The Longest Memories
Chapter One / Perspective and Truth
Author Note: Anora's take on life post-Blight, and her complicated relationship with a city elf Warden-Commander. Please tell me what you think!
Anora cannot say she hates the Warden. The elf led the attack against the Archdemon, though certainly not alone. She cobbled together an army, though not without coarse politics that would make Anora wince on a kind day, sigh on a bad one. Anora can say she wishes the woman would leave her court in peace for longer than a year.
"Why do you use two blades?" the child pipes up.
The queen sighs at her daughter, precocious and curious. Not bad traits, but the girl never stopped talking.
The Warden smiles, green eyes glinting. "The fight's over twice as fast."
The princess does not understand. "Don't you like fighting? Why do you want it over?"
A light laugh, and the Warden hikes her leg up on the table like an exaggerating pirate. The scar marring her lip reinforces the image. Anora refrains from ordering her to remove her foot from the table, but only just.
"What do you see?" she asks the princess, gesturing at her slender leg, thankfully wearing breeches. Anora sees corded muscle, but the Warden is still a bird-boned elf. "I'm a girl, silly. I can best any man in a fight—oh, except the King of course," she laughs, "but I will never have their size and strength. So I fight quick, before I can tire."
Anora sees her kind smiles and winking eyes, but knows the girl speaks with deftness and persuasion as a practicality, nothing more. When not feeling practical, she sounds every bit her upbringing. Anora remembers the day when the Warden's infiltration of Arl Howe's estate turned into an assault by the time she reached her door.
"Maker be damned, a fucking ward?" A ragged edge to her voice—Anora can tell she has been fighting.
"I think kicking it will just make it angry, my dear." A warmer voice.
"Is anyone even in there?"
"I would greet you properly but I'm afraid we have had a setback." She sits at the small desk and squirms from an itch unreachable in her armor.
After the ward died, the Warden returned. Anora knows she is a city elf, but her father had not described her further. She is dressed like a Howe guard, excepting the helm held in one hand. She had to be a small thing beneath it, thin and wiry as a piece of rawhide. No helmet—Anora would learn later they bothered her ears—left her face open to study. Sharp, like the rest of her. Darting wolf eyes, green, fierce, and cutting. Red hair tied back, and greasy after a long estrangement from a bath.
"Warden," Anora begins, unsure of her name. "You must promise my security. I am not to be identified should we encounter more guards."
The elf rolls her eyes. "Yes, your Majesty, I will tell anyone we meet that the spotless blonde in poor-fitting armor is not the Queen of Ferelden."
Moments later the Warden stops dead, facing down twenty archers. And Ser Cauthrien. Maker knows the woman is like a hound after a scent.
"You are wanted for the murder of Arl Howe and his men," the knight begins, trying to hide her fury behind cold authority. She demands the elf and Alistair come quietly.
Anora feels this is about to go very sour. She will be identified, and have to claim a kidnapping. Not how she wants to meet the Warden, but even with Howe dead her position is tenuous.
"Me?" the Warden cries. "I am one of Howe's men! You are breaking and entering."
She has stalled for time to find a small dagger. Through with words, she throws it at Loghain's chief lieutenant. In her defense, it would have worked had the target not been Ser Cauthrien. The knight knocks it away and gives the order to attack. She is already meeting the Warden's daggers with her greatsword.
If any wonder why she does not join the fray, they do not ask, too distracted by the Wardens, a long-haired elf, and a hawk-eyed apostate.
The Warden's daggers snap out like fangs and she moves almost as fast as the lightly armored elf. But Anora knows she is mortal, for eventually she makes the mistake of dancing too close to an archer. Too close because she expected him to use his bow, not his gauntleted fist. It catches her where jaw meets throat and sends her spinning, spitting blood, snarling, but the moment on her knees is enough for Cauthrien to kick her onto her back, put one foot on her dominate arm and set her sword against the Warden's throat. For her part, the she-wolf offers a bloody grin. Alistair yields for them.
"Except the King? You are too modest, my lady." Her husband enters the dining hall, finally done with a correspondence. Alistair has the same grin every time the Warden arrives at court. He can change his words, but not his smile. "You haven't seen her wrestle with a bear," Alistair stage-whispers to his daughter.
