with Bhelen's attempted coup, he had managed to take the throne and so it was difficult not to be.

"Ancestors willing," Aunn replied, still looking haunted. Ruthless to the core and as anti-tradition as they come though he might have been, Bhelen had still been her brother.

"Your father would be proud of what you did today," Harrowmont said gently.

Seeing as Aunn made no move to respond, the human boy quickly spoke up. "Thank you, King Harrowmont. Perhaps your rule will mark a new era for Orzammar."

"May we forge another four centuries of peace," Harrowmont said diplomatically before turning his attention back to Aunn.

"This is the staff I carried as your father's second," he told her, offering it to her. "Take it as a reminder of your place in Orzammar."

Aunn smiled wryly as she accepted it. "My place in Orzammar? My status as a Grey Warden may mean that I can come and go whenever I please but I'm still a convicted Kinslayer and what's more I just slayed my kin in front of the entire Assembly."

"He attempted a coup and his strongest supporters died at his side," Harrowmont countered. "Those that are left are mostly my supporters and not only will they not hold you accountable for Bhelen's death but they will reinstate you."

"Reinstate me?" Aunn repeated, looking stunned. "As an Aeducan, you mean? They won't want me back, not after I practically hand-delivered you the throne."

"They will either get over it or they will be faced with a hostile head of House," Harrowmont informed her. It was understandable that she was upset: House Aeducan had meant almost as much to her as Orzammar had but in the end 'almost' wasn't enough for her to crown her brother.

Aunn's eyes widened. "Head of House Aeducan? Me?"

"As your father and brothers are dead, I believe that does make you the highest-ranking member," Harrowmont assured her. "Now, I must begin preparations for this surface war and start moving into the palace."

"Of course," Aunn nodded. "I have other urgent matters to attend to as well."

And as he watched her walk away he knew that she'd stop the Blight. It was just a feeling, but his intuition was rarely wrong and that's how he'd made it as far as he had, even before becoming King. Aunn would stop the Blight and she would be a hero. She would come home and be the head of the Aeducans and, eventually, succeed him. The other nobles would no doubt be annoyed that they'd finally managed to wrest power away from the Aeducans only to hand it back within a few years, but there was no one within his House who he felt would be qualified to become King and Aunn had always had the makings of a capable ruler.

After all, she really was the best of the Aeducans.

Modifié par Sarah1281, 02 juillet 2010 - 06:53 .

[Sarah1281]

My fourteenth one was 'You Never Told Us You Were A Princess' where the companions finally realize that the Warden is, indeed, royalty and complain about never having been told despite their lack of interest in their leader's life.

Aunn Aeducan glanced down at the bodies lying at her feet. "I feel better," she announced. She didn't feel great because she had just been told by the Orzammar guard that her father was dead and now there was apparently some succession dispute she'd inevitably have to sort out before she could get anything done. Not to mention that everyone would invariably pretend that they didn't know her or complain about the fratricide she had supposedly committed. Still, at least she had gotten a chance to take some of her frustrations out on Loghain's delusional little henchmen. What part of 'regent' said 'Loghain is king' anyway?

"Well, I don't," Leliana announced.

Aunn blinked. "You don't? Don't worry; I'm sure we'll run into more people looking to commit suicide by Grey Warden soon enough and, if not, you could always look into a non-violent way to deal with your emotions."

"Why find non-violent ways when there are so many suicidal people to oblige?" Zevran asked reasonably.

Aunn shrugged. "I don't know. Leliana's currently trying to pretend she doesn't enjoy killing people, though."

"I think what she was referring to is why you never mentioned you were a princess," Morrigan corrected. She and Leliana had never really hit it off for some reason. Perhaps it was because Leliana was obsessed with the Chantry that wanted Morrigan dead for not enslaving herself to the Circle of Magi?

"Oh. That would be because I'm not," Aunn explained. The Grey Wardens might have had a policy of abandoning their former lives but in Orzammar it was quite the opposite and no one would have joined if they had to leave the city behind. No, the reason that she insisted she was no longer a princess or even an Aeducan was because, well, the Assembly had decreed that she wasn't. If she was ever miraculously reinstated, she would eagerly reclaim her name, Grey Warden policy be damned.

Leliana crinkled her brow in confusion. "But that guard said-"

"I am willing to concede that I was once a princess," Aunn said magnanimously. "Though currently I no longer exist apart from being a Grey Warden and have never existed as myself."

"That makes no sense," Sten said bluntly.

Aunn held up her hands defensively. "Hey, I didn't come up with the rules."

"But we're your friends!" Leliana burst out, sounding hurt. "Why wouldn't you tell us?"

Aunn simply stared at her for a moment before she burst out laughing. "You're kidding, right?" she asked when she'd managed to calm down enough to speak.

"You are our leader and we trust you," Wynne said solemnly. "Finding out that you've been keeping secrets is…disquieting."

"I'm sure she has her reasons," Alistair, predictably, was quick to defend the keeping of huge 'did I mention I'm actually royalty' type secrets.

"Why didn't you know I was a princess?" Aunn asked slowly, tapping her chin. "Maybe because you're all ridiculously self-absorbed?"

"I am not ridiculously self-absorbed," Morrigan claimed, not even bothering to pretend that she wasn't self-absorbed at all.

"I agree with Morrigan," Zevran concurred.

"Well I don't because I refuse to agree with Morrigan on anything," Alistair began. "But I, too, feel that I'm not self-absorbed."

Aunn couldn't believe that they lacked this much self-awareness. Sure she had a tendency to be self-absorbed as well (and would most likely end up turning this upcoming succession dispute into a family drama) but she felt that her awareness of the fact slightly mitigated its annoyance factor. "Okay, let's try this then. Raise your hand if you were previously aware that I am a dwarf?"

No one moved.

"What is the point of this?" Sten demanded.

"Just do it," Aunn ordered, "or I'll be forced to conclude that this stunning new development has taken you all by surprise."

Everyone quickly raised their hand because none of them were quite self-absorbed enough to fail to be able to distinguish between species.

"Good," Aunn said brightly, clapping her hands together. "Now who here was aware that I was from Orzammar and wasn't born on the surface?"

Wynne and Alistair raised their hands while everyone else avoided meeting her eyes.

"I rest my case," she said smugly. "If you didn't even know that I was from Orzammar, how could you possibly be aware that I was a princess here once."

"That's not fair!" Leliana objected. "You never open up so how could we possibly know?"

"I know more than I'd care to about you all," Aunn retorted.

"That's because we trust you enough to tell you these things," Leliana said virtuously.

"No, it's because I bothered to ask you about yourselves and none of you cared enough to," Aunn disagreed a little bitterly, shaking her head.

"I did," Wynne countered.

"Well, except for Wynne," Aunn conceded. "She mostly wanted to convince me to forget my past so I could live out her fantasy of the super Warden but at least she thought to ask."

"I asked about how you dealt with your dead," Alistair spoke up.

Aunn rolled her eyes. "Oh, yes, you know that dwarves respectfully bury their honored dead instead of lighting them on fire. Don't you feel we've truly connected now?"

"We didn't want to be rude by prying," Leliana claimed.

Morrigan snorted. "Speak for yourself. And I asked a question about your mother."

"You asked what she was like when I explained that she was dead you didn't care anymore," Aunn reminded her friend. "That might actually be less informative than Alistair's question."

"I was too busy trying to seduce you to attempt a background check," Zevran declared.

Aunn raised an eyebrow. "Well, at least you're honest…"

"Pestering you with pointless questions will not stop the Blight and it will only encourage your own inane inquiries," Sten replied matter-of-factly.

"Is it rude when I ask you questions?" Aunn asked them.

Leliana looked a tad sheepish. "Well, no, but-"

"Then why would it be rude for you to take an interest in my life? In fact, I think it's rude that you never do," Aunn told them.

"I don't know," Leliana confessed. "How were we to broach the subject?"

Aunn gave a theatrical sigh. "How about 'so tell me, Aunn, are you from Orzammar or were you born on the surface?' or 'so how did you become a Grey Warden?' or even 'why did you refuse to leave the Pearl for a week after running into that one merchant in Denerim?'"

"I'd assumed he was an ex-boyfriend," Zevran answered, choosing to address the last question.

"More or less," Aunn confirmed. "Except he got married before breaking up with me."

"I am so sorry," Alistair said in his best comforting-people voice. It was actually rather attractive, but his fellow Warden was so not in the mood just then.

"Thank you," she replied sarcastically. "I really appreciate that…four months after the fact."

"There is no need for sarcasm, Aunn," Wynne said reprovingly.

Aunn laughed harshly. "No, there is every need for sarcasm. You know nothing about me and I know plenty about all of you. For instance, I know that you were brought to the Circle as a child after setting some kid's hair on fire, sulked enough that the Revered Mother befriended you, and hated male elves even decades ago when you almost got your first apprentice killed, but apparently haven't learned as much as you think as you want him to abandon his peaceful existence with the Dalish in order to go back to the Circle because it needs him even though Irving outright told you that you were needed, too, but you couldn't be bothered. Although given that if the Templars found out about your little spirit friend they'd declare you an abomination and have you killed in two minutes flat, I can't blame you."

"I don't hate male elves!" Wynne insisted, looking shocked at the very idea.

"Then why did you disapprove of me sleeping with Cammen but approved of Zevran getting it on with Gheyna?" Aunn challenged. "It was harder to convince her to pretend that it never happen and go through with the bonding than it was for Cammen."

"You're a Grey Warden so I hold you to a higher standard of behavior," Wynne sniffed.

"Shocking," Aunn remarked dryly. "And then there's Sten."

"What about me?" Sten asked dutifully.

"You came to Ferelden to check out the Blight and to spy on the kingdom for a future invasion if the qunari ever get bored of harassing the Tevinter Imperium. Your friends died and you dropped your sword so you killed eight people – including children – who saved you and severely traumatized the one boy who survived because it never occurred to you to go looking for the sword yourself," Aunn listed off.

"Finding a single blade in a war-torn county-" Sten began.

"Was not nearly as difficult as you seem to think," Aunn cut him off. "We just went to the site of the battle, talked to a scavenger, travelled to…well, here, talked to a merchant, and then headed off to Redcliffe to buy back the sword."

"It was highly unlikely that it would have been found so easily," Sten maintained.

"If it was so important to you, you should have looked anyway," Aunn said flatly. "And how did you end up in Lothering anyway if the battle was near Lake Calenhad?"

"I do not know," Sten said shortly.

"May I ask why we left immediately upon finding out that the sword wasn't here as opposed to actually going to Orzammar?" Morrigan inquired. "It would have saved a lot of time travelling."

"I wasn't ready," Aunn claimed.

"If you had been 'ready' then you would have gotten a chance to see your father again before he died," Morrigan pointed out.

Aunn narrowed her eyes. Morrigan had a point but how was she supposed to have known when she'd left to go find Dwyn that she was walking away from her last chance to say goodbye to her father? "Hindsight is always twenty-twenty," she said, crossing her arms defiantly. "But enough about me since you clearly don't care for the subject. Instead, let's talk about you, Morrigan. Your mother is a centuries-old abomination who you claimed was trying to steal your body before you made me temporarily kill her, even though just telling me she'd turn into a dragon – which would have been nice to know about beforehand, by the by – would have been enough."

"Hindsight is always twenty-twenty," Morrigan mimicked.

"Not to mention that your mother probably either kidnapped you as a child or your father was a Templar that she later killed," Aunn went on, valiantly ignoring the interruption. "You're strangely preoccupied with your looks given that you refuse to change out of those rags, you have a mirror fetish, and you just aren't happy unless we're going around throwing flaming newborn kittens at orphans for money."

"Well, if you were going to go around throwing flaming newborn kittens at orphans, you might as well get paid for it," Morrigan declared.

"I agree," Zevran spoke up. "In fact, if we were paid at all for this, that would be great."

"We make a fortune looting corpses; isn't that enough?" Aunn asked rhetorically. "And you were raised by the Antivan Crows since you were seven, your mother died before you can remember, and she was Dalish. You appear to be one of those people who were seeking suicide by Grey Warden as you volunteered to try to kill me and you make absolutely no effort to hide your bisexuality."

They waited for her to go on but apparently she was finished on the subject of Zevran.

"Wait, that's it?" Alistair asked incredulously. "That's all you've got to say about him?"

"Anything else would just be too personal to get into just because I'm mad at you all," Aunn explained.

"I appreciate your discretion, Aunn," Zevran said warmly.

"What about Wynne, Sten, or Morrigan's privacy?" Alistair demanded.

"What about it?" Aunn asked innocently. "But since you volunteered…you put me in charge after I had been a Warden for all of a week and spent most of that time unconscious. You keep 'accidentally' withholding vital information from me, whether it be relevant facts about the Grey Wardens or that you're secretly the heir to the throne."

"But my mother-" Alistair started to protest.

"Yeah, that's really not as big an obstacle as you seem to think it is," Aunn told him frankly. "Since there really is no one else except Loghain's daughter, who your mother was – provided she was human – doesn't make you becoming king impossible. And then there's the time that I told you that your sister was a selfish **** and that everyone was out for themselves and you somehow got 'I need to stand up for myself more!' out of that conversation so it's clear you never actually listen. You could very well be more idealistic about the Wardens than Wynne, you're almost pathologically afraid of leading, you were nearly a Templar, and your default mode is denial. You are pretty funny, though, so that's something."

"That's really harsh…" Alistair told her, looking stricken.

Aunn shrugged. "If you people ever learn anything about me, feel free to return the favor. Chances are, Trian's said it all before."

The looks on several of her companions' faces indicated that they dearly wanted to know who Trian was but they weren't going to risk asking at this point in time.

"Why are you being so mean?" Leliana asked, sounding hurt.

Aunn drew back in surprise. Seriously? She'd just explained to them how pathetic it was that she knew so much about them and they knew nothing about her and they didn't get why she was upset? Not to mention what had set her off in the first place."Because I just found out that my father died and I'm kind of pissed. Besides, it's all true. You, Leliana, won't shut up about the Maker despite the fact that on a good day I honestly couldn't care less about your made-up religion."

"And on a bad day?" Leliana asked uncertainly.

"You don't want to know," Aunn told her bluntly. "You keep insisting that you had a vision which just makes you come off as crazy. If you're so desperate to be interesting, stop talking about the Chantry and their Maker because all of that is really, really boring. And maybe sometimes I'd like to talk to you without you insisting on making it story-time. I get that you were a bad and if you stopped pretending that the past never happened and admitted to that, you'd be infinitely more interesting. You're also far too easily influenced and don't quite grasp how racist you are, which really infuriates the hell out of Zevran and I."

Leliana looked helpless. "But the Maker-"

"By the stone, if a sentence contains the words 'Maker', 'Andraste', or 'Chantry' then I don't care, okay?" Aunn cried out, storming off. She wondered briefly just how long her companions were going to stay angry at her for that but she couldn't bring herself to care at that particular moment.

Zevran came to stand next to her. "You seem upset."

"I was," Aunn conceded, "but I'm feeling a lot better now for some reason."

"I guess you did find a non-violent way to deal with your emotions after all," Zevran noted.

"I'm not looking forward to dealing with the succession question," Aunn admitted. "Although if Father's dead, I have to wonder…who's opposing Bhelen?"

Zevran didn't know who Bhelen was anymore than he knew who Trian was but this time he elected to ask. "Who's Bhelen?"

"My little brother," Aunn answered. "He had our older brother Trian killed and pinned it on me so that I was exiled because he really wanted the throne. Trian and I had…problems, shall we say, and so apparently fratricide was believable. My father thought that I was innocent, but he was willing to cast me out to be eaten by darkspawn to avoid a scandal. Any questions?"

"Not at the moment, no," Zevran told her. He glanced back at the others, who had moved past the 'shock' stage and appeared to be fuming. "How long do you think the others will be mad because of what you said?"

"No idea," Aunn replied easily. "If they stay made long enough, I might even care. Now come on, I feel like causing a scandal and, as things currently stand, my mere presence should be enough…"

[Sarah1281]

My fifteenth one was actually not a one-shot but four chapters and was entitled 'Four Ways to Avoid Exile' in which minor, could-have-happened changes prevent Bhelen's plan from coming to fruition. But you know he'll just try again.  

Way One: Avoiding Miscommunication

Prince Trian Aeducan was understandably disgruntled to be awoken at three o'clock the morning of the big expedition to the Aeducan Thaig. The main purpose for the outing, of course, was to start off his sibling's career as commander. Knowing Aunn, her time as a commander would go either very, very well or very, very badly and he was rather hoping for the latter. Partly this was because Aunn's success as commander would move her ever closer to the Aeducan throne while her failure would surely hurt her position and partly because she had just picked his lock and was shutting the door behind her.

"What are you doing here at this Ancestor-forsaken hour?" Trian hissed.

"I had a question," Aunn replied innocently, moving closer.

"And this couldn't have been addressed earlier or waited until morning?" Trian demanded irritably. Aunn was fully dressed and her long blonde hair was done up in its usual braided double bun while he was still in his sleepwear and so at a clear disadvantage. At least he had a weapon or two at easy reach if it came to that, although he didn't see why it would given later that day she'd have a much better opportunity.

Aunn shook her head. "If I had waited until morning there may not have been time and I could not guarantee that Bhelen wouldn't find a way to hear about this and that would ruin everything."

