Getting back into the fanfic-writing groove with my favorite trash, Loghain.
He would call it irony, if he wasn't so sick of using the term. And he was sick of it, to be sure. Every other day he heard a subtle jibe or a veiled comment about his past, and those were the only the ones they said to his face. He'd once heard the Grey Wardens described as a place where anyone could redeem themselves, but apparently that was not the truth.
Not if his eating alone every morning, midday, and evening, showed anything. Perhaps it wasn't it even his past. Maybe he was just unlikable. He nearly chuckled at the thought and spooned another helping of bland soup into his mouth.
"Smiling? Don't you know you're not allowed to do that?"
His face immediately fell back into its normal scowl. Respect your elders, he wanted to snap, but he didn't. He'd been the oldest recruit to survive the Joining the Order had seen in the last hundred years, and any reminder of his age quickly became the butt of a joke somewhere around the fortress.
"You are Loghain, right?" said the Grey Warden in front of him. She grinned cheekily when his scowl deepened. She wasn't a full Warden, he realized, just a recruit. He'd never seen her around.
"Yes," he said, tapping his spoon against his bowl irritably.
"My father talked about you all the time," she said, sliding into the seat across from him. He stared at her. Why.
"Did he?" he said flatly. "I suppose a lot of people ended up talking about the Traitor Teryn, even in Orlais. Especially in Orlais."
"I'm from Denerim, and anyway, he didn't talk about you like that," she said, matching the tapping of his spoon with her fingernails against the table. "He called you the Hero of River Dane. Said you were a good man."
"I didn't know elves much cared for me," said Loghain, noting the long ears.
"Most don't care," said the woman, leaning forward and putting her elbows on the table. "Just like most humans don't care. But my dear old dad, he was in the war. Actually, you knew him. He was one of your Night Elves."
That piqued his interest, and he stopped tapping his spoon against his bowl. "He was? What's his name? Precious few of that company made it home, I'm sorry to say."
"Savin," said the woman, watching him closely.
Loghain nodded shortly. "A good man, a good archer. Could take out a target two hundred yards away in the pitch black. How is he?"
"He's dead," she said. "Killed when the Tevinters tried to send us all to slavery. They used him for their blood magic."
He felt his blood run cold. His stomach churned with mediocre soup. While he didn't visibly flinch, every nerve was on fire.
"They said after the Landsmeet you had something to do with that," she said, dark eyes trained on him. "Is that true?"
This was why she was here. All this to ask that question. Tainting his good memories with his bad deeds.
"It is," he said.
"Thank you," she replied. All the cheer was gone, replaced by coldness. "I'm to be trained by a senior Warden. They wanted to assign me to you, but when I told the higher-ups, they said I could switch if I wanted. I think I will."
His jaw set hard at those words, teeth grinding. "What do you want me to say? I am serving my penance, here, in this hall, eating alone every day until today. I am sorry, for what little it is worth."
"You're right," she said. "It is worth little."
She left. He scooped the last dregs of his soup up and thought that the girl had it right. Spit on his name for his crimes against the elves, not for Ostagar. People never hated their pariahs for the right reasons.