Title: Family Steel
Author: Shaleene,
Characters: Darrek, Cauthrien, Anora, Sten, Zevran others..
Game: Dragon Age Origins
Disclaimer: Dragon age, Sten Morrigan Cauthrien ©Bioware Darrek, Jailor, OC Old Man ©Shaleene

WARNING: THIS STORY CONTAINS VIOLENT SEMI-GRAPHIC VIOLENCE AND TORTURE.

Darrek's hand squeezed, fingertips digging into the soft, tender flesh of the other man's throat. He could feel the pulse stuttering under his grip, the man's breath growing ragged, the eyes... The eyes glaring up at him with all the hate, anger, and sickness his old body could hold. It wasn't enough, not for Darrek. He wanted more, needed more from the man then what he gave. Darrek let up just enough for the man to take a shallow breath.

"I... deserve... more."

Darrek pulled his helmet off with his free hand and tossed it aside. He wanted an unobstructed view of the man, to see his eyes when he finally died. "You deserve nothing but a slow and painful death." Darrek growled, barely inches from the vile man's face. "Both you, and your disgusting family." Darrek's eyes narrowed when he saw the flicker cross through those cold, dieing eyes. "Sadly, I don't have time to make you suffer. But your family will suffer. They will suffer all the horrors you and your men inflicted upon mine. I will tear them apart piece by piece. Every scream, every cry that comes from their mouths will be a curse on your name, Rendon. The Howe's will never again walk this world when I am done with them."

Rendon's eyes flickered with fear. It was quick but it was there, and unmistakable. Satisfaction pooled in Darrek's gut, his fingers sinking once again into the soft tissue of the murderer's throat. He squeezed, slowly, until he felt that little floating bone there splinter as the flesh split, coating Darrek's face in a spurt of hot, sticky gore.

After a moment he stood, fingers pulling free of the dead man's throat with a wet sickly noise and turned, weapon raised and pointed toward the person standing in the door. Zevran stood there, staring at the warrior's blood soaked face and armor his eyes filled with apprehension and worry. He was almost sure there may have been fear, something he never wanted to see in those honey colored eyes. He turned away, looking at the growing pool of blood near his boots. "I told you all to stay together."

"Commander, you know..."

"Go."

"Warden..."

"GO!" Darrek shouted, eyes blazing as his gaze turned once again toward the Antivan. He watched Zevran give him a look, one he hated even more then the last before he turned and left, shutting the door behind him and leaving him alone. Darrek stood there, eyes sliding back toward the mutilated corpse at his feet. Everything he had felt over the past two years churned inside him, wounds that had been festering and poisoning him laid bare. If only he could kill Rendon Howe a thousand times. He gave a sharp feral roar as he grabbed his sword in both hands, and brought it down hard as he could, straight through the gut of the body and into the floor beneath.

Darrek closed his eyes and tried to concentrate on his breathing, slowing the rate of his own heartbeat, the whispers outside the door he couldn't quite understand. He knew Zevran wouldn't tell anyone what he had witnessed, but it wasn't the others opinions that mattered to him. History as they say has a way of repeating itself. The one person in his life he didn't want to witness his loss of control was the one person that had.

After several minutes he sighed and pulled the blade from the dead man's body with a grunt and snatched the bloody key ring off his hip. He paused for a second before opening the door and storming out unable to look at the Antivan as he passed. "Lets go." he muttered as he led the rest of his party back toward the stairs that would take him out of this shit hole. The quicker he got out, the better off it would be. The small of blood and decayed flesh did little to help an Ash Warrior calm his nerves.

When they reached the room the Queen was being held captive, Darrek shoved the keys into Morrigan's hand and gestured toward the locked door while he stepped toward another. He leaned close to listen, waiting to hear something or someone on the other side. The closed door led straight into the front hall and to the front of the estate. It was the quickest and most direct way out of the place, which was why he had left the door open. A few seconds past when he heard what he had expected, the sound of steel boots against the stone floor. "We go back that way." he said turning to his companions and nodding down the hallway. He waited until everyone was a fair distance down the hall before he turned again, pushed open the door, and stepped through.

"You, Warden." A woman in a suit of red steel barked at him. "You are under arrest."

Darrek slammed the door shut behind him with one hand, and hit the bar with the other. He heard someone slam into the opposite side of the door just as the bar fell into place, barring the door. "Under who's authority." He asked as he slowly reached for his weapons, hands resting on the handles.