" 'Ruin everything'?" Trian echoed. Bhelen had thoughtfully informed him that Aunn was planning treachery and today at the Thaig would be the perfect time to pull it off. At least one of his siblings understood their place. "So, what? Do you intend to kill me now? It would have worked better had you not woken me first."

Aunn drew back, surprised. "Do I intend to kill you now? Of course not! For one thing the guards are all well-trained and loyal so it would have had to have been an inside job and so that would just be careless…"

"I'm not hearing anything about how you would never even remotely think about killing me," Train noted dryly.

Aunn's smile was mocking. "I have no intentions of killing you, big brother, nor have I ever or will ever be so inclined. Do you feel safer now?"

"Oddly enough, no," Trian replied. "So if it's not blood you've come for then why are you here?"

Aunn rolled her eyes. "I told you. I needed to talk to you before the expedition and I needed to do it without Bhelen hearing about it."

"Fine. Talk," Trian ordered. He didn't trust this but he'd be a fool to send her away without attempting to see what she was planning, especially given her newly revealed fratricidal intentions.

"I'm sure by now that Bhelen has told you that I mean to kill you," Aunn began. It wasn't a question.

Trian wasn't quite sure what to make of that. Yes, Bhelen had indeed come to him with his suspicions and given his own growing paranoia over his sister's ever-rising popularity it had seemed a legitimate possibility. Aunn outright admitting it, while he wouldn't be able to prove it and their father would never believe it of his favorite child, greatly lowered her chances of succeeding…unless she intended to act now. As strange as it may have seemed, he was actually inclined to believe her when she said her intentions weren't murderous at the moment. After all, she had a point about the guards and unless she intended to slaughter a few of them as well to make it look like a very skilled assassin had been sent from outside…well, it could conceivably be done but waiting until the expedition seemed both easier and more practical. Unless, of course, she was counting on that so people wouldn't think she was involved. Still, all of this was so very complicated and it was far too early so it was best to just keep his guard up and find out where Aunn was going with this. "Do you?"

"I certainly told him that I did," Aunn declared. "And even though you've been half-suspecting that of me for weeks, the fact you don't seem surprised means that he went running straight to you, which is definitely interesting."

"Why would that be 'interesting'?" Trian asked, wishing she would just get to the point already. By the Stone, he knew he wouldn't be getting back to sleep anytime soon after this conversation but there was plenty to do before the expedition anyway.

"Are you at all curious as to why Bhelen and I were talking about me killing you?" Aunn shot back. "And yes, we were talking about it as I certainly would not be so careless as to discuss something like that where he or anyone else could happen to overhear it."

"I had assumed that you were attempting to seek his support," Trian replied. He hadn't believed she had been that careless but Bhelen was very good at remaining unnoticed. It was rather surreal that they were discussing her plot to murder him so calmly in the middle of the night after she'd broken into his room and could still decide to put her plan into action before leaving. Not, of course, that he'd make it easy for her and if he died now Bhelen would know what happened. If she silenced Bhelen as well then even their father couldn't deny what happened. Not, most likely, that it would be for lack of trying.

"And he promised it to me," Aunn confirmed. "Which isn't to say that he meant it and as it happens I'm certain that he didn't."

"If you didn't think he'd support you and you clearly suspected he would warn me, why broach the subject at all?" Trian asked reasonably. "Or did you expect his support and realized when you confided in him that you had been mistaken?"

"That's just it," Aunn said triumphantly. "I didn't bring it up. He did."

That was unexpected, to say the least. "Are you honestly trying to tell me that Bhelen outright asked you if you were planning to murder me?" Trian asked incredulously, raising an eyebrow. "That seems a little risky, don't you think? And hardly the sort of behavior one would expect out of someone who has spent years avoiding trouble."

"That would be because he didn't ask me about my intentions," Aunn clarified. "At least, not at first."

Trian waited for her to go on but clearly she was waiting for him to ask her about it. Sighing, he complied if only to move this rather unconventional meeting along. "What happened at first?"

Aunn practically beamed at him. "So glad you asked. Our little brother told me he was worried about me."

"And more to the point he was worried about your fratricidal tendencies?" Trian couldn't resist adding.

Aunn shook her head, a little amused. "As it happens, no. He was concerned about yours."

That stopped him. "Mine? I am the heir here so as long as you remember that and don't try to usurp the throne we won't have problems."

"He said that you felt threatened by my popularity and that since you had no intention of stepping aside and just letting me rule-" Aunn went on as if she hadn't heard him.

"Which I don't," Trian cut in.

"That you might take…aggressive measures," Aunn finished. "Which is why I'm here."

"Do you believe him?" Trian asked, not entirely sure that he believed her.

Aunn shrugged. "I'm not sure yet but I did know he'd go running to you, which is why I told him I was planning on striking first and it's why I'm here now."

"What made you think he would tell me what you said?" Trian challenged. "And if you knew he would, why tip your hand?"

"Because I didn't tip my hand," Aunn revealed. "He did. I asked him why he was telling me this and received an unbelievable response."

Trian snorted. "What did he say? That he loved you and wished we could all just get along?"

"That could very well be true but it wouldn't mean that we would," Aunn replied. "Reasons I could have plausibly accepted include his belief that your plot would fail and he wanted me to know he wasn't involved, his belief you would make a horrible King and I a decent Queen and he was thinking of Orzammar, or the fact that if he were going to lose one sibling he would rather it be the less condescending one."

"I am not condescending," Trian insisted.

Aunn actually laughed. "Tell yourself that if you want to, Trian, but the two times I ran into you yesterday alone you basically told Gorim he wasn't worthy to speak unprompted in your presence and made it quite clear that Bhelen and I were barely worth your notice. Gorim I can understand since as a Warrior he does have a lower status but Bhelen and I are your siblings. If you don't feel a Prince and Princess of Orzammar are worth your time, that kind of means you're condescending. That is, by the way, a large part of the reason so many people have decided they'd rather see me rule than you."

Trian didn't respond to that, although it was something to consider. While being the heir to the Aeducan throne made him superior to virtually everyone by default, it might benefit him to be more subtle about that until Aunn's support died down and the crown was safely on his head. Assuming, of course, that Aunn's upcoming power play didn't leave either of them dead or exiled. "What was the reason he gave?"

"He told me that if you killed me he was concerned that he would be next," Aunn answered.

Trian scrunched his forehead. "That seems like a perfectly legitimate reason to bring my supposed fratricidal tendencies to your attention."

"Well it would," Aunn conceded. "If it weren't for the fact that this is Bhelen claiming that you might see him as a threat. I'm not stupid and I see how you two interact. You act like you have to stop him from eating the paste; there's no way he could ever believe that you would see him as a threat."

Trian had to admit that the idea of Bhelen, of all people, being dangerous was rather ridiculous. Still, he had to ask. "What are you suggesting?"

"I think that he intends to screw me over," Aunn announced. "Or you. Probably both of us."

"Bhelen?" Trian really couldn't help the incredulity in his tone. He could more easily imagine Lord Harrowmont attempting to usurp the throne than their unremarkable little brother. "Really?"

"Really," Aunn confirmed. "You know what they say, right? That it's always the quiet ones? That's because if it were easy to believe that Bhelen would pull something like this then it would never work."

She kept dancing around the issue. "Pull something like what?" Trian pressed.

"He told me that he suspected you would try to kill me and then once I made mention of killing you first he ran and told you. He obviously thought I was amenable to the idea or else he never would have risked approaching me. Now if both of us think the other one is going to try and kill us, our interests seem to be mutually exclusive, and we've never been all that fond of each other in the first place what happens when we're virtually alone in the Aeducan Thaig later today?" Aunn might have phrased it like a question but they both knew the answer.

"One of us will probably die," Trian supplied.

"Which of us probably doesn't matter but you know I'm better in a fight," Aunn declared. "Then, when Bhelen's reasonably sure that one of us has killed the other, he tells Father something about how he thinks that the two of us – or maybe just me – are going to settle our differences violently. If he can reach us in time then he'll have one of us dead and the other exiled for kinslaying."

The annoying thing was that that did sound plausible…if the supposed mastermind was anyone but Bhelen. Honestly, he was still a child not even a year ago! "So you think Bhelen's trying to manipulate us into taking ourselves out of the way and leaving him a clear path to the throne? You seem to be forgetting, sister, that Bhelen's not the type. He's far too interested in pleasure and childish tricks than in pulling a political coup of that magnitude."

"I'll admit that his behavior in regards to that casteless girl – Rica, if I'm not mistaken – is rather unusual," Aunn said slowly, "but that's really more his allergies than anything else and should his plan succeed he'll be King and he can be as obvious about her as he wants."

"He'll outgrow that 'allergy' to tradition soon enough," Trian theorized. "His lack of appreciation really speaks more of his immaturity than any defining character trait."

"I'm not so sure," Aunn disagreed. "But that will really only come into play if we allow ourselves to be manipulated so easily. That other point you brought up, about his being more interested in childish tricks? Do you mean tricks like informing that messenger that the quickest way to get something to me was through you?"

Trian's eyes narrowed. "How do you know about that?"

Aunn shrugged. "I ran into that merchant earlier today and he told me that you threw his messenger out. Oh, and when you left Bhelen and I alone in your room after my feast which you couldn't be bothered to attend despite chastising me earlier for taking too long to get there-"

"I had more important things to do than listen to Father and the others fawn over you," Trian interrupted.

Aunn stared at him. "You were just talking to Bhelen in your room!"

"Like I said, I had more important things to do," Trian repeated wryly. "But you were saying?"

"Right. After you left and Bhelen 'warned' me about your intentions, I totally read your journal before leaving," Aunn told him shamelessly.

"…Why?" Trian demanded.

"Why not?" Aunn asked rhetorically. "I am rather nosy, in case you didn't notice. How else do you think I knew who Rica was? I ran into her when I was snooping around Bhelen's room and despite the fact that she had his permission to be in there and I had no right to be, she apologized for her presence and left. I found a love letter from her – or at least I think it was her – and it was really disturbing. It mostly consisted of her talking about unworthy she was and how amazing Bhelen was for even noticing she existed."

"Well, she is casteless," Trian pointed out.

"I know, but still. I can't imagine ever even thinking I'm that far beneath anybody let alone communicating that," Aunn countered, shaking her head in bewilderment. "But I do have to ask you: if you were that impressed by Gorim's loyalty than why in the world were you so rude to him earlier?"

"Because he spoke to me when I was talking to you," Trian replied as if it were obvious. "I am the heir to the throne and even if he is your second, he's still just a warrior."

Aunn rolled her eyes. "No, not condescending at all…"

"Did you have a point about the messenger?" Trian asked tiredly. Aunn never did like to say on topic.

Aunn started. "Oh, him. Yes, Bhelen telling him to take the matter to you might have just been his questionable humor or it might have been something more. I understand why the messenger presuming to ask you to pass something along to me pissed you off; it implied that I had a higher status than you and given the way people have been talking lately about making me Queen it would be doubly offensive. Bhelen's been doing that a lot lately, I've noticed, subtly trying to convince you that I'm a threat to you."

"Are you saying you're not?" Trian asked skeptically.

Aunn snorted. "I've been a threat to you from the moment I was born no matter how I turned out."

"So you think that Bhelen's been trying to turn our…difficult relationship murderous so he can get us both out of the way and become King after Father passes?" Trian summarized. "That sounds highly unlikely, especially considering it involves Bhelen being a ruthless mastermind."

"I know you're having difficulty believing he's capable of that," Aunn acknowledged. "I've been saying he was an evil mastermind for years but no one else seems to have noticed. Are you really willing to risk it either way?"

"I suppose not," Trian conceded. "Why are you telling me this? You know that putting me on guard against Bhelen won't lessen my suspicion of you and surely if you are correct about our little brother you could find a way not to be implicated in my death. Don't you want to be Queen?"

Aunn laughed. "What I want is to run off and be a Grey Warden but Father would never allow it – and believe me, I've tried my hand at convincing him – and I am not willing to give up House Aeducan and Orzammar in order to join them like allowing myself to be exiled would require. Since I am not willing to make that sacrifice, I simply cannot sit back and watch Bhelen's plan come to fruition."

"But surely with me out of the way-" Trian started to say. He thinks her mind is already made up to try and kill him or else he wouldn't risk talking her into attempting fratricide; he just wants answers.

"He wouldn't do something so bold if he wasn't absolutely certain that he had all the variables covered," Aunn cut him off. "Everyone's pretty much agreed that unless something unthinkable happens either you or I will take the throne. If one of us dies, it will naturally fall to the other one. Surely Bhelen must have taken steps to avoid this. If he hasn't been planning this for some time and managed to bribe the right people, I would be shocked."

"So that's your interest," Trian realized. "It's not that you're opposed to killing me, you just don't want to get caught and exiled to further Bhelen's plans."

"There's no point in telling you I'm not out to kill you," Aunn said exasperatedly. "As no matter how sincere or insincere I was you'd never believe me. And yes, that's exactly it. The responsibility for keeping you alive falls to you and if you can't manage on your own that it's a pretty clear sign that you wouldn't last long as King. Still, I will not allow myself to be manipulated by my younger brother and so believe what you will about me or about him, just for the love of all that is good in this world be careful today. Don't trust Bhelen without reservation and fully expect someone, anyone, to try and take you down." With that, she turned to go.

"I can hardly believe any of this," Trian confessed. "But say you're right and you really have no intention of seeing me die today. What then?"

Aunn stopped with her hand on the doorknob. "What then?" she echoed without turning around. "If you listen to me and we both make it through the day unscathed then we go back to the way things have been and just see what happens when Father dies."

With that she was gone and Trian was left pondering what to do. The very idea of Bhelen being a threat was laughable but when it came right down to it he wasn't willing to stake his life on it. He didn't trust Aunn, had never trusted her in fact, but if she truly did believe her own story then he supposed she would react like this and decide to take care of the obstacle he represented later.

When it came right down to it, the details didn't matter. There was really only one thing he could do. One thing he did do.

He listened.

[Raonar]

I just read all of these four ways to avoid exile and Oh my God, how hilarious! I could really learn a thing or two about dry wit from you.



Congratulations!

[Sarah1281]

Raonar wrote...

I just read all of these four ways to avoid exile and Oh my God, how hilarious! I could really learn a thing or two about dry wit from you.

Congratulations!

Thanks.

I'm glad you liked it. Honestly, I don't even care if Bhelen comes up with an even better way to pull it off next month as long as it isn't inevitable on that one trip...

[Sarah1281]

This is part two of 'Four Ways to Avoid Exile'

Way Two: The Advantages of Arriving Early

Gorim Saelac spend up to keep up with Lady Aeducan – he always thought of her as Lady Aeducan when they were in public to avoid slipping up and calling her Aunn, which would be scandalous to say the least – who was currently storming down the Aeducan Thaig towards the meeting place, the Shield of Aeducan securely attached to her back. It really wasn't much to look at but, as Lady Aeducan had taken the time to note before rushing off, great advances had been made in smithing since the First Blight and the shield was mostly being reclaimed for what it represented and if it had been the best around today then standards must have really fallen and Orzammar was in more trouble than anyone thought.

The scout they had encountered earlier and Frandlin Ivo were trailing along, clearly unhappy with the pace but unwilling to comment on it just the same. Lady Aeducan could have the scout killed merely for speaking to her and House Ivo was inconsequential enough that it did not need to risk offending a serious contender for the throne.

And yes, Lady Aeducan might have been pretending not to realize that Prince Trian's abrasiveness and condescension had been slowly but surely turning people against him for years but she'd seen it. She would have to be blind not to. Once the overly forward merchant from the day before had outright declared her the people's choice for Queen she had to at least acknowledge that there were those who would see her succeed her father, even if she was oh so very shocked by it all and would never have seen it coming.

Trian, naturally, realized what a threat Lady Aeducan was to him and was constantly watching for some sign of a plot on her part. Not that she would even necessarily need to get her brother out of the way to secure the throne but if the prince were still around it would make things more difficult since he had enough support in the Assembly to cause problems for her. No, the real threat – according to Lady Aeducan – was not her elder brother but her younger one. Prince Bhelen had warned them of Trian's impending treachery and Gorim was on the lookout for that but Lady Aeducan, while conceding that Trian might very well decide to attack her today, had focused on a threat from a rather unlikely source.

Lady Aeducan had made reference to Bhelen being an evil mastermind several times over the years but he had never thought she really believed that. Ever since Bhelen had warned them yesterday, however, she had been on high alert and advised Gorim to not let his guard down either. Why Lady Aeducan was choosing to focus on her inconspicuous and helpful little brother instead of her hostile and potentially homicidal older brother was beyond him, but he supposed that she had her reasons. It would be nice if she had felt the need to share what those reasons were or what she feared might happen, but since she hadn't he would just have to trust that she knew what she was doing.

Practically the moment the two of them were out of the rest of the expedition's sight, Lady Aeducan had taken off and had barely paused to allow the scout and Ivo to join them. After they'd reached their destination and walked into a trap, she had quickly killed the two mercenaries that were directly in her way and left the others for him and their two companions to deal with while she went in search of the shield. By the time they were done and had followed her in, she was just picking up the Shield, having used three medium-sized boulders to deal with the ancient safe-guard. The minute Lady Aeducan had the shield in her possession, she had taken off towards the meeting place, seemingly unconcerned with whether they were still behind her or not.

