Author's Note: Ah, now this is a fun, if ridiculous, little piece. Something JayRain said actually gave me the idea for it initially. Somehow we got onto the subject of how the hell Loghain would ever tell Maric what he did, and then she made this comment: "You did WHAT to my son?" That was when the light bulb went off, and I said, 'Wait. That would be the PERFECT parody. A conversation between dead Loghain and Maric.'

That said, Blighted Angel is proud to present: 'You Did WHAT to My Son?' Enjoy ^_^

You Did WHAT to My Son?

So this was the Fade. Interesting.

Aimlessly, Loghain walked across the barren terrain surrounding him, vision distorted and dreamlike, feeling more than a little disconnected from reality. The rock beneath his feet was substantial enough to make noise as his feet scoffed along the surface; the wind was cool and the air refreshing as it rustled through his hair. Mice and other small creatures skittered this way and that, making Loghain wonder at the fact that these things were present in such a world at all.

Rather than full plate armor or leathers, he found himself wearing nothing but a simple tunic and breeches. And, pleasantly enough, he found that was all he needed. He knew not where he was going, but he found that he didn't care to know either. Finally, Loghain Mac Tir was nothing but a bystander, and he liked that just fine. No wars to fight or battles to win. No Theirin constantly bitching in his ear. No more, "But Loghain, I wanna do this!" or "Hey, Loghain? Loghain? Loghain? Loghain?"

He shuddered as the memories assaulted him. Yes. He could definitely get used to this.

"Loghain? Is that you over there?"

Shit. So much for that plan.

"It is you, isn't it? Loghain, my old friend!" Maric Theirin strode over from where he'd been lounging under a nearby tree, wearing that trademark, sunny smile as he caught him in a warm embrace. "Maker, am I glad to see you. I was content just to wander for quite a while, but I'm starting to get a little bored. What brings you here?"

"Obviously I'm dead, Maric," Loghain said with a sigh, kneading his temples with his fingers. Was it possible to have a migraine when you no longer possessed a physical body?

Maric scoffed and punched him on the shoulder good-naturedly. "I know that. I was asking how you died. It hasn't been that long since I've been gone, has it?"

Damn. This was going to be awkward, he just knew it. Hmm. How does one tell their best friend that he murdered his child in cold blood? Why hadn't Maric seen Cailan yet, anyway? That would certainly make this a lot easier to explain. At another time, he might have wondered why they were in the Fade in the first place and not across the Veil, but that wasn't the point of this story, now was it?

"Five years, close to six when I died. And uh…well, about that…"

"How is Cailan? Adjusting to the throne well, I hope. I think he has what it takes to finally mend ties with Orlais without botching the whole thing. Oh don't look at me like that, Loghain. Ferelden can't keep them at arm's length forever."

Well, this just got even more awkward.

Maric seemed to finally clue in on Loghain's odd behavior, and he cocked his head, confused. "What? Why are you looking at me like that?" Suddenly something seemed to dawn on him, and his eyes narrowed in suspicion. "Wait, I know that look. All right. What did you do?"

"Which do you want first: the good news, or the bad news?"

His friend frowned. "Give me the good news first. Something tells me I'm going to need it."

"Well the good news is, you were right about their being a Blight coming."

"I'm not sure if that's good news at all. I'd hoped I was wrong. If that's the good news, what the bloody hell is the bad news?" Maric asked, face tight with worry. Andraste's blood, this was going to be harder than he'd thought.

Out with it, Loghain. It's not going to get any better, no matter how you spin it.

Hmm. Better to be blunt then.

"The bad news is, I didn't take it seriously, and I sort of…left Cailan to die in a battle against a giant horde of darkspawn."

"You…wait. You did what to my son?"

"Well, let's just say he's a bit on the dead side now. And presumably naked, too. Your bastard was wearing his armor at the Landsmeet."