"Teryn Rendon Howe, and King Loghain Mac'Tir... You are charged …..."

"Loghain is not King, and Rendon how lies dead in a pool of his own blood." darrek looked around the room as he spoke. There were at least twenty soldiers and three mages. The battle would be one sided, but he would be damn sure to take as many of them as he could with him to the void.

""You are charged with theft," She continued as if she hadn't heard a word he said. "murder, sedition, treason, and the rape* of Queen Anora Mac'Tir. Come with us peacefully Warden."

Darrek snarled as he pulled his blades and spun them once in his hands. "What a pair you and your master make. Tell me Cauthrien, when was it you turned your back on this country? Hmmm? When was it you settled on being nothing more then a whore to that pretender?" That got the reaction he had hoped for. The woman's face twisted in hate and anger before she ordered her men to attack.

The battle was quick and bloody, four soldiers laid dead at his feet before one of the mages decided to imprison him with one of their spells. He caught a bolt in the shoulder and one in the leg that would have forced him to his knees if it hadn't been for the invisible cage he felt pressing in on him. The more he struggled, the tighter the spell felt.

Cauthrien stepped forward and grinned, an ugly twisted grin Darrek knew all too well. "Oh how the mighty have fallen Cousland. Pathetic. Take him!" She turned on her heels and something hit him in the back of the head at least twice before the world went black...

..~~

When Darrek woke, he woke to darkness. The first thing he noticed was the lack of movement he had in his limbs, followed by the fact the darkness was nothing natural. His eyes were bound by a rough cloth that irritated his skin and scratched at his eyes when he tried to open them. The headache he felt was a distant second, and he felt no signs of the bolts having ever been imbedded in his body. He tested the pull on his arms, finding them firmly bound over his head with almost no give and his feet planted firmly on the cold stone ground. The slight rattle of the chains echoed off the walls and mixed with the screams and cries he could hear from somewhere else.

"Ah, your awake. Good." a voice said from somewhere behind him. "I was hoping the men who beat you didn't put you into a lasting sleep. Thank the Maker for strength, and mages. Welcome, Warden, to Fort Drakkon." He snorted as Darrek felt rough leather trail across his back. "You've seen the business end of the whip before. That's good. I don't get many Noble born down here that know what real pain is. But still nothing compared to what I can do." The man fell silent for a few seconds as he used the instrument to lift and weigh Darrek's balls before moving around him again. "Any questions?" The man asked indifferently as he spread Darrek's ass cheeks with a rough gloved hand.

Darrek clenched his jaw and tried not to flinch or move while the jailor circled him, appraising him like cattle instead of a prisoner. He knew the leather handle of a whip for what it was. He had felt the bite of several against his back, still had many small scars from when his trainer would whip him into a frenzy, and taught him to ignore the pain. He tensed slightly when the jailor finally stopped pacing and let the whip unravel, the long tail hitting the ground with a whisper.

"It will be interesting, I dare say fun, breaking the infamous Cousland child. Let us see how long you last, shall we?" Darrek let out a slight groan when the first blow landed. He bit the inside of his mouth to keep from crying out, the metallic taste of his own blood coating his tongue. "Where are the Wardens?"

Darrek made a contemptuous hissing noise through clenched teeth and was rewarded with another blow from the braided leather. "Come now Cousland, tell me where are the other wardens?"

"I'm not a Cousland."

The third blow was far worse then the two before it, the jailor making a point to let Darrek know he was holding back. "Don't lie to me child," He snarled as he grabbed Darrek by the hair and pulled his head painfully back. Then shoved his head forward again. When Darrek said nothing the man grinned. "You won't break as easily as your family will you. Your mother, your father, that whore of a sister, and her darling little son." He knew that last one hit a nerve when every muscle in Darrek's body involuntarily tightened, straining against the chain bindings. "Ahh, there it is." The man actually laughed as he jabbed Darrek painfully in the ribs. "I seem to have hit a nerve. So the great stone faced warrior does have a soft spot."

Darrek unclenched and clenched his jaw as he turned his blind gaze over his shoulder. "I will see you in the void."

There was no more talking after that, just more excruciatingly violent blows from the unnamed man behind him until the pain became nothing more then a whisper against his flesh. It was only when his body went slack against his chains, tired from straining, that the beatings stopped. Darrek was expecting the man to start questioning him again, not that it would do him any good, but he didn't. After a minute he heard feet moving away.