As they continued rapidly towards the meeting place, the sounds of fighting could be heard and Lady Aeducan increased her speed yet again. Gorim wasn't sure what she expected to find but he knew that he most certainly didn't expect to turn the corner to see Trian fighting for his life against not darkspawn but common mercenaries like the ones that had attacked them earlier. One of his guards had already fallen and the other was considerably wounded and would not last long.

Lady Aeducan stopped to watch the scene for a moment. "If I just stand here and let this happen it will come back to haunt me when I least expect it, won't it?" she asked almost rhetorically.

"Probably," Gorim confirmed. Sure, this would be a great opportunity to get Trian out of the way so he wouldn't cause problems later – either for Lady Aeducan's bid for the throne or even her continued existence – and they wouldn't even have to do anything but just the same…he cast a glance backwards at the scout and Ivo. The scout could be done away with easily, but questions always arose after the death of a noble. With the death of two, one of which was the heir to the throne, the risk just wouldn't be worth it. "Witnesses and whatnot."

"Right," Lady Aeducan nodded, looking determined. "Let's go."

She took off straight towards her brother, who had just fallen. Gorim quickly followed, drawing his sword. The scout and Ivo, he noted, hung back. It couldn't be hat they didn't want to fight as they were the ones who had requested to join the expedition at the last minute and had proven quite useful against the mercenaries. Something strange was going on.

There was a clash of metal as the Shield of Aeducan stopped the sword that was coming down on Trian's head. "I'm going to enjoy killing you," Lady Aeducan remarked pleasantly. It was never a good sign for her opponents when she used that tone of voice during a fight.

Not that Gorim had much time to worry about it as two of the mercenaries decided to double-team him. Neither of them were anywhere near his skill level – which was to be expected given that these thugs bore the brand of the casteless and he was a member of a prominent warrior house – but dealing with two opponents at once was never fun.

Nevertheless, the mercenaries' superior number could not match the skill of him, Lady Aeducan, and Trian (who had quickly recovered). Within ten minutes, the fight was over and he and the Aeducan siblings were victorious. Gorim looked back at the scout and Ivo, who were exchanging troubled glances. Was it just their cowardice and failure to aid the official heir to the throne that was bothering them or was it something else?

"Gorim, I got blood on the Shield of Aeducan," Lady Aeducan complained, inspecting said shield critically and frowning.

"That's what happens when you use shields in battle," Gorim replied easily. "I'm sure that under the circumstances your father will understand."

"He'd better," she grumbled. "Because this is in no way my fault."

"I don't understand," Trian spoke up.

Lady Aeducan cocked her head. "What's not to understand? If you hadn't been ambushed then I wouldn't have needed to use a family heirloom in battle and it wouldn't have gotten all bloody."

Trian scowled. "That wasn't what I meant."

"Perhaps you could elaborate on what, exactly, you meant then?" Lady Aeducan invited. "Or shall I keep guessing? That could take awhile but if you're in no particular hurry-"

"You know what I mean," Trian cut her off.

"I wouldn't dare presume," Lady Aeducan said matter-of-factly.

Trian rolled his eyes. "Fine. Why did you intercede on my behalf?"

"Because you were being attacked," Lady Aeducan replied innocently. "And you should really find some new guards because your old ones…well, they really weren't up to the task, were they?"

"I had realized that," Trian said dryly. "As my old guards are dead I will have to have them replaced regardless of their competence. Still, you know this would have been an excellent chance to get me out of the way. You could have just watched or even helped those mercenaries out."

Gorim was a little surprised that Trian was actually openly discussing his – possibly justified – paranoia that his sister would try to have him killed. Then again, Lady Aeducan saving his life had definitely thrown him for a loop and as Ivo and the scout had yet to come forward, he probably hadn't even realized that they were there.

"That would be highly impractical," Lady Aeducan informed him. "Because then I would have witnesses to my fratricide to dispose of."

"True," Trian agreed. "But as they appeared to be doing a decent job killing me on their own you could have simply left without drawing attention to your presence and nobody would have known."

Nobody but Gorim – that Trian knew of at least – but as he was Lady Aeducan's second that wouldn't have been an issue. The whole point of having seconds, besides having a buffer to the rest of society, was having someone whose fortune was so closely tied up to their own that the second wouldn't even consider betrayal no matter what they were doing. Given the ruthless nature of dwarven politics, having a good second was invaluable.

"I'm not sure what made you think otherwise, Trian, but I couldn't just let those men kill you!" Lady Aeducan exclaimed earnestly, having no doubt realized her brother's lack of awareness regarding the two hidden witnesses.

Trian's confusion wasn't abating. "But the throne-"

"**** the throne, Trian, you're my brother and so your life is infinitely more important to me," Lady Aeducan declared. She sounded sincere and Gorim couldn't help but wonder whether she actually meant it. Given her hesitation before stepping in, he rather doubted it although he supposed she could very well have come to that conclusion while deciding whether her brother would live or die.

Trian stared at her for a few seconds, looking for all the world as if he'd never seen her before. "I…" he started to say before the rest of the expedition came into view.

"It seems that your fear that Aunn would kill Trian is unfounded, Bhelen," King Endrin remarked, sounding pleased. Gorim rather doubted that – all things considered – the King had actually believed that his favorite child would get caught killing her brother, but the story was serious enough that it still needed to be checked out.

"I am overjoyed that I was mistaken about her intentions," Bhelen replied neutrally although if the look in his eyes were any indication then he was anything but and with good reason. If Trian were dead and Lady Aeducan had killed him, Bhelen would become the unlikely and unopposed heir to the throne.

"I was going to kill Trian?" Lady Aeducan echoed, sounding puzzled. She turned to him. "Gorim, why didn't you remind me that I wanted Trian dead before I stepped in and helped him fight off those mercenaries?"

"My apologies, my lady," Gorim replied dutifully.

"Trian was ambushed by mercenaries?" Harrowmont spoke up.

Lady Aeducan nodded. "Indeed. When I reached the Shield of Aeducan – which is right here by the way and sorry about the blood but, well, mercenaries – there were mercenaries waiting outside. They had somehow found a way in despite needing an Aeducan signet ring. As it happened, they had Trian's."

Trian started. "That's what happened to that? Casteless took it? I just bet that little plaything of Bhelen's had something to do with it."

"I think that's going a little far," Bhelen disagreed. "We don't know that."

"It disappeared from my room," Trian shot back. "She would have been the only casteless dwarf who had access to the Palace."

"We can figure that out later," Endrin interceded. "Please continue, Aunn."

"There was an ancient safe-guard protecting the shield from the likes of those mercenaries so they tried to force me to tell them how to access it. It ended badly for them," Lady Aeducan continued. "I was worried that more mercenaries might be around and I did not want to risk letting them get their hands on the Shield of the Paragon Aeducan and so I hurried back to the meeting place. When I got there, the other mercenaries I'd been trying to avoid had attacked Trian. Naturally, I stepped in."

"Does that sound right?" Endrin asked his son.

"It does," Trian confirmed. "I had finished my part sooner than expected and so my guards and I came here. We'd barely been there five minutes before we were swarmed by the casteless. My guards fell quickly and then Aunn arrived and…she saved my life." He clearly didn't like admitting that much but there really wasn't any way to dispute that as the three of them had a lot better odds of surviving the encounter than Trian on his own had. No one would believe that Lady Aeducan had been trying to kill Trian because if she had then there was no reason he would still be alive when his guards were dead and she and Gorim were still able to fight.

Endrin turned his head as he noticed movement out of the corner of his eye. "You two," he called out. "Did you see anything?"

The scout and Ivo reluctantly stepped forward.

"I could not see anything," the scout said slowly, shooting a quick, panicked glance at Bhelen.

"Nor could I," Ivo confirmed.

"Why didn't you help us?" Lady Aeducan demanded. "Yes, the three of us managed to defeat the mercenaries but with your aid it would have been accomplished much more easily."

"We were making sure that no one had a chance to ambush you from behind," Ivo averred.

"Your dedication is remarkable if you don't even stop preventing us from getting flanked while we're involved in a fight," Lady Aeducan noted dryly.

"I think we can all agree that while these two acted irresponsibly, bad judgment is not a crime," Bhelen stated.

"That is true," Endrin agreed reluctantly. "Although if the fight had not gone so well their negligence would most certainly be one. Nonetheless, I'm sure that the scout's commander – which would be Aunn – and Lord Ivo can deal with this."

Lady Aeducan looked delighted. "I'm sure I can find an appropriate response to such carelessness."

"Now, if everyone has arrived then we should return to Orzammar," Endrin announced.

As everyone turned to return to the city, both Aeducan princes looking unsettled although assuredly for different reasons, Gorim waited until he and Lady Aeducan were far enough off to the side of the group before quietly asking, "Is there any point in asking what just happened?"

"Trian and I just received a stay of execution," Lady Aeducan replied quietly.

"Well, Trian I can certainly understand since you saved him but you? And what was going on with Bhelen?" Gorim pressed.

"Bhelen tipped his hand yesterday; he wanted me to kill Trian. If I did and he knew I was going to, then he would be free to tattle on me later," Lady Aeducan confided.

"You told him you were going to wait and see what Trian did," Gorim reminded her.

"And thus the mercenaries. If I intended to kill Trian then clueing Trian in would result in one of us dying and the other being charged with and punished for kinslaying. If I had no plans to kill Trian then there was a chance that I would end up dead but I could manage to incapacitate him or talk him down," Lady Aeducan explained. "That's why I was in such a hurry; I didn't want to be framed. Now, there's a good chance that Bhelen will try to take one or both of us out of the way in the future, but the opportunity will never be as good. For one thing, we might not both be going off practically by ourselves into the Deep Roads again and my saving Trian when Bhelen convinced him I'd kill him should make things interesting."

That made sense. Kind of. "When did Bhelen convince Trian that you were going to kill him?" Gorim asked.

Lady Aeducan shrugged. "Oh, who knows? They've been spending far too much time together lately."

"That all sounds reasonable," Gorim told her. "Except…Bhelen? Why focus on him? Trian's the one who thinks you'll replace him."

"I might," Lady Aeducan pointed out. "And you can't seriously tell me you've never noticed that Bhelen's an evil mastermind. I mean, for one thing, he's nice."

"Most people would assume that 'nice' equated to 'not an evil mastermind'," Gorim retorted.

Lady Aeducan laughed. "True enough, but then my brother is a dwarven politician. And alive! Why does no one but me ever notice these things?"

[Sarah1281]

This is part three of 'Four Ways To Avoid Exile.'

Princess Aunn Aeducan knew only three things for certain. One, Trian really wanted her out of the way and could very well resort to extreme measures. Two, if Bhelen were really half as dim-witted or helpful as he appeared to be then she would have difficulty believing he was even still alive, let alone so adept at staying out of trouble. Three, this expedition to the Aeducan Thaig with only Gorim at her side was an excellent place to have an 'accident.'

Trian and Bhelen hadn't always been the wicked older brother and the well-meaning but ultimately foolish younger brothers, of course. When she was younger she'd used to follow Trian around everywhere but as they'd gotten older and they'd started to understand the threat that she represented – especially given her inexplicable ability to make people love her – thing had become…difficult, to say the least.

And then there was Bhelen. He'd started off promisingly enough as a child but around the time he turned eleven he just sort of stopped. He didn't suddenly act the fool because Ancestors knew that would have attracted all sorts of attention that he would have presumably been trying to avoid. Rather, he just slowed his progress considerably until he had firmly cemented his status as the untalented one. Bhelen's seeming lack of ambition or any sort of real ability made it easy for Trian to trust him but Aunn had never been that sure.

That was what made the current situation so vexing. Their father was growing old and everyone knew the time for the Assembly to decide upon their next ruler was drawing near at hand. While Aunn herself would rather run off and join the Grey Wardens than become Queen and remain in Orzammar forever, her father was quite firmly against the idea and so she may as well try for the throne. If she didn't get it she could always go with her backup plan: running off and joining the Grey Wardens. The human Warden she spoke to, Duncan, was quite convinced a Blight was coming and no one could blame her for wanting to protect Orzammar from that, right?

Trian had been the heir to the throne since the day he was born and he wanted to be King so badly it was hard for her to really comprehend. His hostility was certainly not appreciated but it was understood and fairly predictable. While he was a threat, he was one that she expected. Bhelen, on the other hand, was unpredictable. He'd been spending nearly every waking moment with Trian for months now and then all of a sudden he decides to switch sides? And because Trian might view him as a threat? She didn't know quite what to make of that, to be honest, but she'd be a fool to just trust it. There was only one person that she trusted completely and that was Gorim. It was always easy to trust someone whose fortune depended on yours, after all.

The fact that he was in love with her definitely helped her believe that he, unlike practically everyone else she knew, wouldn't turn on her if the situation called for it. The reason she loved him was simple: she could trust him. It was a little sad that such a basic concept was so rare in her world, but there it was. What she didn't quite understand, though, was why he allowed himself to fall for her. While Aunn was quite convinced of her own awesomeness and, more specifically, knew she was very pretty, more intelligent than most of the people she knew, could make nearly anyone love her given sufficient time and motivation, and hadn't been defeated in a fight since she was sixteen, she was also a Princess while he was a warrior and so they were doomed before they even started. Gorim was young, certainly, but not naïve. Were they caught, it wouldn't be her that paid the price for their dalliance.

As Bhelen was quite emphatically not Gorim, Aunn would be taking anything that he said with a grain of salt. Trian planned to attack her in the Thaig today? That was quite possible but why warn her? Trian might see Bhelen himself as a threat and he'd rather stick with the less-fratricidal sibling? Please, the only threat Trian was capable of seeing these days was her. One thing she did realize was that Bhelen was trying to talk her into making a preemptive strike. Aunn, Ancestors help her, would honestly prefer not to become a Kinslayer. Kinslaying was one of the most heinous of crimes in Orzammar and even if she could get away with it, it wouldn't sit right with her.

If Trian attacked her then she would be ready and she would do what she had to, make no mistake, but she wouldn't be the instigator. That may be a mistake, but by waiting and seeing her chances of being Bhelen's lackey went down significantly. And Bhelen was planning something. If he wasn't and was content to let Trian and Aunn fight over the throne, he never would have involved himself by accusing Trian of violent intentions yesterday. Since she had made it clear that a preemptive strike was no in the cards, she wasn't quite sure how he would react. Only a fool would just assume that she would say yes and have no plan in case should she refuse to act and so she had to watch out for whatever he was up to, as well.

The safest thing to do, given what a perfect place the Thaig was for an ambush and everyone would be going off by themselves, would be to simply not go on the expedition. Sadly, since the whole point of the expedition was to start off her military career, that was hardly an option. Her father had sent her off to find the legendary Shield of Aeducan, lost to the ages but wielded by the founder of her house himself. There were a lot of reasons that one became a Paragon. Dwarves had become Paragons for being especially good servants (posthumously, of course, and preferably if they had no family), for discovering that nugs were edible, and for being especially good with rhymes. Not her house.

Paragon Aeducan had made his mark in a rather more dramatic and awe-inspiring way. He had saved Orzammar from the darkspawn. The Shaper taught that the Thaigs of the ancient dwarven empire were falling left and right and the whole city was in a panic. Everyone had retreated to Orzammar – despite its proximity to the surface – as it was the easiest city to defend but the nobles were squabbling, as they were apt to do, about where they should send their troops. No one was willing to let their Thaig fall to save another's and it looked like the games the nobles played would doom everyone and the surface dwarves would be the only legacy the empire left behind. The then-warrior Aeducan had no patience for politics and wrote the Assembly off. He appealed directly to the lower castes to aid in Orzammar's defense and, against all odds, he did it. He saved the city and he was quite unashamedly guilty of treason. The Assembly could either send him to the surface or make him a Paragon. Given the circumstances, they chose the former.

Aunn was, understandably, exceedingly proud of her heritage and determined to find that particular heirloom, even if it hadn't been her assigned task for the expedition. Shortly after she and Gorim had set off, they ran into a scout who offered to join up with them and, since the Deep Roads really were very dangerous – even this close to Orzammar itself – Aunn had agreed. A little while after that they had run into the fighter she had defeated in the finals of her Proving the day before, one of the Ivos, she thought. He didn't really have an explanation for why he was just wandering around the Thaig but he had also joined them. For some reason their presence made her nervous. Was it overly paranoid to suspect that if something were to happen they could serve as 'unbiased witnesses'? And not in her favor, either.

While Gorim was only worried about Trian, she had been so paranoid about practically everything since she had left Bhelen in Trian's room the day before and was actually almost relieved to see the mercenaries stationed outside of the building she was supposed to find the Shield in. They had somehow managed to get their hand on an Aeducan signet ring – Trian's, she had discovered, when she'd taken it from a casteless corpse – but they proved incapable of solving a simple logic puzzle. Aunn herself had quickly deduced that the oddly-colored stones were the key and had her followers stand on them to reveal the Shield. Apparently such obvious brainteasers were more than enough to keep most people out, difficult though that was to believe.

As her objective was complete, Aunn knew that what she should do was promptly return to the meeting place and wait for the rest of the expedition. Just the same, she didn't know how those casteless mercenaries had gotten Trian's ring, why they attacked her, if the scout and Ivo had ulterior motives to accompanying her, or if there were more surprises on her way back. What she did know, aside from the three facts she'd been dwelling on all day, was that where she was seemed safe enough and if she stayed with her back to the building no one could sneak up on her.