Maric gazed at him incredulously for a few seconds more, before his eyes narrowed in fury. Loghain held up a hand to silence him. "Please let me finish. If you think you're angry now, wait until I get to the part about how I sent assassins after your other son, and blamed it all on him. Well, and the other Grey Wardens, but you get my point."

"…really, Loghain? Really?"

"Then I named myself Anora's regent, but let's just face it; I was King. And on that note, let's not forget how much the slave trade thrived under my rule. I also let Rendon Howe man-handle me for half the game…metaphorically speaking. The assassins were originally his idea, but I kinda just went along with everything he did, for some inexplicable reason; including massacring the entire Cousland family just to gain their lands, but hey, who's counting?"

Maric's expression was currently alternating from angry, to incredulous, to horrified, then back to angry. "Exactly how deep is this hole you're digging for yourself, Loghain? Because if there's an end in sight, I don't see it."

Loghain crossed his arms over his chest, stubborn to the last. "You were dead and gone. I was all that remained to protect Ferelden, so I did that the best way I knew how. Cailan was a sodding idiot who barely knew his ass from a hole in the wall, and he had the same tactical prowess as one, too. What else would you have me do?" he asked, a bit on the defensive side.

"Oh, I don't know. Not betraying and murdering my oldest son, then framing the younger one for it would have been a nice place to start, I should think. Honestly, you would have dragged me kicking and screaming back to Denerim before you left me for dead, but it's okay for you to abandon Cailan simply because he made a few poor decisions? Where is the logic in that?"

"Andraste's blood, Maric! He was going to ally himself with Orlais. That would have given them the perfect opportunity to strike. Not to mention, he was throwing our entire army at a horde of advancing darkspawn because he thought it would be fun to ride off to war. He wouldn't even take Arl Eamon's offer of aid. It was an idiotic plan, and once the battle started, things became even worse than I thought, so I withdrew. Someone had to protect the legacy you left behind."

"Um…you do realize that Cailan was one of the most meaningful legacies I left behind, right? I know you've always been a little paranoid and messed up in the head, but that doesn't make any sense, even for you. How is killing Cailan and leaving Ferelden at the mercy of the Blight honoring my 'legacy' in any way?"

"We've been over this. He was riding off to battle without so much as a thought otherwise! I had to think of Ferelden as a whole, of our people."

"Then why the fuck didn't you just call for a Landsmeet and put the whole darkspawn question to a vote? People have done it for much lesser circumstances before, in case you've forgotten."

Hmm. Why hadn't he thought of that? Damn you, hindsight.

Without delay, however, Maric continued, furious. "And even if there wasn't time for that, or things didn't turn out in your favor, if you thought Cailan's plan was that stupid, you could have told him it was stupid and refused to take part. You're too important for him to ignore entirely. King or no, he was not all powerful. He could have forced you into compliance if he'd really wanted, but if I know Cailan, he wasn't going to do that. He would have had no choice but to back down, call for Eamon's armies, and perhaps wait for a better opportunity. Then, you could have come up with a plan of your own – don't even tell me you couldn't think of anything – and you would have been united against the Blight. But no, 'let's just kill him' seemed like the better option, didn't it? No way, Loghain. I call bullshit. You just wanted him out of the way so you could be a control freak. Granted, that's probably my fault since I relied so heavily on you at times, but that does not excuse what you did."

"That's not-"

"No, shut up! I'm not finished. What in Andraste's name is wrong with you? Maker's breath man, what else did you do? Behead Alistair and stick it on a pike, as a symbol to all unfaithful nobles everywhere?"

"No, but that's not a bad idea. Certainly would have saved me the headache later on. I paid those assassins far too much money to do nothing."

Maric hid his face in his hands, with a long-suffering groan. "Something is seriously wrong with you. For someone who hates Orlesians so much, you're sounding an awful lot like one."

"Orlesians do that because they think it's funny. I would resort to it only if necessary."

"Psh. Okay. Meghren."

"Oh, shut up. Your little indiscretion caused me a lot of trouble, I'll have you know. His very existence undermined my rule from the start. He slit my throat, and is probably stepping over my body and onto the throne as we speak."