..~~

Darrek remembered little of the next few days, or perhaps weeks. It was hard to keep track when all his body knew was pain in the windowless dungeon he was kept. He hit the floor of his cell with a teeth chattering thud and lay there panting, taking in shallow, ragged breaths. His left eye had swollen shut, his arm broken, and he could feel the blood oozing from every orifice in his body along with several ill smelling wounds. And this time there was no mage waiting to pull him back from the brink of death again.

"Hey wait! We gotta chain him back up." A voice said from somewhere nearby.

"Balls to that, I ain't touching him again. Besides just look at him, he'll be dead within the hour, one way or another."

"But he ain't broke yet, ain't the mage coming?"

"He ain't gonna break, no need to keep him alive."

Darrek heard the gate on his cell slam shut and two pairs of boots walk away. He closed his good eye and tried to let his mind wander to more pleasant thoughts then the smell of his own bile and waste. He found himself having a hard time concentrating, the fever and stench of infection burning through his mind. Eventually he just gave into the blackness, he would rather be nowhere then in his dieing broken body on the hard dirt floor of Fort Drakkon.

He had just drifted into the darkness when something heavy suddenly fell on his back. He gave a raspy yell of pain as his broken arm was squeezed between his body and the ground. "Hello Cousland." A familiar, unwelcome voice hissed in his ear. "And here I thought I was going to be fucking a corpse. Oh well, all the better that your still alive, at least this way you won't get cold before I'm done."

Darrek grunted as he felt the man's dick grind into his lower back as the man rutted against him. "Get.. off..." he said in a hoarse whisper, barely loud enough to hear.

"Or what?" He snorted as his hand slid over Darrek's head, fingers tangling in the last bit of hair he had lef and pulled his head back painfully. "Or what, Cousland?" He grinned and ran his tongue up Darrek's blood caked throat.

Darrek shuddered and pulled at the very last of his reserves, bringing his good arm up and catching the man in the ribs. The man yelped in pain as he rolled off Darrek. "You son of a bitch!" He said as he stood and kicked the warrior hard in the side. Darrek gave a strained cry as he rolled onto his back and the man fell on top of him again. "I'll make you pay for that before you die."

Darrek wrapped his legs around the man's legs and grabbed his throat with his good hand. He threw himself as hard as he could to one side, rolling the two over and pressing the guard against the ground. His hand dug into the man's throat, fingers pressing into the tender flesh and for just a moment Darrek saw Howe. He grinned as the man clawed at Darrek's chest and arm, eyes wide and full of fear. Darrek stared down at him, eyes blazing as he watched the life bleed from his attacker. He panted heavily as he fell forward, forehead landing against the man's bare chest. After a moment he rolled off the man and grabbed his keys, gritting his teeth as he pulled himself to the bars of his caged cell, using them to laboriously pull himself to his feet.

He barely managed to right himself when the keys slipped from his fingers and clattered to the floor. He growled at them, staring down at the offending bits of metal as he leaned his forehead against the cold metal bars. He stood there for a moment, trying to catch his breath when a hand shot through the bars and snatched the keys. Darrek rolled his head and looked up to see an old man scurrying over to his own cage door to open it. He half expected the man to just leave, not bothering to return the keys and leaving Darrek to die. Instead he hobbled over and used the keys to enter Darrek's cell.

"What..." Darrek whispered and almost choked on his own words, his throat and mouth extremely sore, he wouldn't have known he even still had a tongue, if it wasn't stuck to the roof of his mouth. He hissed in pain when the old man slip one hand around Darrek's waist while the other hand grabbed Darrek's good arm and pulled it over his own shoulders.

"Not all us Fereldens Forgotten th' legends o' the wardens, kid. I know yeh fer whatcha are, I save yeh, and in turn yeh save us. Fair's fair, right?" The man adjusted slightly as Darrek leaned heavily against him. The height and weight difference of the two making it extremely difficult for the old man to support them as they walked, but to Darrek's surprise he managed. "By th' way kid, you need a bath somethin' awful." He snorted as he grabbed a sword and scabbard off the wall and slid the strap over his shoulder. Darrek got only a quick glance at it, the handle covered in blood and shit, the crest on the hilt caked over by the same. He cringed and turned away as the old man led him slowly and quietly through the fort.