Aunn eyed one of the fallen mercenaries speculatively. "Gorim, is this one still alive?"

Gorim bent down to check for a pulse. "Indeed, my lady. Would you like to rectify that or wake him for questioning?"

"Wake him," Aunn ordered.

Gorim splashed some water onto the unconscious man's face and within moments the casteless dwarf's eyes started fluttering.

"What's going on?" the man asked blearily, sitting up. They had taken his weapon and had him outnumbered so that was safe enough.

"That was what I was just about to ask," Aunn replied. "Do you know who I am?"

"Who doesn't know who the Princess is?" the man shot back.

Aunn shrugged. "Fair enough. Why did you attack me?"

The man didn't answer.

"Alright, let's start with an easier question," Aunn decided. "You're casteless, right?"

"What was your first clue?" the man sneered. "The brand on my face?"

He clearly expected that he would be killed – and with good reason – and had decided not to beg for his life. Aunn could respect that, even if it was irritating. She nodded. "That was what first gave me the idea, yes. Who are you?"

"Bazim," Bazim replied.

"I haven't met too many casteless," Aunn mused. "What's it like to have no caste?"

"Everyone insists that we shouldn't have been born and since we were we ought to have been killed as babies as we're thieving, begging abominations that have no Ancestors," Bazim replied. "How do you think?"

"Well, if I knew I wouldn't have asked," Aunn sniffed. "And Dust Town?"

"I have never seen such a wretched hive of scum and villainy," Bazim declared. "Although, admittedly, I haven't been many places. Still, I think I might actually prefer to live in the Deep Roads. I mean, sure, there's a minor darkspawn infestation but it's really quite nice."

"The Deep Roads seem nice?" Aunn sounded horrified. "No wonder Father won't let me go down there…Your friend had my brother's signet ring, do you know where he got it?"

"Probably from him," Bazim replied.

"Were you hired to attack me?" Aunn pressed. "I refuse to believe Trian just misplaced the ring and it ended up with the carta, particularly as your leader knew about the Shield of Aeducan and where it was located when even we only discovered the location recently."

"If you have all the answers then why ask me?" Bazim challenged.

"Because I don't have all the answers and I'm going to get the ones I don't have from you one way or another," Aunn warned. "Did Trian hire you or did Bhelen? Or was it someone else entirely? And what were you supposed to do besides attack me?"

"It's not my job to know these things," Bazim insisted. "If you wanted to know details you shouldn't have killed our leader."

"I think you know more than you're saying," Aunn said flatly. "But if you don't want to tell me now, that's fine. I'll find my answers sooner or later."

Bazim frowned. "What do you mean?"

Before Aunn could answer, the rest of the expedition came into view.

"Aunn," her father called out, looking concerned. "Are you alright?"

"Of course," Aunn replied, a little confused. "I know I took a little longer than I was supposed to recovering the Shield but I was ambushed by some mercenaries." She gestured towards Bazim. "I haven't gotten much out of the survivor, but that will change soon enough. Is something wrong?"

"Trian…" her father began.

"Did something happen to Trian?" she asked, letting a trace of alarm seep into her voice. They had better not blame her for whatever had happened; she had barely moved since she arrived.

"Trian is dead," her father told her.

"What happened?" Aunn demanded, beginning to get a bad feeling about this. Still, it was paramount that she stayed calm until she knew that she was safe. "Was it a darkspawn?"

"We do not know," Harrowmont answered her. "When we arrived at the designated meeting place he and his guards were already slain and there was no sign of the perpetrator. Bhelen was concerned that you might have done it."

"Me?" Aunn repeated, sounding stunned. "But…I haven't even had time to leave yet. How could I have-? No," she shook her head. "He's not dead. He can't be."

"I am sorry, Aunn," her father said gently. "But I was his body myself."

Aunn closed her eyes.

"You're honestly claiming that you had nothing to do with this?" Bhelen demanded.

Her eyes flew open. "Of course I didn't! Why would you think I had anything to do with this?"

"You and Trian had been getting more hostile towards each other by the day," Bhelen pointed out. "You're the natural suspect."

"I…we didn't always get along, and I deeply regret that now that I'll never have a chance to change that," Aunn admitted. "But I would never want Trian dead. He's my brother."

"And the throne?" Bhelen challenged.

Aunn blinked at him uncomprehendingly. "The throne? Bhelen, I'm not sure if you somehow missed this but our brother is dead and you're concerned about succession? Obviously they'll be a change now that Trian's dead, but now is really not the time to worry about that!"

"It is if that's why Trian's dead," Bhelen disagreed. "Now that he's dead, that makes you the heir, doesn't it?"

"Probably," Aunn said tiredly. So that was Bhelen's plan, or at least part of it. Have Trian killed and then blame her. It probably would have worked better had she actually returned to the meeting place like she'd been supposed to, but that didn't mean that she was out of the Deep Roads yet. And no wonder he wanted her to kill Trian herself: it was a lot easier to tattle on someone than it was to frame them for fratricide. "But that's hardly my fault and Father can feel free to appoint anyone he likes as his new heir, preferably after Train's body has cooled."

"I was wrong, you know," Bhelen admitted quietly.

"About what?" Aunn asked suspiciously. Chances are she didn't want to hear this.

"Yesterday, when I warned you that I thought Trian might try to attack you. I should have been warning him about you," Bhelen continued, sounding faintly sick.

"Do you remember after that, as well?" Aunn countered. "When I thanked you for looking out for me and said that if Trian attacked me I would defend myself but take no other action than that? If Trian did attack me and I had to defend myself, I wouldn't have run away and I certainly wouldn't have denied it. But, like you said, you were wrong about that and I haven't even seen him since he left us yesterday afternoon."

"A likely story," Bhelen sneered.

"That's enough, Bhelen," her father said firmly. "You're upsetting your sister and there is no reason to think that Aunn was in any way involved with this tragedy."

"I apologize, Father," Bhelen said dutifully.

"Perhaps one of Aunn's companions could confirm that Aunn has remained here and lay the matter to rest?" Harrowmont suggested.

"An excellent suggestion," her father agreed.

"We came straight here, engaged the casteless mercenaries who tried to ambush us, found the Shield of Aeducan, and were questioning the only survivor when you showed up," Gorim spoke up immediately.

The scout didn't reply. Aunn figured that was because he either would agree with her story and there would be no point in repeating what happened or because he wanted to disagree but as he was only a warrior caste – and not very high up by the looks of it – he knew that his word would never be enough to condemn her. And she was still probably being paranoid but given that the brother who was supposed to have attacked her was dead and the brother who had 'warned her' was trying to make this her fault, she felt entitled.

Ivo shot an uncertain look at Bhelen before saying slowly, "I only joined the expedition halfway here. Once I encountered Lady Aeducan we came straight here and haven't left, though I cannot speak of what happened before I arrived."

So Ivo, at least, was being bribed. That made his whole 'may you find honor today and tomorrow' rather mean-spirited, didn't it? Since she was supposed to have been framed a little more adeptly than this? Thank the Ancestors she'd decided to take her time. And she would have to remember to get him for that.

"That is enough to convince me that Aunn could not have been involved," her father declared. "As the only opportunity she would have had to commit the crime was before Trian could have possibly finished his task and returned to the meeting place. Though that still leaves the question of what happened to Trian?"

Aunn thought she knew exactly what happened to Trian but that looking too closely at it was sure to cause a scandal. "Maybe the mercenaries who attacked me also went after him," she suggested. "You could question Bazim here; he'd probably know what happened."

"That sounds like a good starting place," her father agreed. "And now, let us return to Orzammar and tell them the news."

Aunn let out a sigh of relief as they started back towards the city. "Do you remember when I said Bhelen was an evil mastermind?" she whispered to Gorim as they moved off to the side. "This is kind of what I meant."

Gorim looked intrigued. "You think he had Trian killed? That would make sense given that he was serving as your father's second and thus was beyond suspicion."

"And he tried to frame me," Aunn added. "The scout and Ivo were clearly bribed and I don't even want to know what else he had planned."

"But you managed to avoid his trap, my lady," Gorim reminded her. "And this means that you're almost guaranteed to succeed your father."

"Probably," Aunn agreed. "If Bhelen doesn't kill me in my sleep or something. We need to watch out for him until the new ruler is crowned after Father dies."

Gorim nodded. "Agreed."

It was going to be a LONG however-long-her-father-had-left, wasn't it?

[Sarah1281]

Here's the fourth and final part of 'Four Ways to Avoid Exile.'

Way Four: Making Use of the Murder-Knife

Frandlin Ivo was nearly positive that this was a very bad idea. Getting involved in succession disputes never ended well, especially for someone like him who just barely qualified as noble. People like him were always the ones to die when someone couldn't get to who he was working for. Still, Prince Bhelen had threatened to crush him if he didn't help and promised to elevate his entire House if he did so Ivo would just have to hope that Prince Trian and Princess Aunn really would obligingly try to kill each other so that he could slander whoever was left standing.

It had started out easily enough: there was a big expedition and Trian and Aunn were heading off away from the watchful eyes of their father and the other Lords accompanying the expedition. He had been briefed about Aunn's mission and the location of the Shield in advance and so had been waiting for her along the way. Once she had shown up, he had volunteered to aid her in her quest and that was that. She might have looked a little suspicious, but she had still acquiesced to his request and that was good enough for him.

The mercenaries blocking her way to the Shield weren't enough to slow her down and as he watched her fight he felt more than a little relieved no one expected him to oppose her outside of strictly-regulated Proving – she had won with very little effort anyway – and that the Aeducan signet ring she found on the mercenaries was enough to shift her focus onto how that had come to be.

His job was simple: witness Aunn and Trian's fight and testify that the winner ambushed the loser. If it seemed like a fight would be avoided – unlikely but possible – force the issue without raising undue suspicion.

Currently they – Aunn, her second Gorim, a scout whose name he did not know but who he thought might also be in Bhelen's employ, and himself – had just returned to their meeting place to find Trian and his men waiting for them.

"Atrast vala, sister," Trian greeted her coldly. He didn't acknowledge anyone else, even his fellow noble, but that was hardly surprising. Trian had never had time for those he deemed beneath him and he had been rather fixated on his sister and her popularity as of late.

Aunn groaned, appearing not to notice the hostility. She almost certainly had but she preferred to be infuriatingly glib in conversation. "Again with the 'sister.' Why do you and Bhelen refuse to use my name? Do you hate it or something? But never mind, I'm sure you'll pretend not to have any idea what I'm talking about. Hello, Trian."

"I have no idea what you mean, Aunn," Trian denied, pointedly making use of his sister's name.

"I would like to submit that you only said that because I pointed out that you never do so my point still stands," Aunn insisted.

"I may be here, but I am not unaware or outnumbered," Trian said loudly, ignoring her.

Aunn blinked. "Okay…so you feel the need to let me know that you're paying attention to your surroundings and have avoided being cornered by a large group of darkspawn? Thanks for the heads-up but I am also paying attention to my surroundings and have managed to come to that conclusion all by myself."

"Well, that is true," Trian conceded, "but that wasn't what I meant."

"Where are the others?" Aunn asked, looking around.

"They will arrive soon enough," Trian answered ominously. "I wanted to see you first-"

There weren't many people who would be willing to interrupt the Crown Prince of Orzammar. Aunn Aeducan, unsurprisingly, was one of them. "Really?" she asked brightly. "You came early just to see me? Are you feeling alright, big brother? Normally you leave the room within minutes of me showing up whenever you think you can get away with it…which pretty much means whenever Father isn't there."

"This is a special occasion, isn't it?" Trian allowed, not even bother to argue the truth of her statement. "I wanted to look into your treacherous eyes and tell you I know what you have planned."

Aunn was visibly surprised. "You do? Are you certain? If so, you must see that we need to talk. Alone."

"Anything you have to say can be said here, in front of our men," Trian disagreed.

Aunn snorted. "I highly doubt that. For one thing, it's a rather sensitive subject. For another, well, you'll probably yell at me later for not showing proper decorum in discussing this in front of other people."

"If that is my biggest concern when all of this is over, sister, I could hardly complain," Trian said frankly. Aunn was right; he never did actually address her by name, did he?

"See, you did it again!" Aunn exclaimed. "I bet you do it on purpose, too…And I know you; you will absolutely lecture me on it later."

"If you have something to say, then just say it," Trian commanded.

"Alright," Aunn said slowly, her tone clearly warning her brother that if he didn't like what she had to say she had offered to speak to him in private. "Where's your signet ring, Trian?"

"My signet ring?" Trian repeated, a little thrown. Clearly he hadn't expected that to be brought up first or maybe even at all. "I…didn't wear it today. I didn't want risk losing it in battle."

"So it's in your room then?" Aunn asked him, the very picture of innocence. "You didn't give it to mercenaries so they could steal our most important family heirloom?" That was another thing to know about the princess: she had a minor obsession with her heritage and everyone knew she would like nothing more than to run off and join the Grey Wardens. Ivo wasn't entirely sure why that made people want her to be their next Queen even more, but there you had it.

"Of course not!" Trian declared passionately, though probably falsely. If Aunn had managed to lose the shield, it would have been a bad way to begin her career as commander. Not that she'd have much of a career if Bhelen's plan succeeded. "How dare you accuse me of your own treachery!"

"You mean I gave mercenaries your signet ring so they could steal the shield that I'm supposed to recover and cause me to fail at my first mission as commander?" Aunn asked, sounding shocked. "That's almost too diabolical for words! In fact, it's so brilliant that I can't even see how it would benefit me in the slightest, which means that no one would ever suspect! Well, except you, I guess, but you always suspect me of everything anyway so that doesn't really count."

"That's not what I meant and you know it," Trian growled.

"Do I?" Aunn asked rhetorically, raising an eyebrow. "You know, this conversation would be a lot less fraught with misunderstandings if you could just spell it out for me. I'm certain you remember that one incident where I thought we were talking about cheese and you thought I was talking about your girlfriend. That didn't go well, did it? And surely you have no problem clarifying seeing as how you insisted that anything we needed to talk about could be said right here."

"You think I fear to name your treachery?" Trian sneered. Ivo had never really had an opportunity to observe the elder two Aeducan siblings interact but clearly Trian's strategy for dealing with Aunn's numerous tangents was to just ignore them whenever possible and stubbornly stick to the matter at hand, which was proving surprisingly effective. "You have plotted to murder me so you could take my place as heir!" he accused.

Aunn cocked her head. "I did?" she asked blankly. "You think I would have been informed of this at some point. Gorim, why wasn't I informed?"

"Your plotting was apparently so great a secret that you never informed me, my lady," Gorim replied. "My apologies for not realizing anyway."

There was something rather odd about the way that Aunn and her second interacted but for the life of him Ivo couldn't put his finger on it. Perhaps it was just that Gorim obliged her refusal to have a serious conversation if it could be at all avoided?

"Don't play coy," Trian snapped. "You convinced Bhelen to help take me and my men by surprise."

"Evidently not or you wouldn't have heard of it," Aunn said dryly. "And Bhelen would be here, for that matter."

"Do you deny it?" Trian demanded, sounding more uncertain about whether she would profess innocence than in whether she actually was.

Aunn hesitated and Ivo wondered if she was planning something after all. "Well, not 'deny' exactly. I mean, that just makes it sound like I'm actually guilty but just pretending otherwise?"

"Aren't you?" Trian challenged. "But we're not here to discuss semantics. Is it true?"

"It's not true," Aunn swore, her eyes blazing. There weren't many people who would doubt the princess when her voice was full of such conviction.

Trian Aeducan, naturally, was one of them. "Just stop," he said, a little bitterly. "You have gone too far this time. Your grandstanding at the Provings, I could overlook. You showing off at the expense of elderly Lord Dace, I could overlook. That the nobles love you when you have accomplished nothing…this I have learned to forgive." And chances were it had taken him years as that had long since been the biggest threat to Trian succeeding his father, especially as Bhelen had yet to tip his hand. "I know I will never be loved in Orzammar, but I will rule. Nothing, not even treacherous kin, will stop me from claiming my birthright." Of course, he was very likely wrong about that and very much mistaken about which kin he had to fear.

Aunn was quiet for a long moment. "Are you sure you want to have this conversation right now?" Ivo didn't think he'd ever heard her sound that serious but, then again, his contact with before yesterday was extremely limited.

"If we don't have it now, then we never will," Trian's response was equally serious.

"I suppose that's true," Aunn said with a wry smile. Were they actually going to start opening discussing what was going on behind the scenes? That would be something to see. "Fine. Let's start with my winning the Provings yesterday. It was hardly 'grandstanding' as that would be imply that my actions were taking attention off of something more important. I didn't do that. It was my Proving held in my honor."

"Entering your own Proving is hardly proper," Trian was quick to point out.

Aunn rolled her eyes. "You're just annoyed because there weren't any Provings held when you got your first commission and yes, before you ask, I did find that out from reading your journal. If you didn't want me to do that you never should have left me unsupervised in your room and you can yell at me about 'invading your privacy' or whatever later when you're not accusing me of the slightly more serious charge of plotting fratricide."

"Agreed," Trian said reluctantly. "But we will be talking about this later."

Aunn sighed. "If it makes you feel any better, the Proving was mostly organized because Lord Harrowmont realized that I have no interest in noble boys and was hoping that by seeing them fight it might change my mind. You were already involved with Jaylia Helmi when you first got a commission and a lot of the female fighters are Silent Sisters anyway."

