AN: Featuring Jade's remarkably sad Laemira Amell, who made the best choices she could in a world much harder than she. Special thanks to w0rdinista for the beta.

Recommended soundtrack: Life and Death by Paul Cardell. (Listen here: /watch?v=Ov-u8bqOt7U)

—

The Warden's camp surprised him.

He had not expected to have many surprises left in his life, not at his age, not after the choices he had made for the sake of his country. And yet here he stood on a summer's evening in the wilds south of Denerim, a week of damp forest air aching in bones better-suited to a warm robe and a hot fire. He had not slept in a tent since Ostagar.

It did not upset him to be hated. He knew the hedgewitch disliked him, her eyes hot and hard on his skin when he gave her his back; the redheaded bard watched him with a wounded suspicion that reminded him that he was an unwelcome replacement, a stand-in for a younger man both better-tempered and better-liked, if woefully unprepared for the cost of war. The Warden's companions had lost a friend; the Warden had chosen his life instead, when he would have accepted death. He could bear many things, he found, given such an unexpected lien of his future. Ferelden's future, by proxy—he was not so vain as to imagine a preference for his company.

He ate without haste when the rest of them did, quiet on their logs and furs, gazes sliding like a dance from their feet to the Warden to him and back again. He did not offer challenge when he caught their eyes; he waited, and eventually, they fell away. The assassin rose first, one measured look thrown across the campfire before he dropped his hand on the Warden's shoulder and withdrew. To hire him had been error on his part, that one; he had in one stroke severed his ties to the Crows and given their best into the hands of his enemy. It would be easy to blame Howe for that choice, and some part of him did—and blamed him, too, for the taking of his daughter and the risk of her return—but he knew as well as Howe did the heavy choices one made to gain power and keep it, even at the cost of humanity, to keep one's enemy from that power in return.

No. Not his enemy, now. A curious thought.

He stood when she did, throwing the small bones of his hare into the fire. Coincidence, perhaps, or perhaps some unconscious civility to this woman who'd crowned his daughter; regardless, he did not expect her to follow him from the warmth of the fire into the cooler wood.

"Forgive me," she said, her voice soft behind him, and he thought of many things he might forgive her for, and more that he would not. "I don't mean to intrude."

He inclined his head, gesturing for her to walk with him. "You don't. I meant only to fill my waterskin before the morning's travel."

"I thought the same," she said, lifting her own, and fell into step with him. The firelight died quickly as they passed through the trees; soon they could see only by the thin moonlight that trickled through the thinner clouds, lining the rough-barked branches, glancing across the flat blade of a leaf. Then the trees broke around the stream, a narrow, shivering thing at their feet; he knelt and she knelt with him, and when they dipped their skins beneath the surface he was struck again by her youth, by smooth fingers unknotted by age and disease and thirty years of gripping a sword.

"I wanted to thank you," she said then, and he caught her quick glance to his face. "For coming along."

"It seemed I had very little choice."

"Yes," she said more quietly, and perhaps he regretted some of his bitterness, but she capped her skin and stood, waiting for him. "All the same."

"All the same," he echoed, kneeling a little longer. "You travel in formidable company, Warden."

"You will make them more so, Teyrn."

Loghain shook his head, and this was bitter, this change, a life ended regardless of the sword. Death would have been easier; instead he had been cut in two, kept from his country and oblivion both. He had not meant to serve Ferelden in this way. "That is no longer my title. I am no more than you, and no less."

"Warden, then." She extended her hand to him; he shook his head again and stood, his knees protesting, his armor a heavier weight than he remembered. Her hand fell to her side; she said, "It's not so hard a name as you might think."

"Platitudes!" he said, and laughed, and her cheeks colored in the thin moonlight. "Young woman, there's no need to charm me into your wake. For better or worse, you now hold the best chance for Ferelden to survive this Blight. That alone wins you my sword."

"I'm tired of swords," she murmured.

"Then you will die young."

"I am a Grey Warden," she reminded him, her voice gentle, her eyes lifting from the shuddering stream to his own. "Death runs in my blood, Loghain Mac Tir. As it does in yours."

So soft, he thought—so young, to be so strong. Anora could not be so much older than her, even before the weight of the crown had added its age; and when she looked at him he caught a glimpse of moonlight on the twist of a braid—

His daughter had grown old so quickly, forced by court and Cailan and his own wishes to put aside her youth in favor of something harder. This woman, he thought, had done the same. Would that he had seen the similarities sooner, though he could not pretend he was not unsettled by the insight, could not pretend that he would not have made the same choices for Anora. Would that he had never seen them at all.

