Great thanks to Angelic Sentinel who was kind enough the beta this fic for me! :)
Sometimes, when the sky turns red as the sun slowly sinks below the horizon, Duncan pauses in his search – for people, monsters and answers – and simply looks.
This could be the last time he'll ever see the sun, he could fall asleep tonight and never wake again, forever trapped in darkness, so he looks and looks and looks, till the sky holds no trace of yellow.
For the sun is beautiful, even when it's gone.
Duncan remembers being young, he remembers how naïve he used to be – how stupid – but there is a smile on his face as he does. A little self-deprecating and a little mournful, but a smile nonetheless.
He doesn't remember Ferelden – Highever – the way it was before he left and returned; he was too young. He vaguely remembers the caravan they travelled with, his father and mother hoping for a brighter future in Orlais. It's all dust and smells and noise, though, in his mind, cramped with people and cattle, so it isn't much of a memory.
Val Royeaux he remembers clearly.
For better and for worse.
He starts stealing by accident. His mother and father burned not yet a fortnight ago, but food had been scarce even before, and there's not much one can do at eight. So when he literally stumbles over a man passed out in an alley, hidden in shadows and stench, it's oh so easy to squat down and search pockets with fingers nimble with youth.
He doesn't find much, a few golden coins and a small iron dagger, but he takes what he can get and runs away as fast as he can. Away from the bars and the brothels and down to the river, hiding beneath a bridge, terrified and in awe of what he just did.
The sleep he gets that night is fitful; he awakens often to scuttle even further into the little shadow where he hides, and when he rouses for the last time in the early morning, it's with a back that's aching and cold limbs.
He eats that day, though, filling his stomach completely for the first time in a week, and he knows he'll do it again.
Lie and steal and cheat.
The first time he is caught happens a few months after, Duncan trying his luck on a drunkard that wasn't as out of it as he had first thought, the man managing to hit him square in the jaw before Duncan takes off with nothing gained. His heart is trapped in his throat, beating at a furious pace, and as soon as he passes the nearest corner, he dives behind a pile of rocks and throws up.
His skin is clammy, cold and warm at once, and he's never been scared like this before. It was different, when his parents died and the roof above his head disappeared, because that was distant, dulled, in a way that this isn't.
His jaw is aching, and when he moves his hand to wipe away the bile catching around his mouth, he has to hold back a scream as he touches it.
He knows this won't be the last time he gets caught, he's not that dumb, but he still swears that he won't. Because for all the smarts in the world, he's stubborn, scared, and still so very young.
The ring is not worth the life it takes to Duncan, but it is not Duncan who decides its worth.
He's killed a man, in with the blade and out with the life, and whether or not it was an accident doesn't really matter.
He's heading for the gallows.
There are three outcomes that Duncan can see in this.
One, he refuses, and they kill him, by blade or by arrow.
Two, he drinks the blood, and it kills him, wracking his body from the inside out.
Or three, he drinks it, and he lives, forever changed and not quite human.
He looks at the woman standing before him, blade perched languidly on her hip, staring him down with uncaring eyes, and drinks.
He finds out the next day that every option leads to death, the only difference being how long and in what way.
In the early days with the Order, when he's still stunned with shock, he misses the looks of contempt he sometimes gets. Steel eyes cast over a steaming bowl, a blow just a bit too harsh and intent for practice, it all passes him by.
A little bit on purpose – he's killed a man dead – because he doesn't want to see, but a lot of it is pure ignorance from a childhood even more lost than it was before.
But with time everything can be shrugged off, even numbness and confused grief, and the looks and the shoves and the whispered insults aren't to be ignored any longer. He isn't surprised that he's on the receiving end of them, the man he murdered was a Grey Warden, and these are Grey Wardens he's sharing house with.
He doesn't know what to do with that, though.
Or, he does, but it really doesn't work when they catch him each and every single time.
His first lover is a girl just shy of eighteen, young and sweet and already knowing the tragedies of this world.
She lives on the street, just like he used to, and Duncan leaves a few more coins than she had required when he departs from the rundown inn in the middle of the night. His sword is heavy on his hip, he's not quite used to its weight just yet, and a constant reminder of what he can't have.
He goes back to the barracks, having gotten rid of his last innocence.
Innocence has no place in the Order.
"He was her betrothed," Mikhail says when Genevieve leaves after chewing Duncan out. Her words had been harsher than necessary – nothing out of the ordinary – and her eyes had resembled ice more than anything.
Mikhail's words aren't harsh, though, when he reveals truths that perhaps aren't his to reveal. He doesn't sugarcoat it, but it's far from the way he was treated even a month back. Two boys not quite friends but sticking together out of sheer necessity.
A man's gotta be alive to watch another's back.
It doesn't make it worse – knowing the reason behind a dead man's conviction to not let go – because Duncan feels as bad about it as he possibly can already, but it gives his guilt a direction. He's been aimless since he was Conscripted – not wanting to fight, wanting and not wanting to die, wanting to hide and never be seen again.
There isn't a manual for what to do after killing a man and not dying for it, and the only way Duncan knows to deal with anything is to steal and run. And while the stealing part has worked out as it should, he hasn't been able to run for a very long time.
He doesn't know how he feels with not running, constantly feels the itch in his legs to do so, but he doesn't have to like it to do it.