"So you entered your own Proving and caused a minor scandal in order to avoid a few cursory match-making attempts?" Trian asked incredulously.

"Don't get me wrong; if anyone had managed to beat me I would have been very interested," Aunn assured him. "But there really wasn't much hope of that happening. You were the last person to defeat me and Ancestors know that was seven years ago. But to answer your original question, yes, that was why I entered. Well, that and my love of minor scandals."

Trian covered his eyes with his hand. "By the stone, you're almost as bad as Bhelen…"

"I'm going to assume you mean that I was being immature and not that I have no soul," Aunn sniffed, sounding a bit affronted.

Trian looked confused. "You don't think Bhelen has a soul?"

"I'll get to that," Aunn promised. "You may not be aware of this but that Proving I fought against Lord Dace's son? It was because he cornered me at my feast yesterday to entreat me to support his efforts at restoring the surface castes to their Houses. He claimed that his wife wanted her cousin to be able to return to Orzammar but what he was actually after was getting reimbursed for a bad deal by the noble Houses – including our own – that would have been forced to pay off the debt our distant relatives on the surface incurred. Not only would our House have suffered greatly if I had fallen for Lord Dace's schemes but it would have set a bad precedent and so unless I wanted people to walk all over me then I had to react strongly at the start. It's not like he was some innocent victim in my epic quest to show off and make more people love me."

"You killed his only son. That's a bit extreme since he didn't even succeed in fooling you," Trian declared.

"I regret nothing," Aunn claimed.

Trian just shook his head. "You never do."

"I never have to. As for the nobles…it's hardly my fault that people love me," Aunn said, sounding as if she'd had this argument a hundred times before. "Yes, I try to listen to other people, help out when I can, and generally refrain from acting like I'm above everyone else but it's not like I'm a Paragon. I do plenty of things that should earn me some animosity and yet it never seems to. Sure, Lord Dace is upset about his son but he didn't seem to take it as personally as he could have and the rest of his House isn't holding it against me, either. I doubt you could ever have my inexplicable ability to make people love me but, if nothing else, you could always try to be less condescending."

"I am not condescending," Trian insisted. "And I don't need to be taking advice on how to behave from someone who would turn to fratricide so easily. You and your companions will throw down your weapons, confess your treason, and be tried in front of the Assembly." He sounded so certain that that was how it was going to play out, but Ivo knew that it wouldn't.

Sure enough, Aunn's eyes flashed. "I will confess to nothing as I have don't nothing! Still, if it will ease your paranoia and let us settle this in a rational manner then I will…" She could her eyes, looking as if she were in physical pain. "Surrender."

"Are you sure you wish to do this, my lady?" Gorim asked respectfully.

Aunn snorted. "Not nearly but Trian seems to have gotten it into his head that I'm out to kill him."

The scout tipped his hand as Bhelen's agent when he got a crazed look in his eyes and shouted, "Never! A warrior does not surrender meekly! Attack!"

Ivo tensed, preparing for the fight to start as Trian started to say, "Kill the tra-"

He stopped mid-word as the scout fell over, a dagger sticking out of his head.

"The murder-knife strikes again," Aunn announced. This happened often?

"It's quite a menace," Gorim agreed. This…wasn't the way it was supposed to go. Why would a princess who was trying to avoid getting into a lethal fight with her older brother not listen to a scout no one cared enough about to learn his name when he decided to attack? Or maybe he just answered his own question…

Ivo was caught of guard as Aunn suddenly turned and glared at him. "If you so much as say a single word, you're next," she warned.

Ivo quickly nodded to show that he understood. Surely Bhelen couldn't blame him for Aunn being willing to kill to stop a murder, could he?

"Did you just kill your own man?" Trian asked in disbelief. "That will hardly increase your chances of killing me."

"No," Aunn said shortly.

"But I just saw you throw a dagger at his head," Trian protested.

"Yes, I did do that," Aunn acknowledged.

"And yet you just said that-" Trian began.

"He's not 'my' man," Aunn interrupted again. "We just ran into him and he decided to follow me around. Besides, he was trying to provoke a fight and we had just agreed to resolve this peacefully." Well, peacefully if you didn't count the murder-knife.

"You agreed not to fight right now, yes," Trian disagreed. "But you refuse to admit to your treason!"

"What treason?" Aunn demanded. "If I say that I plotted your death then the Assembly will cast me out and I while I know that people keep saying I should become Queen I am not willing to get exiled so you feel more secure as the heir!"

"That's not what this is about!" Trian shot back. "This is about you seeking to kill me!"

"And where did you get that idea?" Aunn challenged. "From Bhelen?"

"As it happens, yes," Trian confirmed. "He was quite concerned about your murderous intentions."

"Funny," Aunn smiled humorlessly. "He told me the same thing about you."

"Why would I kill you?" Trian inquired. "I'm already the heir."

"Because you're not sure that will be enough?" Aunn suggested. "And I believe that what I actually said wasn't 'I'm going to kill Trian tomorrow' but rather 'if Trian tries something I'll be ready.' Lo and behold, you're the one who confronted me."

"What are you saying?" Trian asked skeptically. "That Bhelen warned us both that he feared we were plotting against each other?"

"No, I think he set us up for a confrontation and bribed the scout to force a fight if it looked like this could be settled peacefully," Aunn corrected. "He may have also bribed Ivo – which is why he's not allowed to talk – but I'm not sure. Just happening to find them wandering around the Thaig seeking an expedition to join is highly suspicious, you know." And…wow she got it in one. At least she wasn't certain of his involvement so he'd only have to worry about a reprisal from Bhelen for failing (because it was pretty clear by now that the plan was a failure).

"Bhelen," Trian repeated as if that were enough of a counterargument. For all that Bhelen apparently spent all his time with Trian, it was clear that their sister knew him far better.

"Why are you so eager to believe that I'm plotting all manner of nefarious deeds but Bhelen's not planning anything?" Aunn asked, annoyed. "He's in line for the throne, too, if you'll recall."

"Because I am all that is standing between you and the throne and Bhelen is, well, BHELEN," Trian responded promptly.

"And if one of us kills the other and is arrested and exiled for kinslaying, he'll be the heir," Aunn pointed out logically.

"Don't be absurd," Train dismissed her claims.

"I'm not. Don't be narrow-minded," Aunn countered. "Especially when your refusal to recognize a credible threat could come back to haunt me."

"You have no proof to substantiate your claims," Trian retorted.

"Neither did Bhelen but you had no problem believing him," Aunn complained. She reached into her pocket just as the rest of the expedition came into view. "Here's your signet ring, by the way. I found it on a mercenary who tried to stop me from recovering the shield. Fortunately, they all seemed to lack basic problem-solving skills so I was able to stop them even though they got there first."

"Aunn, Trian, what's going on?" King Endrin asked, no doubt wondering about the dead body and the argument in progress.

"Trian decided that I'm out to kill him and so we decided to let you and, if necessary, the Assembly handle it," Aunn answered immediately.

Endrin looked alarmed at that. "Trian?"

"I have reason to believe that my sister is plotting something," Trian began.

"So nice of you to let both of us know that the other was planning to kill us, Bhelen," Aunn said sweetly. "It was such a help in attempting to resolve this peacefully."

"I have nothing to do with this," Bhelen, who had been glaring accusingly at Ivo, insisted, holding up his hands placatingly. "I just didn't want to see a tragedy befall our family."

"You're a regular Paragon," Aunn said dryly.

"Trian, do you have any reason to believe this other than Bhelen's word?" Endrin asked gravely. "Conspiracy to commit fratricide is a serious crime."

"Well, no," Trian admitted. "But all I planned to do was confront her, force her to confess, and then turn her over to the Assembly."

"And I have no intentions of confessing to anything, particularly something like this that I'm not actually guilty of," Aunn declared.

"What reason did you have to believe that Aunn would try to kill Trian?" Endrin asked his youngest son.

"I told her that I was concerned that Trian was taking her new position badly and she said not to worry because she was planning on killing him," Bhelen replied.

"That's not how it happened!" Aunn objected. "You said you were worried that Trian might attack me and I said not to worry because if he did then I would be able to take care of myself. Are you honestly telling me that all of this is the result of a miscommunication?" That was a far cry from what she was saying before her father had arrived but accusing Bhelen of being involved when there was even less proof would be a pointless endeavor and just make this drag on.

Endrin sighed. "Is it too much to ask that you don't try to kill each other until after you have all the facts? Or preferably  not at all?"

"Of course it isn't," Aunn told him.

"What about Aunn's plan?" Trian demanded.

"I still have nothing to do with this," Bhelen lied.

"Trian, we have no reason to think that your sister was planning anything," Endrin answered. "If you're really that concerned then just keep a closer eye on her."

"Fun…" Aunn muttered.

As Endrin then proceeded to ask about the results of the various tasks the expedition was to perform Ivo could feel Bhelen's eyes on him. This was going to be a problem, wasn't it?

And was it strange he was starting to feel a little jealous of that poor, murder-knifed scout?

[phaonica]

I'm terrible at writing reviews, so you'll have to forgive me. Your fics are really entertaining, and the sarcasm in them makes me lol.

[Sarah1281]

My sixteenth one is 'One Night, One Kid, One Problem' where the DNM runs into a woman who claims to have had his child and who he doesn't even vaguely remember.


"I really am sorry," Leliana apologized again as she, Morrigan, Reidin, and Trian made their way through the Diamond Quarter. "I didn't mean it."

Reidin sighed. This little return trip to Orzammar was really turning out to be more difficult than he'd thought it would be and now he had to figure out who he wanted to give the throne. Honestly, didn't the fact that Grey Wardens were supposed to be neutral and he was an exile mean anything to these people? Not that either would have stopped him if he had really cared about the result but he didn't and so was annoyed that he had to get involved. "It doesn't matter."

"You're still upset," Leliana pressed. "I can tell."

"Am I?" Reidin asked rhetorically.

"You just bought Morrigan a golden mirror," Leliana exclaimed as if that settled the matter and crossed her arms.

"Maybe it was just an expression of my appreciation that she didn't feel the need to ramble on about her job prospects as official 'tall shelf reacher,'" Reidin suggested sarcastically.

"I knew you were still mad," Leliana said triumphantly.

"Well, 'twas most insensitive," Morrigan spoke up, sounding as if she were enjoying this immensely. "Reidin is hardly helpless and so it stands to reason that those who raised him to be like would be the same."

"Thank you, Morrigan," Reidin turned and smiled at her. "Have I mentioned how beautiful you are today?"

Morrigan raised an eyebrow. "Just today?"

"Every day," Reidin corrected himself. "But I'm so overcome by your beauty right now that I just had to say something."

As Morrigan smirked, Leliana pouted. "Oh come on!" she protested. "I didn't mean it!"

"Your subconscious clearly did," Reidin sniffed.

"You!" a loud voice from behind them called out as they passed the Harrowmont estate.

Reidin turned around to see an angry blonde casteless woman storming towards him holding a baby. In his experience, that was never a good thing. "Me?" he asked innocently. "I swear I probably didn't do it and if I did I either had a very good reason or else I just thought it was funny."

"You got me pregnant and then left me destitute!" the woman accused.

Reidin winced. He'd been afraid that was what she was going to say. "Did I? Well…I'm sorry. I don't understand how this happened. Normally I use protection."

"You never use protection," Morrigan and Leliana countered at the same time and they glared at each other.

"Well now I don't," Reidin explained. "Being a Grey Warden is using protection as far as I'm concerned. I always used it before, though, so I'm really kind of confused about how I had a child. I assume that this is he?"

"It is," the woman nodded. "And you're a father because I was supposed to get pregnant! That was the whole point."

Reidin frowned. "Really? That's strange. But if you got what you wanted then what's the problem?"

"You…" the woman trailed off as realization set in. "You don't remember me, do you?"

"I don't, sorry," Reidin apologized, looking appropriately sheepish. "But I'm sure that the sex was fantastic."

"My name is Mardy," Mardy introduced. "And I'll admit that it was. You, Teli, and I were up for hours."

"A threesome, huh?" Reidin asked, intrigued. "I approve."

"Well keep in mind that I don't share," Morrigan warned, completely ignoring the fact that the exiled prince had yet to choose between her and the Orlesian bard-in-denial.

"Neither do I," Leliana quickly echoed the sentiments.

"Oh?" Reidin asked incredulously. "Then what do you call that one time at the Pearl with Isabela and Zevran?"

"I don't share with Morrigan," Leliana amended although her tone implied that she thought the distinction should have been obvious. "And that was a foursome anyway."

"Yes, because threesomes are ever so much wilder than foursomes," Reidin muttered.

"How do you not remember me?" Mardy demanded. "Do you go around sleeping with anything that moves or something?"

"Yes," Reidin answered immediately. Given that he was travelling with his two love interests and was strongly considering taking Zevran up on his offer of a massage, he thought that he might want to rephrase that. "Well…yes." Okay, so maybe it might be completely true. "I mean, I haven't gotten anywhere with Alistair yet but we all know that it's only a matter of time until I talk him into drinking enough…"

"I see," Mardy said uncertainly. "Well, I was one of the noble hunters whose services you engaged the night before your exile. Do you remember me now?"

Reidin thought back. "Not even slightly. Thought to be fair, that was a very trying time for me. I had just been fed to darkspawn by my own father because he didn't want a scandal – although he seems to have changes his mind about that – I just discovered that my little brother has no soul and…something else happened, didn't it? Just give me a minute…" Reidin was quiet for a moment as he thought back. "Oh, right. Trian died. It was very sad."

Trian gave a questioning bark.

"No, not you," Reidin clarified. "Don't worry. I meant my older brother Trian."

"You named your dog after Prince Trian?" Mardy couldn't believe it.

"I did at that," Reidin said, sounding pleased with himself. "I found him shortly after my exile and so it seemed appropriate. Partly, of course, to honor Trian's memory and partly because my brother was a ****** who really screwed me over by dying like that and I knew that would ****** him off."

"You have an…interesting family, Reidin," Leliana remarked diplomatically.

Reidin snorted. "Oh, you have no idea…"

"That seems like a perfectly reasonable thing to do to me," Morrigan declared.

"It would," Leliana murmured.

"When you got exiled your son became casteless!" Mardy burst out impatiently, annoyed that the conversation was getting sidetracked.

Reidin shrugged. "Sorry about that. But, you know, there was always a chance it would have happened anyway if the kid were a girl. So what's his name?"

"He doesn't have a name!" Mardy cried. "If I named him he'd be branded as a casteless."

"But didn't you say that he was already a casteless?" Reidin asked, feeling confused. Maybe he should have paid more attention when Gorim was trying to explain to him about noble hunters?

"Technically, yes," Mardy allowed. "But he wasn't casteless when he was conceived or I never would have slept with you."

"Hey!" Reidin cried, offended.

"Noble-hunter, remember?" Mardy reminded him. "I wasn't sure what to do because my son is an Aeducan but when I tried to explain that no one from your former House recognized me so they wouldn't hear me out." She paused. "Your brother called me a ****."

"Did he?" Reidin asked rhetorically. "Well, remember: he has no soul. I do wonder what he calls Rica then…"

"Who?" Mardy asked blankly.

Reidin shook his head. "Never mind. What do you expect me to do about it?"

"You're planning on crowing the new King, right? Have them accept my son – our son - into their House," Mardy entreated, sounding a little desperate.

"Leliana, can you remind me?" Reidin asked, turning to the red-headed Chantry girl. "I'll probably forget. I'd ask Morrigan but, well…she probably wouldn't care."

"I really don't," Morrigan confirmed.

"Of course, Reidin," Leliana promised warmly.

"Since I may never see you again – or at least not until the Blight is over – can we talk about what you plan on naming him?" Reidin inquired.

"I'll tell you what: you make my son an Aeducan or, I suppose, a Harrowmont and you can name him anything you want," Mardy offered.

"Great," Reidin beamed. "I'm actually tempted to name him Endrin so that there would be mass confusion since Bhelen named his son the same thing and they're around the same age. On the other hand, I haven't quite forgiven my father for being the only man in Orzammar who could have saved me but spectacularly failed to do so. Not to mention I wouldn't want to be seen as being unoriginal…"

"If Alistair were here, he would probably suggest you call him 'Duncan'," Morrigan informed them.

Reidin nodded. "True. Duncan did save my life and I'm grateful, don't get me wrong, but that is a ridiculous name for a dwarf."

"I agree," Morrigan replied, "but 'twas only precautionary to bring it up lest the fool show up to suggest it himself."

"Thank you for that, then," Reidin told her sincerely. "It was very helpful."

"Why won't yet let Alistair into Orzammar again?" Leliana wanted to know.

"They'll eat him alive," Reidin responded promptly. "And they'll insist on dealing with him as he's, shall we say, less familiar with the inner workings of the city than I am. And you might have lost Orzammar privileges for that remark about our inability to get a freaking ladder."

"You said you weren't mad!" Leliana exclaimed.

"It's not that I'm mad," Reidin claimed, "but if someone else heard you, their honor would demand that they cut off your legs."

"If you cannot choose your father's name but are aiming to name your son after someone then why not choose your brother?" Leliana suggested, pointedly ignoring what he said as for all she knew he was right.

Reidin stared at her in disbelief. "Did you somehow miss the part about Bhelen having no soul? I don't want to jinx my only child!"

"I think she means your other brother," Morrigan clarified.