"If I stood back its claws would rip me belly to breast ," the Warden retorts. "Far better to get close enough to smell what it had for supper, then drag both daggers across its throat while you distract it."
The princess looks entranced with her beatific hero. She has not let her handmaid bundle up her hair, leaving it down in a flaxen swath. Anora lets her exert her authority with everyone but her tutors and parents. Better to teach her heir to be too bold than too demure. That, she decides, is the chief reason she does not curtail the Warden's influence.
The Warden is too sharp and raw-cut to be a traditional beauty, though Anora does not deny her striking qualities. When not clad in armor, she lets her scarlet hair fall down her back, unkempt and untamed. Her eyes are large in elvish fashion, dark green and piercing for all her small stature. The near-decade since the Blight has softened her features the slightest, though Anora suspects age has as much a hand as gentler living. Nothing about the Warden is gentle.
Alistair settles beside Anora as a servant fills his cup and another ladles a bisque into a bowl. He takes her hand in his callused one, casting her a smile before turning his eyes back to the Warden, who stands across from him. Anora has learned not to take too much offense. The Warden keeps her word.
"I'm not going anywhere."
Anora feels the twitch in her stomach. It took years to kill the sting whenever she heard rumor of some bann's second daughter catching Cailan's eye. The Warden senses it.
"It's a political marriage, aye? You don't even have to see the goofy bastard except for heirs. I met my betrothed on our wedding day."
"You are married?" the queen asks, trying not to sound perplexed.
"Aye. No. Almost. In the Alienages our elders pick. Mine was nice enough—he didn't say anything when I threatened to dodge the ceremony. Did you ever meet the late Arl's heir? Bann Vaughan?"
"Yes," Anora replies. She had disliked the man. The stories about him were almost as bloody as his death by renegade elves—Anora pauses, pieces locking together.
"Miserable bastard," the Warden continues. "He ruined my wedding and dragged several of us to his manse for a bit of raping. My cos and betrothed—two people, I swear—came to our rescue. Last I saw of my intended was a sword jutting out his back. So never married, but my point is that it's just a fancy dress and a dowry." Her gaze softens. "What I mean to say, your Majesty, is that I would never deceive you. But if I survive this Blight, I cannot just leave Alistair. Not after our time together. We are both Wardens, so there will be no worry for unwanted…creations."
Anora catches her game. Her hard tongue can soften like warmed honey and her speech can pass as educated, when she wills it. Anora does not think for one moment her story was meant for anything other than persuasion, but she does not sense the Warden lies. If her talent was sensing magic rather than deception, Anora would be a High Seeker by now.
"Very well," she says at last. "But I must have your word for two things. You will spare my father if you can. And when Alistair and I are married, you will not embarrass me."
Not like Cailan. A bann's daughter once became too bold during a feast. Loghain had threatened her father to drag her home, lest she have no home to return.
The Warden keeps her vow. She does not avoid Alistair in public. That act is as much a sign of a tryst as stolen kisses in the hallway. Instead they play as old war companions and fire-forged friends. Closer to siblings than lovers. It is not all an act, Anora knows. That, and any noble's dalliance with an elf would be with a whore or servant. The Warden is neither. The queen has as sharp an ear for gossip as falsehoods, and she has never heard of the Wardens together.
The midday meal is blessedly informal—Anora has no desire to fake smiles and imply threats as she must when more nobles are gathered.
"Your trip to Orzammar went well?" Alistair asks.
The Warden's smile breaks for a moment. "I barely saw Orzammar. I accompanied House Dace to Amgarrak Thaig, where I saw the scariest thing in my life." Her eyes do not lie. This has the table intrigued, even the queen.
"Hopefully not a deshyr too passionate for his Bronto," he says. "I don't think I could ever unsee that."
She laughs, her light lie of a laugh. Anora does not know if Alistair recognizes it. "There was a Bronto, a nice one. Instead, we found the remains of an experiment. A bad one." Whatever it was, she tells the soft version.
"How bad?"
Her voice lowers. "It turned Branka's stomach." She has the intended effect of Alistair dropping his spoon. "Part of it was still kicking, but we put it down."
Despite the grotesquery she must have encountered, Alistair has that keening sheen to his eyes again—Anora knows he misses adventure. Few will spar full-out with him for fear of injury. When he says he will train his daughter to be a battle maiden just to have someone to keep him in shape, Anora does not think he jests.