He was her betrothed, and the least Duncan can do is make sure that she lives.
Maric Theirin is strange.
He's happy and sad at the same time, almost eagerly awaiting death, yet running from it at the same time, and Duncan can't help but be intrigued.
This is the King of a Nation, a man that shoulders the responsibility of thousands, and yet he is with them down beneath the mountains, hundreds of meters of stone and dirt above their heads and wicked creatures aiming for their throats.
They didn't even have to steal him away in the night – and they would have, because Genevieve is nothing but goal-minded and Duncan would lay his life down for her without question – and for that alone, Duncan doesn't feel like killing him.
He will do it if necessary – a word is all it takes – but he won't wait with a hand resting on the hilt of his sword.
Maric Theirin is interesting, and there is not much to do in The Deep Roads.
A year is both very short and very long.
Duncan doesn't cry when it's over.
He drinks.
Being a Grey Warden is not just a job or a way of life. It is a life all on its own.
There is the birth, where you drink and die or become other.
There is the childhood, where you train till you bleed but have elders still holding your hand.
There is that brief period when you've just turned into an adult and you think yourself able to take on the world and win.
There are the years after, where you've learnt and understood why you couldn't.
All along this, you fight and you kill beings that shouldn't exist. Your senses dull, right and wrong become more than a little skewed, and when your mind finally realizes that your body can't go on, you dream.
And when you dream, it is through darkness' eyes, and you head to the underground so as not to be slain by the one sharing your house and food and life.
The end, those years where normal people – untainted people – turn old and gray and wrinkly, your blood starts to darken, and you crave more meat than vegetables. Monsters live in your head, monsters that you can't kill yourself, but that are eating at your flesh from the inside out.
For Grey Wardens, the clock is always ticking, you just can't hear until it's on the last stretch.
Death stays the same, though, because no matter what it is over.
Duncan can't say that he likes being what he is, he didn't choose it and he most definitely didn't want it. It is what he is, though.
A Grey Warden.
He becomes the Warden-Commander of Ferelden through both his background and experience as well as the connection he has with its ruler. King Maric is his friend, somehow, and the Order knows how to best take advantage of what they're given.
He will do a good job, no matter the reasons.
It was the most important lesson Genevieve ever taught him.
They can all feel it, the way that the monsters seem to multiply overnight and how the cries are far louder than they should be. The Grey Wardens know what's near, and they start recruiting with a vengeance.
They will need everything and more to be able to face the threat looming over them.
He knows who Alistair is the moment he lays his eyes on him.
He was looking for mages – found a few he will send for later, someone else could manage their Conscription – but he knew right away that it was the blond Templar in training that would be walking out these doors with him.
He doesn't even try to fool himself into thinking that he does it solely for the future of the Royal Family's reign over Ferelden.
He does it for the Grey Wardens, in the way that they now have a big card in their hands.
He does it for Maric, in the way that he will make sure that he will train his son to stand strong in the face of everything.
He does it for himself, because he needs a successor, and few are better than the brother of a King.
He also imagines that he does it for Alistair, because Duncan knows how to spot unhappiness when faced with it.
He does it, because when push comes to shove, that's all he can do.
The nightmares start again, coming back with a vengeance and reminding him that his days left are counting down, down, down. He dreams of monsters, hordes of darkspawn with a dragon in their wake, so tall that it reaches the sky and conceals the moon, and Duncan is afraid. Not of death, he's been dying for most of his life, but for the storm the world will have to face before the wind settles down yet again.
The Blight is coming.
They aren't ready.
He finds his last recruit on his journey to Ostagar, a small girl from a Dalish tribe with her fate already sealed.
He doesn't know what she will do in the future, but he imagines it will be great because she has more drive and will than anyone he's met in a long time. Small in stature but great in all else.
She will survive the Joining; he is sure.
"We bear a sacred burden. For an age, we have protected the lands of men. But now, a Blight is upon us, and we dare not falter. Regardless of race, noble or commoner. The best must take up our banner to save us all from annihilation.
We are the Grey Wardens.
Join us."
The last battle, for he knows that is what this is, is in the hours of darkness. The sky black, stars and moon hidden, everything awaiting the shine of a beacon to light up the world. Awaiting people, men and women – human, dwarf, and elf – to thicken their thinning ranks and push back the horrors living in an old warrior's nightmares.
The fire burns, beautiful as a lake in the desert, filled with promises of relief and rest.
Empty ones, it seems.
A king dies.
A man trusted betrays.
Those who live write history.
Duncan knows, though, that while Loghain may have won this one – so very cowardly but won all the same – he won't win in the end. Knows that while he may spread words of untruth now, while the people may even believe them, the lies will unravel under daylight and they will not be quieted. Knows that the boy that's almost done becoming a man, the boy he tried to shape to the best of his abilities, will arise from the ashes of a Kingdom falling to ruin and be the beams that will hold her up.
Duncan knows a lot of things, and while there's not quite a smile on his face as he stabs and stabs and stabs, it's not a look of despair either.
For Duncan, everything ends on a battlefield drenched with blood and littered with cadavers, both human and not.
For the world, for the brave and the kind and the petty and the greedy, well, the sun will rise tomorrow still.