"Trian?" Reidin looked skeptical. "I already named my dog after him. And given the fact that we pretty much hated each other, that's already better than he would have expected."

"Do you have any ideas, then?" Mardy inquired.

Reidin nodded. "Of course. Gorim."

"Gorim?" Leliana asked, puzzled. "That merchant from Denerim?"

"You mean after your second?" Mardy asked, somewhat more informed. "That's a beautiful name."

"Who else?" Reidin asked rhetorically. "He's one of the most awesome people I know, though I still don't get why in the world he got married so quickly. You'd think that would really cut into his plan to sleep his way across Ferelden. Or was that my plan?"

"One would think having a girlfriend would also cut into that," Morrigan hinted.

Reidin studiously pretended not to hear her. "So that's settled, then? I make our son an Aeducan or a Harrowmont and you name him Gorim?"

"That sounds about right," Mardy nodded. "In the meantime, is there any further assistance you can provide since settling the succession may take awhile and I'm still casteless and have an infant to provide for?"

"Child support, huh?" Reidin mused. "I've heard of that. It's supposed to be paid in installments until the child is old enough to support itself but Ancestors know I'll never remember so can I just give it to you all at once?"

"What do you have in mind?" Mardy asked shrewdly.

"A thousand sovereign?" Reidin offered, digging into his pack and pulling out three bulging bags of coins.

Mardy's eyes widened and she took the money. "You are too kind, my Lord. I am glad that you are owning up to your responsibilities, even if you totally forgot about us, and I will not rest until your son has a House."

As she took her leave, Morrigan frowned disapprovingly. "A thousand sovereign, really? We could have used that money."

"We'll get more," Reidin assured her.

"I always knew you were frivolous about money but you only paid three hundred sovereign to that man who crafted your sword," Morrigan continued.

"What, the Starfang? It was worth every sovereign and for him to have accepted any less would have been an insult," Reidin declared.

"You may never see this child again," Morrigan pointed out.

Reidin shrugged, unconcerned. "But now I won't have to worry about her bothering me for money in the future or my kid growing up, not having a soul, and killing me for not remembering to support him and his mother growing up."

"You have a very active imagination," Leliana noted.

Reidin snorted. "You think so? Remind me to never tell you about my mother's side of the family…"

[Sarah1281]

My seventeenth one is 'No! Mhairi! She Was A Female Warrior!' where Alistair has to comfort his distraught wife after the awesome recruit dies.

"By the Stone, what took you so long?" Oghren growled practically the moment King Alistair Theirin stepped foot inside Vigil's Keep.

Alistair held up his hands in defense. "I didn't even know that my presence was required until that new surly recruit stopped me on my way to the Bannorn. And is it just me or was he a Howe?"

"It was a Howe," Oghren confirmed, sounding rather amused.

"And…Anastasia recruited him?" Alistair couldn't quite believe it, especially considering the manner in which she had killed the elder Howe (which may or may not still give him nightmares). "Why? How?"

Oghren chuckled at the most-likely inadvertent pun. "Exactly!"

"Oghren," Alistair said firmly.

Oghren sighed. "Fine, fine…Apparently the guy was a friend of her brother's and he knows how to use a bow."

"Ah, that explains it," Alistair said, deeply relieved that he didn't have to worry about some ploy to lull the Howe into a false sense of security before up and murdering him. Honestly, sometimes he wasn't sure if he gave not enough credit or entirely too much. "Where is my wife, anyway? I was lead to believe that she was greatly upset about something and that's why I needed to come back here."

"Oh, that. Well, I survived the Joining, obviously-" Oghren began.

"You did?" Alistair looked surprised. "Well, congratulations then."

Oghren simply nodded. "As it happens, so did mage-boy but….well, maybe you'd better go see her for yourself."

"Right," Alistair agreed, taking his leave of the dwarf and hurrying up to where he'd been told she was staying and opening the door. "Anastasia? Are you alright?"

Anastasia looked up from where she was sitting on her bed clutching a pillow to her chest. She was dressed in her nightclothes even though it was the middle of the day. "Alistair? What are you doing here?"

"Apparently the people here were concerned about you and only Oghren had any idea that we were married," Alistair explained, ,stepping inside her room and shutting the door. The wedding wasn't that long ago but how had people honestly not have heard about it even if they didn't know what they looked like personally?

Anastasia shrugged. "Amaranthine is located under a rock, you know."

"So I'm beginning to see," Alistair remarked dryly. "Are you alright?"

"Of course I'm alright!" Anastasia lied. "Why wouldn't I be?"

"Oghren was worried about you," Alistair said bluntly.

"Well, that's just…" Anastasia trailed off, looking flustered. "The thing is…Fine. I am a little upset."

"What happened?" Alistair asked gently, sitting down on the bed beside her.

"Mhairi's dead!" Anastasia cried, looking near tears.

"I don't mean to be insensitive, love," Alistair said slowly, knowing that he almost certainly would come off that way and keenly wishing that he had just made Oghren tell him the tale before setting off to find the new Commander. "But who is Mhairi? Or was, I suppose?"

Anastasia glared at him and scooted a few inches away from her husband. "Who was Mhairi? How can you even ask me that?"

"Because I don't know who she was?" Alistair offered sheepishly.

"I figured that," Anastasia said, rolling her eyes. "But what I meant was how could you not know who she was? She was totally awesome!"

"I'm sure she was," Alistair said soothingly, "but there are a lot of people in Ferelden and many of them are
awesome. Maybe one day I will learn the names of everyone but in the meantime…"

"She was a knight in your service!" Anastasia informed him, still not quite able to believe that he didn't already have this information. "She left to join the Grey Wardens because she was horrified by Loghain's betrayal and thought the two of us were ridiculously awesome."

"She does sound awesome," Alistair conceded. "Although if you're not paraphrasing then I'd say she was
spending far too much time with Zevran."

"Nonsense," Anastasia bristled. "There's no such thing as too much time with Zevran. And since she was your knight, why didn't you know her?"

"Did you know her before arriving here?" Alistair countered.

"Well, no," Anastasia admitted.

"Then why should I? You're the Queen!" Alistair declared triumphantly.

"Yeah, for the last three months," Anastasia shot back. "You had a six-month head start."

"And I was a little busy giving the Dalish the land near Ostagar, making that elven girl Shianni the bann of the Alienage, working out plan with the Chantry and the Cirlce of Magi to eventually make the Circle autonomous – which was why Rylock was with me in the first place – sending the dwarves troops to face the darkspawn while people still remember that they're a threat, and dealing with the last vestiges of the civil war," Alistair told her.

"Okay, I get it," Anastasia acknowledged. "You had things to do. Still, with the way Mhairi was treating the Grey Wardens as Paragons, I could have sworn she heard it from either you or Wynne and Wynne's in Tevinter!"

"Well, after our reimagining of the Wardens as kitten-rescuers, many people hold that view," Alistair pointed out.

Anastasia smiled fondly. "Morrigan never should have suggested that…"

"So what happened to Mhairi?" Alistair asked gently, taking her hand in his.

Anastasia's eyes clouded over. "She didn't survive the Joining."

Alistair winced and gave her hand a squeeze. "I am so sorry. Her sacrifice will not be forgotten."

Anastasia sighed. "I know. And I do know that not everyone can survive, it's just…she was so excited!"

"That's a shame," Alistair said sincerely. "Will you tell me about her?"

"Keep in mind, I only knew her for about an hour," Anastasia cautioned. "But what an hour it was! She introduced herself and announced how excited she was to be joining the Grey Wardens, she expressed her disgust at Oghren's heavy-handed drunken flirtations, she wasn't happy we recruited Anders because he was there and honestly had nothing better to do, and she swore vengeance on the darkspawn who killed her mentor."

"So she never got that vengeance," Alistair noted sadly, thinking back on how much he'd enjoyed his own vengeance on Loghain and how horrible it would have been had they decided to do something unthinkable like induct him into the Grey Wardens. Riordan was actually apparently going to suggest that had Alistair hesitated before killing him which furthered his belief that the Orlesian Warden was horribly impractical and a bit inept. Anastasia, at least, seemed to think his being 'pretty' and having a 'sexy accent' – which he thought was a bit strange as she normally hated Orlesian accents – made up for a good deal of that.

Anastasia shook her head. "No, she did. There was some random talking darkspawn waxing poetic about how he wanted to avoid any unnecessary violence as he kicked a helpless soldier off the roof and since he seemed to be
responsible, we killed him." She paused. "And also because he really  freaked us out."

"Shortest vengeance trip ever," Alistair commented, trying to decide if that was a good thing or not. On the one
hand, Mhairi didn't have long to stew about the injustice of her version of Loghain having the gall to not obligingly drop dead in a corner somewhere. On the other, he doubted she was able to build up a proper fury in the minutes it took to get her vengeance.

"Well, she only lived about twenty more minutes after swearing vengeance so if she wanted to get it done, she needed to hurry it up," Anastasia pointed out, apparently thinking along the same lines he was. Of course she was; she had every detail of Howe's demise meticulously planned out since before he had even met her.

Something that she had said earlier suddenly hit Alistair full-force. "Wait, did you say that a darkspawn was talking?"

Anastasia nodded. "Yes, it was really weird," she confirmed. "Did I not mention that the first time you showed up?"

"I don't know; you might have," Alistair confessed. "If you did, I clearly didn't process it properly until now. Why are darkspawn talking?"

Anastasia shrugged. "Oh, who even knows? I imagine that I'll figure it out at some point while I'm here."

"Good because that…" Alistair stopped as he tried to think of an apt way to describe it. "That's just bizarre."

"Why did Mhairi have to die?" Anastasia asked, clearly still dwelling on the first recruit she'd ever lost.

"I don't know, Anastasia," Alistair admitted, wishing he had an answer for her. "A lot of really good people die in the Joining."

"Like Nathaniel's grandfather?" Anastasia asked.

"Nathaniel's grandfather?" Alistair was drawing a blank.

"It's the strangest thing," Anastasia whispered conspiratorially. "Nathaniel claims that bow I found in the basement that had the Howe crest on it used to belong to his grandfather who ran off to join the Grey Wardens. But if he really was a Howe that would make it his paternal grandfather and everyone knows Tarleton Howe was an Orlesian sympathizer that my family hung after seizing Harper's Ford and that was how Howe inherited the Arling. I'm not sure Nathaniel's all there, to be honest."

"Be careful around him, then," Alistair advised. "And, you know, because he's a Howe."

"Oh, I will," Anastasia vowed.

"Why are you so personally attached to Mhairi anyway?" Alistair couldn't help but wonder. "I mean, I know that you can get strangely sentimental at the slightest provocation but you only knew her for an hour."

"But she was a female warrior!" Anastasia protested. "Not only do they help fight the stereotype that women are, in general, less capable than men but the only other person we have that's trained as a warrior is Oghren and his insistence on going everywhere drunk causes problems sometimes."

Alistair winced. "I remember. Do you absolutely need a warrior?"

"Of course I do!" Anastasia insisted. "I've trained as a rogue as has Nathaniel and Anders is a mage. Warriors are more heavy-hitters so it's a good idea to keep one with you so now I have to take Oghren with me everywhere."

"You'll find someone else, don't worry," Alistair attempted to reassure her.

"What good will that do if they're just going to die in the Joining like Mhairi?" Anastasia asked rhetorically.

"Mhairi's death was a tragedy," Alistair said solemnly, "I'm not disputing that, but at least she died before her ideals did."

"Are you accusing me of planning on crushing her ideals?" Anastasia demanded, looking highly offended.

"Not intentionally," Alistair quickly backtracked. "No, it's just…I saw that she wasn't thrilled Oghren was going to become a Grey Warden and she wasn't pleased about the mage's conscription, either. How do you think she'd handle some of your decisions if she's already objecting to your recruitment practices?"

"Probably not well…" Anastasia admitted.

"And didn't it annoy whenever Leliana, Wynne, or I had moral problems with your actions?" Alistair pressed.

"It did," Anastasia nodded, looking a bit irritated at the mere memory. "Greatly."

"So even though it is tragic that Mhairi is dead, you must admit that she seemed far too straight-laced to fit in with our version of the Grey Wardens, despite the sheer number of kittens we've rescued," Alistair concluded.

"I suppose that's true," Anastasia mused. "But still! She was great at killing things AND she wasn't Orlesian!"

"I know, I know," Alistair slipped his hand out of hers to start rubbing her back.

"And if you leave without fulfilling that goodbye promise, I feel it is only fair to warn you that Nathaniel has a very nice voice and Anders looks eerily like you," Anastasia said innocently. "And chances are I won't see you after this
for months-"

"Never let it be said that I don't keep my word," Alistair quickly interrupted.

Anastasia smiled. "Good boy."

Modifié par Sarah1281, 03 juillet 2010 - 08:18 .

[Sarah1281]

My eighteenth one was 'Of Pets and Exiles' where Aunn accidentally traumatizes Anders and she and Velanna bond over their exiles.

Velanna glanced over at Anders. It had been a little over three hours since the blond mage had taken his cat out of his pack and he was still playing with it and showed no signs of stopping. Sure she could go back inside the Keep but the weather was nice and – like any true Dalish elf – she much preferred to be outdoors anyway.

"Will you put that thing away?" she snapped.

Anders turned to her, looking highly offended. "That 'thing' has a name and that's Ser Pounce-a-lot," he lectured.

"I don't care," Velanna said bluntly. "Just put it away before I light it on fire."

Anders ignored the threat, probably secure in his belief he could protect the small furry creature. "Why do you care, anyway? Haven't you ever had a pet?"

"What? Of course not!" Velanna replied indignantly.

"Well that explains that, then," Anders murmured. He turned to the third member of their little group. "How about you, oh illustrious commander?"

Aunn Aeducan thought back. "Well, there's Trian, of course, but I'm not sure if everyone would count Mabari as simple pets. This is Ferelden, after all. I did have a cat once."

"A cat and a dog, hm?" Anders asked. "Interesting. You much preferred the cat, I'm sure."

"No, wait, I lied," Aunn announced. "I had five."

Velanna knew she should stay out of the discussion but that last statement didn't make a lot of sense. Then again, the so-called 'Hero of Ferelden' often seemed to think such things as consistency and making any degree of sense were beneath her. "Didn't you live underground? Do they even have cats underground?"

Aunn rolled her eyes as if it were a ridiculous question or something. "Clearly they do if I had five. We did have to import them from the surface but I loved them very much until…" she trailed off dramatically.

Velanna was content to try and outwait the dwarf but Anders apparently felt differently. "Until?" he prompted.

"A new cook somehow confused them for furry nugs and cooked one of them and served it to us for dinner!" Aunn exclaimed, looking mildly traumatized.

"I am so sorry," Anders told her earnestly, reminding Velanna inexplicably of the King of Ferelden who had stopped by earlier to get briefed on the situation that rogue templar had caused by trying to kill Anders despite his Grey Warden status. Apparently the fact that the templar had not only gone against the Right of Conscription but the Crown's personal approval of Ander's conscription meant that there were all sorts of political implications to consider. "That sounds awful for you."

Aunn nodded. "It was," she confirmed. "Thank you. Of course, it was even worse for the cook after I had him boiled alive and fed to the nugs."

Anders looked horrified and even Velanna couldn't quite manage to appear unaffected.

"What?" Aunn asked defensively. "I was seven! In hindsight I know I might have overreacted, but I was very upset!"

"That almost makes it worse…" Anders said quietly.

"What?" Aunn didn't get it. "Why?"

Anders merely shook his head. "You know what? Never mind. I'm going to go over there for awhile…" With that he all but ran back into the Keep.

Aunn watched him go with no small amount of confusion. "What's with him?" she asked blankly.

"Who knows?" Velanna replied. "He's a shem."

Aunn looked unconvinced. "I guess…"

"Since we are alone, I have something I've been meaning to ask you," Velanna began hesitantly.

"Ask away," Aunn invited cheerfully.

"Do you remember when we encountered my clan?" Velanna asked.

Aunn cocked her head. "Vaguely. The man we spoke to was much politer than the Dalish I've encountered in the past. Maybe he heard how aiding me against the Blight gave the Dalish a homeland near Ostagar?"

Velanna didn't really think it mattered but didn't want to risk aggravating Aunn immediately before asking an important question. "Perhaps. Why were you so quick to defend me to him? I know I haven't given you much reason to do so."

"I consider you a friend, Velanna, and that's reason enough," Aunn said seriously. "Although you should probably know that I would have done it even had I hated you."

"Why?" Velanna honestly could not understand this.

"Because I could understand what you were going through and, by the Stone, I would have given a great deal to have someone do that for me," Aunn answered a little heatedly.

"How dare you presume to understand what it's like to be exiled from the only home you've ever known!" Velanna cried, affronted. Aunn often tried to 'understand' them but this was really pushing it.

To her surprise – though not great surprise since Aunn had a tendency to be rather shameless – the commander didn't look like she'd just been rebuked. "How dare I? Maybe because I've been there. You were exiled from your clan and I was thrown out of Orzammar after being told to go get myself killed fighting darkspawn."

Well that was a surprise. Then again, Sigrun was one of the most cheerful creatures she had ever had the misfortune of meeting so perhaps it was just a dwarf thing. Or, considering Oghren, a female dwarf thing. "You were?"