He cursed, a voiceless word that tore away the silence, and put his back to the stream. The waterskin hung heavy and damp from his hand; he clutched at it, then forced his grip to ease as the Warden watched him without speaking. Warden, he reminded himself: guardian, watchman, the waked eye in the dark. He had fought for his country once when it was no country at all, only a weary people crushed beneath Orlesian fists; now it stood again on the brink of death, the land he loved Blighted and sick, foul things creeping into the light of day that had no place there. This woman had given him the means to fight them, to drive them back into the deep places where they were meant to be to protect his country.

No. His daughter's country, now.

She was still watching him, her brow furrowed in concern, her mage's hands twisted at her waist. Instead he said, an answer that was not an answer, "I owe you my thanks."

"What for?"

"What you have done for Anora. You could have chosen to wield your influence any way you wished, could've put Maric's bastard on the throne and let him take his revenge on me. I'd have understood."

"Oh," she said, and there was a bruised thing in the sound that startled him. "I—"

Bloody Void, Loghain thought, and then, the girl loved him, Rowan.

Maric's son, she whispered, laughing, as distant as the wind. What did you expect?

Anora had loved Cailan, too.

But before he could find words for—anything, she squared her shoulders. "I swore a promise," she told him, "and I had a duty. To my country, and my queen, and I—" her hand fisted over her heart, not in fealty but in something like pain, "and I could not be forsworn by murder. The reason didn't matter. I can't… I could not see how any rule begun with vengeance could ever lead to peace."

"Peace." He could not remember it. "Ferelden needs a little peace."

"Stability, too. Anora is so familiar to her people."

And then he thought my daughter, who rules in her own name and no other, and a fierce pride swelled in his heart sudden enough to steal his breath. He wished Celia had known. "Anora will be a good Queen."

"Yes."

"You know it. You throned her."

"Yes."

"It was not a mistake, Warden." What was he saying?

"I know," she said, and if her voice was not hard it was strong, and colder than it had been, and when she looked at him it was with the full weight of a woman who had set her heart aside for the sake of the country she loved more and the duty she bore for it. Oh, Rowan, he thought, and Anora, and abruptly the pride ached like a blow.

What were they, to send such children into battle?

But—how old had he been the first time he'd stood by Maric and raised his sword to kill a man on his behalf? The first time he'd knelt, both of them bleeding, both of them muddy, to swear his name to his king—the first time he had looked in that fool Theirin's eyes and loved him—

Rowan, he thought again, and all at once he was weary, sapped down to the bone, sick to death of war and councils and the endless bickering of a nobility so far removed from the land they'd sworn to protect that they could no longer love it, could no longer feel the earthy weight of it in their hearts, wild and painful and beloved as no other thing in Thedas. He had done the same for so long and never realized the cost, he and Howe so alike in their avarice. Ruins—that's what they were, decrepit misers pinching every drop of blood from their people to feed a creature that could not die, letting the land fail while they argued, letting the darkspawn run rampant while they fought for titles that would mean nothing.

Regret held him by the neck, shook him in a breath that hurt his chest. And who was he to cast such judgment, after all? Blood stained his hands as much as theirs, death weighed against his scale, allegiance and alliance and succor given to evil men for evil deeds, because he knew the cost of war; he knew what duty demanded of a desperate soul. Was it irony, that he'd given the woman he'd loved to Maric, that he'd taken both Maric's sons from the women who loved them?

How damning, to see that same recognition in the Warden's eyes. How much a blind relief.

But this was war, and death hung from them like cloaks, like mirrored shields, and when his feet turned towards the camp the Warden's turned also, falling into easy pace with him, as if every step she took at his side did not take her further from her heart. They were quiet a long time, and then he said into the dark, "Your family will be proud of you."

"I am a Circle mage," she murmured. "My family gave me to them before I can remember."

He said nothing, his strides unchanging, and before them the trees thinned and light caught in a spark that bloomed into flame; and they stepped forward all at once into the clearing where their tents were pitched, where a dozen faces lifted and brightened and loved her, because she led them—because she knew them, and loved them in return. What else could carry such a group as this besides a will as great as Maric's, besides a heart as strong as Rowan's: one who could bring together a Wilds-witch and an Antivan assassin and a qunari and a dwarf and an Orlesian bard, who could love a man and let him go because she knew there were greater things in the world than the grief of a broken heart.

Sacrifice, he thought, watching her smile, and he knew the cost of his own life—and hers. So high a price; and yet they could do no less, they who loved this country and her people, they who were willing to become nothing to save all. Somewhere, Rowan smiled.

Anora needed her. Ferelden needed her, not only as a shield but as a sword, whether she carried one or not. A guardian; a leader—

A Warden, he decided, lifting his head; she looked behind her to the place where he stood at the edge of the camp, and when she beckoned he drew in a breath, and straightened, and he followed her.