A/N~ After reading Dragon Age: The Stolen Throne, I fell in love with the characters Loghain & Rowan. My story is a little snippet of what I hope happened before her death. This is my first attempt at fan fiction so please review. Tell me what you thought, what you liked and how I can do better. And many thanks to Piceron, your help was most appreciated (check out her story ~ What Comes Next. It's very good!). I would also like to thank BioWare & David Gaider for these amazing characters. Enjoy ~
The room was dim with what little light filtered in through the drawn draperies. The air was still, heavy and stale. Books that were once well loved and read countless times sat gathering dust, not touched by loving hands in months. Several chairs sat erect around the spacious bed, which had acted as silent guardians. They had been witness to countless nights of heartfelt pleas and silent prayers. Magic hung in the air, not that of recent, but of continuous and relentless use of it, to the point it permeated the room, and coated it like fine soot from a pyre.
Loghain lingered in the doorway. He gathered all that was him; The Hero of River Dane, the commander of armies, and the vanquisher of Orlesian bastards, but here, he hesitated to enter a room with no more then a ghost of an occupant.
It had been some time since he had been here, to the palace in Denerim. It had all been to avoid the very person he now sought. The one person who had touched his heart, who had commanded such emotion from him. No one before or after had touched that corner of his soul that was so well guarded.
Loghain took a step, his chevalier armor, his second skin, clanged against the stone floors and disturbed the silent stagnant air. The small mound in the middle of the enormous bed stirred, small pathetic moans escaped from it. His breath hitched; why had he come? He didn't belong here. He should turn around, leave, never come back. You are a pathetic man, Loghain, for all your oomph and gusto. This is what you have been reduced to, a nervous hesitant child, he berated himself.
He set his jaw, clenched his fists, and strode the rest of the way into the spacious room. Soon, he towered over the bed. He gazed down at what should have been a young vibrant women with fiery eyes, but who laid before him was not of what he remembered, not his Rowan, but an imposter. For a split second he thought to call the guards for the queen had been kidnapped, and this pathetic charlatan had been put in her place, but… no… his heart ached for he knew the truth. The sickness had ravaged her body and left only a gaunt, hollow husk of a human. He wanted to scream and rip the sickness from her body, destroy it with his bare hands.
He slowly sat down in the chair close to her side. He knew this would have been Maric's place. Loghain wondered how often Maric had sat here; how many hours he had spent watching her wither away?
This should have been his spot.
The lines around his fierce eyes softened as he took his hand and softly caressed her cheek. Rowan's eyes fluttered and heavily opened. When she realized who had woken her, surprise and confusion painted her face. Her frail frame struggled to sit up. Loghain tenderly placed his hands on her shoulders and scooted her back against the headboard. He gathered several pillows that laid near by and put them behind her and tried to make her as comfortable as he possibly could.
"Loghain? What? … Why are…," but before she could finish, she had begun to cough. She motioned for a handkerchief that laid on the table next to the bed. He handed it to her, and noted the way the silky fabric felt between his rough fingers. Memories of how soft she had felt so long ago followed. She covered her mouth and continued to cough uncontrollably, her small frame shook and heaved with so much force he thought surely she would break apart. When she finally seem to calm, Rowan sheepishly dabbed the blood from her lips. Loghain picked up a goblet of water that had sat next to the handkerchief. He noticed it had been laced with herbs and hoped this would relieve the apparent distress she was in. He held it to her lips, and helped her drink. He held it there until it was clear she had her fill, then he positioned it back on the table.
Silence stretched on between them.
Rowan sat quiet, eyes fixed on her drawn, withered hands. Loghain though, stared at her with intensity. He studied the planes and contours of her face and mapped the places where beauty had once resided.
"I didn't think I would ever see you again. You have been scarce, even with Maric," Rowan said, as she broke the silence, but continued to avoid eye contact.
Loghain looked away, hesitant only for a second, for he knew that was true. When he turned back, she had set her gaze upon him. Her eyes were dark and sunken, but he could still see the warrior soul she possessed. It was only a flicker, but he could see it; he had always seen it.
Without hesitation, he reached out for her hand and took it in his. Rowan was taken aback only for a moment, then a shadow of a smile played across her chapped lips. "Did you come all this way to hold my hand?" she snickered.
He only looked at her and mulled over in his mind what he wanted to say. His heart screamed at him to confess everything; his admiration, his love, his regret.
Silence.
Too much silence, too much left unsaid, too much left to chance, so many opportunities never taken. There had been a few glimmers of hope. Silence that had actually had meaning, that could, could have been so much more, but those too had been lost to a void of silence, a gaped chasm that stretched on for an eon. He was sick of it. Not now, not ever again.
"Rowan…" He began, pausing. He had never been one for expressing his innermost heart, but he knew that soon he would never have the chance. If he didn't do what he came here to do, it would haunt him the rest of his life. He already held so much regret.
"I…"He began again and then stopped. He dipped his head only for a moment and then straightened again in his chair.
He took a breath and began to open his mouth once more to speak. Rowan held up a frail hand to hush him.
"I understand why you are here," she whispered. "I know, I have always known."
He sat there silent, looking at her. He marveled at how truly beautiful she was, even if the illness had destroyed her body, he saw her. This was his Rowan. And she would always be his.