Aunn nodded, looking down. "A little less than two years ago by now. Sure, I could have simply gone to Kal-Sharok and passed myself off as a warrior and you could have joined a different clan but if you respect the authority that throws you out, it's difficult to bring yourself to completely ignore your sentence. There is, of course, often room for interpretation."

"I told you my story," Velanna reminded her. "What happened to you?"

"My father was the King of Orzammar and my younger brother really wanted to succeed him," Aunn began. She stopped and smiled wryly. "That's probably an almost ridiculous understatement, actually. He tried to talk me into killing our older brother and when that didn't work he hired mercenaries to do it and framed me. He had bribed a good deal of the Assembly to cast me out without a trial and seal me into the Deep Roads to fight darkspawn until I died and so that's what happened."

"Yes, I can see that you did just that," Velanna deadpanned.

Aunn shrugged. "I tried, I really did. Here's the thing, though: I am good at fighting. As in really good. It's always been the one thing I knew I was amazing as. I'd killed a few dozen darkspawn and they'd barely touched me by the time I encountered the leader of the Ferelden Grey Wardens on his way back to the surface. He said a Blight was coming and since I wasn't having much luck getting killed on my own, I decided to fulfill my sentence by joining the Grey Wardens."

"That worked out well," Velanna noted dryly.

"I came close once, at Ostagar," Aunn claimed. "But you can't you really blame me if a centuries-old abomination turned into a dragon and rescued me and the now-King, can you? Wait, don't answer that. As for the rest of it…it wasn't like I was planning on making it through everything – well, if you don't count that thing with Morrigan – and I never shied away from an opponent and even took down several dragons. If that wasn't enough for them to kill me…well I wasn't just going to stand there and let them kill me. Besides, my sentence was commuted."

"Fratricide is a very serious charge, even if you were innocent," Velanna told her. "So how did you get your sentence commuted?"

"My little brother was grateful about me practically single-handedly securing him the throne and knew that as a Grey Warden I could feel free to just ignore the fact I was exiled and hang around all the time anyway," Aunn explained. "Besides, it's not like he hated me; he just thought I was a threat and once he was King I wasn't anymore. Well, not unless I was planning on killing him and his reinstating me made me far less inclined to do so."

"Why would you put your brother on the throne if he murdered your older brother and tried to have you killed?" Velanna honestly didn't understand. If she had done such a thing to Seranni than she would have deserved her clan's hatred.

Aunn shrugged. "It's complicated. Basically it boiled down to three things: He was a stronger ruler than his opponent, I didn't want to be Queen, and it's better for my family."

"I…see," Velanna said, clearly not seeing at all.

"It doesn't matter, really," Aunn claimed. "You could say the year that I was exiled and ended up stopping the Blight was just a very unusual year that I've mostly put behind me and I'm only doing this 'Commander of the Grey' shtick until we've gotten things to settle down here and then Anora's planning on putting her father in charge and we're going to conveniently not receive any orders from Weisshaupt that say otherwise while I head back to Orzammar."

"That doesn't sound terribly responsible," Velanna remarked.

"I ended a freaking Blight," Aunn countered. "I think that means I've done more for our cause then the First Warden has and unless they want the Crown to declare that this experiment in giving Wardens land and titles was a failure, they'll put up with it. But to get back to what I was saying earlier, while Orzammar may love me more than ever now there was a month or so when I first went back to seek their aid against the Blight and ended up having to solve the succession issue since my father had recently died where people were very…cold. Many of them pretended that they didn't even know who I was because I legally did not exist anymore and the ones that didn't were very contemptuous. I only wish they had been as polite about it as your clansman has been."

"Marren was never one to be needlessly cruel," Velanna conceded. "And you said your companions said nothing?"

"Nothing at all," Aunn confirmed. "They just stood back watching it and occasionally made little pithy comments about how short and helpless we were, how awful dwarven ale is, or the conditions of Dust Town to bother. Honestly, that was unbelievably insensitive of them – especially when Leliana asked Shale all about how she felt returning to Orzammar and she's a centuries-old golem who can't remember it! I don't think that I am that ridiculously self-absorbed and unobservant so therefore it was the least I could do to tell your clan when they were wrong about you."

Velanna cocked her head curiously. "Do you really think they were wrong?"

"I'm not even going to touch on the incident that led to your exile," Aunn declared. "But when he said you didn't care about anything but your vengeance…well, would you honestly put up with all these humans everywhere if you didn't feel we were the best chance of saving your sister?"

Velanna snorted. "That's funny."

"And thus you're proving them wrong, just as I did," Aunn concluded. "So even if you never make amends with them at least it's something to know that you're not the monster they make you out to be."

"That it is," Velanna murmured before catching herself. "But I still hate shems!"

Aunn laughed. "To be fair, Velanna, a human named Morrigan had me half-convinced that the existence of Cammen was justification for wiping out an entire tribe of your people…"

[Sarah1281]

My nineteenth one is 'But Good Luck With That' where the elven mage simply refuses to get involved with Jowan's problems at all.

"So what do you say, Caunira?" Jowan asked hopefully, having just explained his insane plan that was likely to blow up his face and now he was seeking to enlist the aid of the Circle Tower's newest mage.

"Let's see…" Caunira Surana said slowly, tapping her chin lightly as she pretended to consider his request. "I'd really rather not."

"Thank you so much!" Jowan enthused, clearly having been so reliant on her help that he hadn't even bothered to listen to her answer. "You have no idea what this means to Lily and I. We'll never forget it and if we ever have a daughter we'll make sure to name her after you!"

"That's so sweet," Caunira said in a monotone. "But are you even listening to me?"

"Huh?" Jowan looked surprised. Oh, that he heard. "Of course I am. Why do you ask?"

"She said 'no', Jowan," Lily informed him sadly. Caunira was actually surprised that a seemingly sensible girl like Lily would end up with someone like Jowan. Not that she had anything against Jowan – and as it happened she had had a crush on him for two highly embarrassing months when she was fifteen although she had long since gotten over him – but Lily was sure to get in a ridiculous amount of trouble for betraying her vows and dating anyone and if that 'anyone' just happened to be a mage…well no wonder she was itching to get out of there. Caunira really wished she could help but as it was the risk was far too great and she wouldn't even get anything out of Jowan and Lily running off into the sunset together. No, far more likely they'd either all get caught or Jowan and possibly Lily would get away and leave her holding the bag.

"No?" Jowan repeated, looking a great deal like a lost puppy. Then again, he always looked like that. Maybe a lost, kicked puppy would be a more accurate description? "What? I…I don't understand."

"It's simple," Caunira explained patiently. "I completed my Harrowing yesterday. I woke up and found out that I passed less than two hours ago. I haven't even moved into the mages quarters yet and you're asking me to risk everything!"

"But they're going to make me Tranquil," Jowan reminded her, sounding distressed at the very thought. Not that she blamed him, of course. She was rather fond of Owain but sometimes his complete and utter lack of emotions just really creeped her out and the thought that he had undergone that willingly…well of course Jowan didn't want to end up the same way.

"You don't know that," Caunira insisted. If they really were going to make him Tranquil because they suspected his supposed blood magic made him too dangerous then they would hardly warn him in advance now would they?

"I heard them discussing it," Lily interjected. "I know you don't want to believe it but I assure you that it's true."

"And just how did you hear this? Surely they don't plot preemptive rituals to make potential blood mages tranquil in front of just anyone?" Caunira asked reasonably.

"I'm a Chantry sister," Lily said as if that settled the matter. "They trust me."

"That's very nice for you," Caunira said, resisting the urge to roll her eyes. She didn't actually know what had happened but if she had just 'happened' to be the one to hear about Jowan she certainly would be more suspicious than this and, as it happened, was suspicious on Lily's behalf.

"You're supposed to be my friend, Caunira! I just don't understand why you're acting like this," Jowan said, shaking his head helplessly.

For some reason, the words rather irritated the elven mage. "And you're supposed to be my friend," she snapped back. "And the last time I checked friends don't ask friends to risk everything because they've somehow managed to convince everyone that they're a blood mage!"

"Everyone does not think that I'm a blood mage," Jowan countered, ignoring the first part of her statement. He knew he shouldn't be asking this of her but he was desperate here and she was the only one that he felt he could trust.

"Oh no?" Caunira asked, raising an eyebrow delicately. "That's all anyone seems to be talking about today. It even managed to eclipse my Harrowing and the ever-popular theorizing about that Templar Cullen's mysterious stutter as the hottest topic of conversation."

Jowan paled considerably. "I'm in more trouble than I thought…" he whispered.

"You usually are," Caunira remarked dryly. Jowan – Maker help him – almost seemed to have an outright inability to make a proper decision and never thought about the consequences of his actions which was actually one of the reasons she was hesitant to join his mad quest to destroy his phylactery.

"And you won't help me?" Jowan asked again as if hoping that if he kept trying he might get a different answer.

"No, I won't," Caunira said firmly, hoping he'd get the point sooner or later before someone came in and assumed she was involved.

"Why not?" Jowan demanded. "Normally you would help me." Jowan paused. "Or at the very least be a little nicer about basically throwing me to the Templars."

"True," Caunira admitted grudgingly. "I guess I'm just kind of put-out because I just came from the First Enchanter's study and he told me that the Grey Warden Duncan was supposed to come here looking for a Grey Warden recruit to send to Ostagar but apparently at the last second he decided to go to Orzammar instead."

"And you…wanted to be a Grey Warden?" Jowan asked, vaguely remember that phase she'd gone through a few years ago when all she'd ever talk about was her desire to runoff and join the Grey Wardens.

Caunira looked at him as if that were a very stupid question, which as far as she was concerned it was. "I want a griffon."

"You…DO realize that griffons are extinct, right?" Jowan asked hesitantly. Mage apprentices didn't get much information about the outside world but surely his friend had realized this?

"Until I join the Wardens and visit the empty griffon pens in Weisshaupt I will never believe that," Caunira said stubbornly, crossing her arms in defiance.

"If you don't help me then I'll never succeed," Jowan told her, figuring it was for the best to get off of the topic of Caunira's delusions.

"I'm flattered that you think so highly of my abilities but I'm not going to change my mind," Caunira said flatly.

"How could you do this to me?" Jowan asked, shooting her a hurt look.

"How could I do what to you? I'm not doing anything. If I were – and I wanted to get on either Irving or Greagoir's good side- I would tell one of them what you're planning," Caunira informed him.

Jowan looked suddenly fearful. "You won't…will you?"

"No," Caunira assured him. "Chances are they'd make me 'change my mind' and go along with you so they can catch you in the act and since if I were willing to get involved I'd just help you…no, no I have no intention of doing that."

"Good," Jowan sighed in relief. "At least Lily and I aren't going to be stabbed in the back. But that doesn't really matter much if I'm going to be made into a Tranquil anyway."

"I'm sorry for you but if I get caught helping you destroy your phylactery then they'll send me to Aeonar and did you miss the part where I've been a full mage for two hours or so?" Caunira reminded him. "Do what you like, Jowan. I probably should report you but you're my friend so I won't and I'll have to hope your notoriously horrible judgment won't end up causing a war or letting a demon run rampant."

"I'm really not that bad!" Jowan protested.

Caunira coughed awkwardly.

"You know what, no one asked you," Jowan fumed. "Thank you, I guess, for not ratting me out but I do wish you would help me. I mean, honestly. How could I possibly spark a war or enable demons to terrorize people?"

[Raonar]

Jowan is so innocent.



Too bad the developers dropped the idea of having the warden invoke the right of conscription on him after Eamon wakes up.

[Sarah1281]

My twentieth story is 'Oh Well, They Deserved It Anyway' where an origin-confused DE confronts Howe.


Laiarda Mahariel had been waiting for this moment for almost a year now. Finally, after all the sacrifices it took to get here she was finally going to get the vengeance that she so desperately sought. She knew that her parents would be proud of as she'd managed to combine both duty and justice on her path leading up to this one glorious moment. "I'm going to kill you for what you've done to my family and I'm going to enjoy it!" she growled.

Arl Rendon Howe stopped sneering at her for long enough to look confused. "What I did to your family?"

That was almost too much for Laiarda. It was bad enough that he'd gotten away with his despicable crimes for over a year and now he was going to deny that they even happened once they were alone and he – or she, technically, but mostly he – was moments away from death? It took all of her hard-won self-control not to slit his throat then and there. "Don't play dumb with me! I keep reliving the night of the attack over and over and over again...and I still can't stop Iona from opening the door. I'm starting to think her death was just natural selection...maybe I'll have better luck with what's-his-name..." she mused, inadvertently straying slightly from the topic.

For his part, Howe didn't look any more aware of his crimes against her family. "Look, I don't even know you. Whatever I did, I'm sure it wasn't personal." Of course Howe, being Howe, couldn't deny that he hadn't done anything to her, particularly as she was an elf and there was that whole business with him arranging for the elves in the Alienage to be slaughtered and then the survivors to be sold off to the Tevinter Imperium.

"Not personal? Not PERSONAL?" Laiarda screeched, her hand twitching for her weapon. "You were a guest at my father's estate and then you had him and the rest of the household butchered in the night! How can that not be personal?" It seemed like a reasonable question to Laiarda. Howe, on the other hand, still thought she was crazy.

"Do any of you have an idea what she's talking about?" he asked, addressing himself to her presumably saner companions. Then again, if they had actually willingly agreed to follow the girl then that was far from guaranteed.

Oghren took out his flask and took a nice long drink from it. "No, but as long as she keeps supplying me with alcohol and violent deaths, I don't care," he declared.

"I have better things to do than worry about its inability to keep its past straight," Shale informed them, sounding very much like she barely cared enough to even answer the question.

Thus it fell to Alistair to try and sort this out. "Is this like when you had to slaughter the entire carta for leaving Leske locked up for over a year and for trying to have you killed, when you had to gut Bhelen for framing you for fratricide, when you had to kill Jowan because Lily deserved better and he was too stupid to live, and when you had to kill Vaughan for raping your cousin and having your other cousin locked up for over a year despite none of these people having an idea who you were?" he asked wearily. Vaughan's death had occurred so recently that his body was likely still cooling and Bhelen and the Carta's deaths were only two days apart so he was quite familiar with these misunderstandings.

Laiarda cocked her head to the side, thinking back. She had assumed that Bhelen, Harrowmont and, well, everyone else in Orzammar had pretended not to know her because she'd been exiled for Trian's death and so legally didn't exist in Orzammar. And, of course, as a casteless she had never legally existed before becoming a Warden, she had killed most of the people in the carta who remembered her from her own days as a member, and Jarvia was too busy ranting about being Queen of the Casteless to bother acknowledging her. Some allowances had to be made for Leske as he had been locked up for a year and probably wasn't all there – not that she was certain he was to begin with – but it would have been nice to see her sister again. Still, as Bhelen's baby mama she was probably very busy and she'd never consider working for her backstabbing brother so it wasn't like he would go out of his way to facilitate a reunion. And was it too much to hope for that Rica wouldn't be too upset for how that turned out?

Soris, of course, had the same excuse Leske did since he'd been locked up for just as long. Poor guy…the whole reason she had accepted blame in the first place was so he wouldn't have to suffer for being one of only two decent people in the Alienage…Shianni might have been more social since she hadn't seen her in a year but to be fair to her, she was a little preoccupied by the 'quarantine' and then shaken by the revelation it was actually a slaving ring and so everyone that had gone in but not come out was gone for good and could very well be sacrificed for a blood magic ritual.

Then there was the situation with Jowan. She loved him like an idiot brother but honestly, it seemed like that boy had no common sense. She'd been a mage for two freaking hours and he'd already pressured her into risking the wrath of the Templars and getting sent to Aeonar? Some friend he turned out to be. No wonder she sold him out to Irving and felt completely vindicated. Of course he made her 'help' Jowan anyway to screw over Lily, which she felt awful about, but it wasn't like she didn't try to talk him out of it! She assumed that Jowan ignoring her was because after he found out that she tattled on him he decided she was dead to him and Irving and Greagoir (and for that matter Cullen) kind of had more pressing matters to attend to than chatting about her life in the Wardens, what with the recent abomination infestation. And Lily really did deserve better. Even if she didn't WANT to go with him once she found out he was a blood mage (which he should have been honest with her about) then he should have at least gotten her safely away from the Templars and the threat of Aeonar before parting ways with her.

"Possibly," Laiarda admitted sheepishly. "This might be a strange question but what was my race and background again?"

"Dalish Elf," Oghren replied. He would think it was a bit weird she needed to ask but he sometimes got drunk enough he needed a reminder as well. And once he had it he usually needed another drink. Laiarda didn't seem drunk but the Dalish, or what he'd seen of them anyway, were kind of…strange.

"Dalish Elf, huh?" Laiarda mused. "I see...wait, who do I hate again?"

"Pretty much everyone, I think," Alistair replied. He stopped. "Except maybe for the dwarves. I don't think you really care one way or another about them."

"So I must kill every human I can in revenge, got it," Laiarda concluded. Vengeance for what she wasn't quite clear on but the other Dalish she'd met were so freaking bitter it had to be something big and she was getting quite good at this vengeance business.

"I think I like it so much better now than when it thought it was a noble," Shale remarked, interest creeping into her voice for the first time. "I would also like to add that as the Dalish camp outside birds are no doubt hated by them as well."

"What about me?" Howe spoke up. "Since apparently I never did anything to you-"

Laiarda shrugged apologetically as she raised her sword. "Sorry, shem. It's nothing personal, I just intend to bring death and destruction to your species."