"Well, good for him. I for one, am proud. Poetic justice, I would say. I'd do it myself, but unfortunately, we're already dead."

"Who says that matters?" said a voice from the distance, growing louder as it steadily came closer to them. Another lost soul? How curious. Loghain glanced over…

And found himself promptly speechless.

However, before he had a chance to react, Cailan Theirin strode straight up to him, clenched his fist, and unceremoniously punched him in the face, smiling at the satisfying crunch of cartilage and bone beneath his knuckles.

Apparently you don't need to be alive for your nose to be broken. True story.

Loghain gazed with slight bewilderment at the man he had left for dead on the fields of Ostagar, absently wondering at the fact that he was currently bleeding all over his shirt. Did this mean one could torture another for eternity here, and their victim would never die since they were already dead to begin with?

The thought was…unnerving.

As if he knew exactly what Loghain was thinking of, Cailan grinned evilly, his eyes a glint of blue steel within a face set in stone.

"You and I are going to have so much fun together, Loghain. It will be just like old times. Glorious. Wouldn't you agree? I think I need to show you exactly how naive I really am.

Scowling, Loghain rose up to his full height…or at least, he tried to anyway. Suddenly, he found that he was completely incapable of making even the smallest of moves. Strange. What in the Maker…

"Oh, did I forget to mention that I completely control this realm, and you are entirely at my mercy for as long as I see fit? Sorry, my mistake."

"What? How is that even possible? This is grossly unjust," Loghain muttered.

"So was leaving me to be ravaged by darkspawn, but your crazy paranoid delusions took precedence over what was just, now didn't they? Ugh. I mean, geez, did you ever stop to think that maybe you could tell me it was a stupid plan, and come up with a better one of your own if you disapproved that much? Correct me if I'm wrong, but you were a part of that war council, were you not? Don't even tell me you didn't have one. You found a way to destroy a legion of chevaliers almost single-handedly. I think you could have taken a shot at the darkspawn too, if you'd wanted."

"That's what I said!" Maric interjected with enthusiasm, wildly waving his arms as if to emphasize the point.

Helplessly, Loghain let his eyes wander over to Maric, who only shrugged as if to say, 'Don't look at me. This is your problem now.'

Cailan moved closer to him – Loghain doing his best not to look away from the intensity of his gaze – and grasped his chin between a thumb and forefinger, caressing the skin beneath almost in a mocking way. "I could torture you, you know. I could do whatever I wanted in this place and you would never die. But you know what? I'm not going to do that."

Loghain was surprised. "You're not?"

"No. I'm not like you, Loghain. I held you in high regard once upon a time. If I sank so low now, I'd be no better than you were. You were like a second father to me, so I'm going to leave you alone. Perhaps I should have been more careful about Ostagar, and for that, I take partial responsibility. All the same, I don't want to see you again. Well, not for a few hundred years or so, or whatever time amounts to in this place."

Just like that, he found he could move again, and Cailan was striding away, but not before he glanced over his shoulder back at Loghain, wearing a mischievous grin. "Oh, and just so you know, I think I'd like to tell you a little something about my brother, the man who gave you what you rightfully deserved."

"Oh? And what's that?" He would be lying if he said he couldn't hear the sarcasm in his own voice.

"His mother? Was Orlesian." And with that he walked away, laughing boisterously at the memory of the look on Loghain's face.

Maric bursted into fits of giggles right along with son, glancing after him fondly. "Ah, he's a chip off the old block, isn't he? Now that I think about it, that is pretty funny. Killed by the son of an Orlesian. Oh, the irony."

"It's true?" Loghain choked, staring at Maric as if he'd sprouted a second head.

"Yup. I don't know how Cailan found out, but yup. It's true. Come now, Loghain. You didn't think we were just fighting darkspawn while we were down in the Deep Roads, did you?"

"I hate you so much."

"Duly noted."