[Sarah1281]

My twenty-first story was'At Least You Avenged Some Ancient Ashes' where Wynne and Leliana return to camp after finding the Urn and are forced to explain that when they attacked the Warden and Alistair for defiling the Ashes they managed to kill them.

Leliana and Wynne returned to camp that evening in a somber mood. The Warden and Alistair, who had ventured into Haven with them, were nowhere to be found.

"Where is our illustrious leader?" Zevran asked once it became clear that the two women weren't going to volunteer the information. "I have something I need to…discuss with her. And Alistair isn't here, either," he added almost as an afterthought.

"Oh, well, this is so difficult to say," Leliana began, flustered.

"We were misled," Wynne declared dramatically. "The Warden was not who we thought she was."

"It was not a Grey Warden?" Shale asked, surprised.

"No, she was," Wynne corrected. "Technically, at least. But she was no true Warden."

"Parshaara!" Sten exclaimed. "Either she is a Warden or she isn't."

"What do you mean 'was'?" Zevran asked suspiciously.

"It was awful but we had no choice," Leliana insisted.

"We were forced to kill the Warden and when Alistair fought to defend her, he left us no choice," Wynne elaborated.

"You…you killed the only two Grey Wardens left in Ferelden?" Morrigan couldn't believe that anyone would be so stupid. "I knew you were an ignorant old crone but this…how could you have been so foolish? Do you have any idea what you've done?"

The Warden's dog howled in anguish.

"I have ended a great evil," Wynne said virtuously.

" 'Ended a great evil'?" Morrigan repeated, laughing derisively. "Wasn't that the Warden's job? And you." She turned to Leliana. "What about your 'vision'? Did your Maker wish for you to doom Ferelden to being consumed by darkspawn? How very Orlesian of him."

"No, that was not what the Maker wanted!" Leliana said firmly. "I didn't want to kill her. How could I ever want to kill her? I loved her. She left me no choice…"

"It seems that the sister has made a habit of killing those that it loves," Shale noted.

"Normally I would approve, as nauseating as the very idea of approving of anything SHE does is, but whatever possessed you to kill the only two Grey Wardens we have?" Morrigan demanded. "Surely you are not so senile as to forget that they were our only hope? And by 'they' I mostly meant the Warden."

"She was evil," Wynne said simply but unrepentantly.

"Be more vague," Morrigan challenged.

"What Wynne means is that we actually found the Urn of Sacred Ashes," Leliana explained, slipping into her bard voice. "It was a harrowing journey to get that far and there were tests. I have never been more touched and humbled as when I was standing in front of the Urn. I could literally feel Andraste's essence and the hand of the Maker. And then she just…she just…" Leliana trailed off, unable to continue.

"It's okay, Leliana," Wynne said soothingly, patting the ex-bard absently on the shoulder. "I have no idea how she managed to trick the guardian into believing she was worthy but she most certainly was not."

"You killed her for not being 'worthy'?" Zevran couldn't believe it and his hand twitched for one of his many weapons. Still, he felt obligated to at least hear them out before killing them.

"No, I killed her for what her unworthiness caused her to do," Wynne said gravely. "The village of Haven was the home of a dragon cult that killed anyone who got near them to protect their village's secret existence. Several of Arl Eamon's knights had been tortured to death there and we found their bodies strewn all over town."

"We killed our way to Brother Genitivi and then up t he mountain to the Ashes. We met the leader of the village, a man named Kolgrim. He offered to let us pass if we poisoned the ashes by pouring dragon blood on them. He was under the impression that the dragon that lived on top of the mountain was Andraste reborn, you see, and that destroying what was left of the human Andraste would help their dragon Andraste. The Warden agreed and then…well…" Leliana trailed off, a little awkwardly.

"And the Warden did this, I take it," Zevran supplied. "I don't see why you're so surprised if she outright said that she was planning on doing this."

"I didn't think she would actually go through with it!" Leliana protested.

"Only someone truly evil would so senselessly destroy the source of so many people's hope," Wynne agreed. "Even if no one will ever find out about the ashes being destroyed or their even existing in the first place, it is still a great loss."

"Am I hearing this right?" Morrigan demanded, wishing she'd given in to her initial impulse to murder both of the Blight-enablers self-righteously standing before her. "You killed the Warden to protect your precious ashes after she already destroyed them? Why didn't you try to stop her beforehand? Or did you really believe that your Maker you have insisted has abandoned this world would turn his attention back to Ferelden and restore the ashes if you murdered their defiler?"

"Of course not!" Leliana scoffed. "But we just thought that she had told Kolgrim that she would do as he asked so as to avoid a senseless slaughter. We never dreamed that she would actually go through with it and it seems that that was a mistake."

"You feel that you are perfectly justified?" Morrigan inquired, raising an eyebrow.

Wynne nodded sadly. "The Warden chose her path and when Alistair fought with her he did as well. It is unfortunate, certainly but it is not as if-"

"Everyone in Ferelden is going to die," Morrigan interrupted.

"Right, it's not as if…Or do you mean that that is what you believe will happen?" Wynne asked.

"We all know that the Wardens are the most effective darkspawn killers but they are hardly essential," Leliana reasoned. "I don't like this situation but we can't change the past and so we have to just focus on moving forward. We still have those treaties so surely we can-"

"No, no we cannot," Morrigan disagreed.

"And why not?" Wynne challenged, her hands on her hips. "We're hardly helpless here, you know."

"We cannot stop the Blight. The elves, mages, and dwarves cannot stop the Blight. Only the Wardens can do that," Morrigan pointed out.

"I know that's what the stories say but-" Leliana started to disagree.

Morrigan shook her head. "You don't get it. This isn't a story or a legend. ONLY a Warden can truly stop a Blight."

"You sound like you know something we don't, Morrigan," Zevran noted.

She nodded. "Indeed I do. I never said anything as the Warden and the fool themselves seemed not to know."

"Then how does it know?" Shale asked curiously.

Morrigan waved the question off. "My mother's been around for awhile. She knows these things. When the Archdemon is physically killed – a feat that can be technically accomplished by anyone – the tainted soul of the Old God will migrate into the nearest darkspawn and the Archdemon is thus reborn. Only if a Grey Warden delivers the final blow will the tainted soul of the Old God be drawn into him and both will die," she revealed.

Leliana looked horrified. "So you're saying that by killing the Warden and Alistair we just-"

"Doomed Ferelden and allowed the Blight to continue unchecked until Orlais sees fit to deal with it?" Morrigan cut her off.

"How were we supposed to know this? The last Blight was over four hundred years ago and the Grey Wardens are always so secretive!" Wynne cried, beginning to get angry that her oh-so-valiant attempt to end a great evil unworthy of stopping the Blight had backfired so horribly.

"You could have thought for a moment and realized that when people say 'only a Grey Warden can stop a Blight' they might actually mean it and there may even be a reason for it," Morrigan said flatly, completely unsympathetic to the elder mage's plight.

"Well, what do we do now?" Leliana asked helplessly.

"Now?" Morrigan repeated, sounding darkly amused. "Now you die. Both of you."

"What? You can't possible-" Wynne's protests died as she was hit by Morrigan's cone of cold.

Zevran, Shale, Sten, and the dog advanced on Leliana as Morrigan made short work of the frozen woman.

Within minutes, it was done.

"That was a good question, you know," Zevran admitted. "Now that their stupidity has doomed all of Ferelden, what DO we do now? We certainly cannot stay here."

"I will return to Par Vollen," Sten informed them. "I must tell them of what has transpired. Fortunately, the Warden had recovered my Asala before being ignobly slain." The dog barked twice and Sten looked down at him. "It seems the mabari wishes to accompany me. So be it; it is a warrior and my people will respect that."

"I will probably head to Orlais at some point," Morrigan decided. "If the Orlesians at large are anything like Leliana then it would be a trying experience but at least they have more sense than this repulsive dog country seems to."

The dog barked in offense but she ignored him.

"I have no idea what I'll do," Shale confessed. "I was only following the Warden for lack of anything better to do."

"I see," Zevran remarked. "Have you ever considered travelling to Antiva? Now that the Warden is dead I'll need to deal with the Crows at some point and I could always use a golem to watch my back."

"Can we obtain more shiny crystals in Antiva?" Shale asked hopefully.

"I love shiny crystals," Zevran claimed. "The more colorful the better."

"Then I shall accompany the painted elf," Shale acquiesced.

And so it was that the five remaining companions left for parts unknown. Teyrn Loghain did his best to end the Blight – and even managed to slay the Archdemon twice – but ultimately Ferelden was consumed by the darkspawn. Still, no one could deny that it really had brought it on itself.

[Costin_Razvan]

Ignorant idiots....



"Tries to resist the urge to murder Wynne and Leliana in his FF, or at the very least Wynne."

[Raonar]

Oh my god, I laughed so hard. Actually, I still am laughing so hard.

Ack, my stomach hurts.

EDIT

And still laughing... ack

Modifié par Raonar, 06 juillet 2010 - 04:19 .

[Sarah1281]

Glad you guys liked it.

My twenty-second story is 'Just End It Already' where Alistair, unaware that the DR was performed, attempts to do the US and the Warden gets annoyed at all the perceived glory stealing.

Reidin Aeducan eyed the scene before him with some satisfaction. The Dalish elves he had brought with him were almost completely wiped out and the dwarves had lost a few people – not that he was using this as further proof that dwarves were the better species in his ongoing debate with Zevran or anything – but at last it was done. The Archdemon, grounded but deadly, was finished. Or at least it would be once he took the sword he saw lying conveniently a few feet away and ended things once and for all.

"You know, at the risk of sounding like Cailan," he said slowly, looking around suspiciously for an ogre (they tended to show up and try to crush him à la the dead King whenever his name came up), "this really is a glorious moment. Not to mention epic. They'll surely make me a Paragon after this!"

Just as he was about to start his sprint to the sword, Alistair came from out of nowhere – or at least the other side of the roof – and stepped in front of him, holding his hand up to stop his fellow Grey Warden. "Wait."

Reidin sighed in exasperation. Alistair, like all of his companions, had no sense of timing and so often felt the need to have romantic or otherwise touching personal conversations when they were covered in blood. Leliana, for instance, had gotten so sick of his chronic public making-out with Morrigan that she had decided to have a turn…mere seconds after they'd killed probably-Laryn the Broodmother. "Oh, what now?" he grouched. "Can't we talk about whatever this is later? Like, in two minutes after I kill this thing?"

Alistair shook his head grimly. "It will be too late then, Reidin."

"…Are you sure?" Reidin asked uncertainly. "It's two minutes."

"You know that you're my best friend, right?" Alistair asked in lieu of answering him. "And that I owe you everything?"

"Aw, that's sweet," Reidin told him. And somewhat distressing. Usually these types of sentiments involved a 'but.' "But that hardly sounds pressing-"

"You made me king and helped me see how important it is that I be here," Alistair continued as if he hadn't heard the semi-exiled prince.

Reidin groaned. "Really, Alistair? I'm glad you're getting into the whole king thing but in case you didn't notice, we are one final blow away from ending the Fifth Blight! Now is so not the time!"

"I want you to let me take the final blow," Alistair obligingly concluded quickly.

"Wait, now you want the glory?" Reidin couldn't believe it. And after everything they'd been through… "You really are Cailan's brother, aren't you?"

Alistair knew what he was talking about at once. "This has nothing to do with glory!" he insisted. "It's just that you've done so much for me. Without you, I'd have been dead a dozen times over-"

"Not to nitpick," Reidin interrupted, "but it's really more like four dozen. You have no common sense in battle."

Alistair nodded. "Right. You helped me with that, too."

Reidin shrugged. "What can I say? I'm a giver."

"Let me do this one thing for you," Alistair pleaded.

"Wait a minute…you're trying to repay me for being amazing by stealing my glory?" Reidin asked incredulously. "Worst. Friend. Ever. When this is over, I'm going to need to remember to look up Gorim – he's never pulled something stupid like this."

"No, no, no!" Alistair cried, clearly upset as he waved his hands to try to get across just how wrong Reidin was about his intentions. "That's not what I meant at all. I want to save you."

Reidin raised an eyebrow elegantly. "Alistair, I've done my best over the last year to make sure that dragons really go extinct this time. The Archdemon can't even move at this point. I think I've got it."

"Didn't you hear what Riordan said?" Alistair asked, sounding desperate.

"About what?" Reidin asked blankly.

" 'About what?' he says," Alistair muttered. "You'd go to your death not even realizing it…"

Reidin made a face at him. "Okay, now you sound like my brother," he complained.

Alistair winced, remembering Reidin's various family issues. "Sorry. Riordan said that whoever killed the Archdemon dies in the process."

"Oh, yeah," Riordan said absently. "He did say something about that, didn't he?"

"You're not…concerned?" Alistair asked uncertainly.

"I've got it covered," Reidin assured him.

For some reason that didn't make Alistair feel any better about the situation. "I don't think you understand. From the sound of it, your very soul is destroyed! You will simply cease to exist!"

"That does sound unpleasant," Reidin agreed vaguely.

"I want to do it," Alistair said firmly.

Reidin did a double-take. "Wait, what? Didn't you just point out how awful that would be?"

"Well, it's not like I want to do this, exactly," Alistair defended himself. "It's more that I just want to be able to save you for a change."

"That's hardly necessary, I assu-wait," Reidin said, clearly having realized something. "Eamon was right, wasn't he?"

Now it was Alistair's turn to be confused. "About what?"

"You ARE trying to get out of having to rule with Anora by heroically sacrificing yourself, aren't you!" It might have sounded like a question, but it was really more of an accusation.

"That's not it at all-" Alistair started to object.

"Because we already had this discussion, remember?" Reidin reminded him. "About her creepy father issues and how if she doesn't marry you then I don't think she ever will?"

"I'll be sacrificing myself for the sake of Ferelden," Alistair declared nobly. "I'm trying to be a good king. They can't blame me for that, can they?"

"Well I don't know about 'they'," Reidin conceded, "but I certainly will. You are not wasting all my hard work getting you engaged to a really fine Queen and putting you on the throne for some half-baked noble scheme!"

"I'm trying to save your life!" Alistair cried out, frustrated by Reidin's unwillingness to acknowledge what he was trying to do here.

"My life is not in need of saving!" Reidin shot back.

Alistair blinked. What do you mean? Riordan said-"

"Morrigan and I did a kinky sex ritual last night," Reidin explained. "In return for letting her leave, never to return – and she promised not to harm Orzammar and I believe her so don't worry – no one has to die. That's kind of harsh as far as breakups go but hey, at least no one, and by 'no one' of course I mean 'I', has to die."

Alistair took a moment to digest that. "What about Ferelden?"

Reidin frowned, puzzled. "What about it?"

"You said she promised not to harm Orzammar," Alistair pointed out. "What about Ferelden?"

"I have no idea," Reidin said bluntly.

"You didn't ask her?" Alistair shouted.

"Since when do I care about surface lands?" Reidin asked reasonably.

"But…" Alistair trailed off, trying to think of an argument. "Morrigan might be leaving but Leliana won't be. She lives in Ferelden, remember? And you know she can't go back to Orlais. She'll never forgive you if Morrigan destroys this country."

Reidin shrugged. "You know, I'm actually not sure that we'd work out anyway."

"Why not?" Alistair asked, genuinely surprised. "I thought you loved her?" Well, her and Morrigan. And he'd slept with Zevran a few times. Not to mention that he now had his own room at the Pearl…

"I do, but I really should head back to Orzammar and she can't come with me. I mean, if nothing else no one there is at all tolerant of those cutesy little inadvertently racist remarks she always makes and she'll just get herself killed," Reidin explained.

"You don't have to go back," Alistair told him hesitantly.

"Of course I do," Reidin insisted. "I have Gorim Jr. to look at, after all in addition to…well, suffice to say I have plenty of reason to return. Surely you – or Leliana – who never knew your father can't blame me for that."

"Maybe not, but that poor child…" Alistair said, shaking his head pityingly.

Reidin glared at him and opened his mouth to respond but was cut off by a most unexpected noise.

"I did it!" Cammen exclaimed triumphantly. Reidin and Alistair turned to see him standing over the Archdemon's unmoving body and there was a sword in the giant dragon's head that wasn't there five minutes ago. "I can't believe I actually did it! I just ended the Fifth Blight! This will make Gheyna so happy!"

"I'm…sorry?" the future king offered lamely.

"I hope you realize that this means we are no longer speaking," he said frigidly, shaking his head in disgust and turning to walk away. "I knew I should have killed him when I had the chance…Stupid Dalish glory-stealer."

[Raonar]

And i suppose the Archdemon was reborn, yes?

[Sarah1281]

Raonar wrote...

And i suppose the Archdemon was reborn, yes?

No. They did the DR and so since the reason that it must be a Warden to kill it was removed by Morrigan's ritual pulling the soul in instead of allowing it to find a darkspawn to possess or to kill the Warden, it really seems like anyone could do it.

[Raonar]

Sarah1281 wrote...

Raonar wrote...

And i suppose the Archdemon was reborn, yes?

No. They did the DR and so since the reason that it must be a Warden to kill it was removed by Morrigan's ritual pulling the soul in instead of allowing it to find a darkspawn to possess or to kill the Warden, it really seems like anyone could do it.

Hmm, now that IS a pertinent hypothesis I guess.

[Costin_Razvan]

Your kidding me....Cammen?!