They ducked into what looked like an armory trash bin, broken armor and weapons were scattered around or piled in corners. No doubt items confiscated from the prisoners of this forsaken place. The old man shut the door and leaned Darrek carefully against the wall before he dropped to the floor. "Dear Maker," The man puffed out of breath, panting and sweating like an overheated mabari. "Yer, 'bout as big as they come, ain't yeh. Give me a minute t'catch my breath." He sighed as he pulled the leather strap of the scabbard off over his head and dropped it beside him. The old man stared at it for a minute before he reached out and brushed his thumb over the sword's crest, clearing the filth away and wiping it on the stone floor. "So yeh really are a Cousland huh? I hear yeh were all dead. Traitors to th' throne an' all that."

Darrek glared at the man, and opened his mouth to say something when the hall suddenly filled with shouts and running armored men. The old man jumped up and pulled darrek's sword from it's scabbard. He couldn't help but cringe again as the man's hand was coated in Darrek's own filth. The old man positioned himself between Darrek and the door, weapon up and ready but Darrek knew if anyone was going to come through that door, neither of them would see daylight again. He looked around and reached for one of the old blades on a shelf nearby. An old thing broken half way up the blade on on the verge of rusting into nothing but a pile of red dust.

The door flew open, the top hinge snapping as it hit the wall behind it. The old man gave a loud yell as he charged at the man who stepped through the door. The fight was over even before it began, an extremely large sword easily blocked the old man's swing and sent him flying backwards into the room. He landed beside Darrek who barely managed to raise the broken blade between the giant and the old man. "Wait."

"I found the Warden!" Sten yelled as he lowered his weapon.

Zeran was the next one in, just as a bolt of lightning shot down the hall, followed by several ear peircing screams. The Antivan's eyes fell on Darrek and the look that filled them made the warrior scowl and turn his head quickly away. A mistake, as it sent the floor tilting hard to one side. He felt something made of cloth thrown around him and two very large hands grab and lift him. He gave a silent scream as he was thrown over an armored shoulder, and then the world was once again black.

..~~

"We can run away together, hide in the Kocari wilds, or the Anderfels." Anora beamed as she crawled across the bear fur and reached out, her small fingers caressing the young boy's cheek. She smelled of oak moss and rose hips, the combination intoxicating. The boy reached out and ran his fingers through her hair, cut short and uneven by her own hand. "Just stay with me. Stay with me..."

"Stay with me Darrek."

Darrek tried to speak as a cool hand pressed against his cheek. Some cold and wet was draped over his throat, smelling of elfroot and elderberries. It was a combination well known and often used on people who had trouble drawing breath on their own. He took in a long ragged breath, and then remembered nothing more.

When Darrek opened his eyes, he was met with deep purple curtains, the sound of a servant sweeping, and bright light seeping through the gaps that made his eyes ache and his head throb. He let out a small grunt, squinting as he turned away. The view he was met with next was even less welcoming. His family sword was hanging off the post near his head, cleaned and polished and hanging in a newly fashioned scabbard. He couldn't help but scowl at the thing, angry and annoyed at the same time as he closed his eyes.

The curtains were flung back and the light flooded in, along with the smell of oak moss and lavender. "You're awake."

Darrek smiled sideways as he cracked his eyes open and looked over at the Queen."Hello Anora." He croaked as she leaned the broom against the wall and sat down carefully on the edge of the bed. "You're the one cleaning?"

Anora smiled. "Just the floor. Bringing in some fresh lavender and straw, along with something Zevran added that smells like rancid cinnamon. He says it will promote the healing of your spirit." She chuckled softly as she reached out toward him.

Darrek flinched away from her touch, at the same time cursing and scolding himself for being such a coward, weak and pathetic. His trainer would have boxed his ears, or worse seen him under a cane. "It's ok." She said softly as she rested her hand against his forehead, lingering only a few seconds before she pulled back. "How do you feel?"

"Like I've been trampled by a herd of bronto." His grumbled, his voice breaking at the end. "Where is Morrigan?" He asked with a slight frown. The woman had designated herself his own personal healer on more then one occasion. Fighting with Wynn over healing processes and cures/

"She is off arguing with Wynn about your treatments. They were both here earlier, no doubt they will be back when they have recovered their mana."

"So, you're the one taking care of me?" He smirked. He could feel himself fading again, his eyes growing too heavy to keep open and his mind becoming cloudy and muddled. "I never knew you were such a romantic." He wanted to ask about the old man, curious if he had escaped with them, but he felt his eyes already slipping closed. He really did love the smell of oak moss and lavender.

"It's the least I could do." She sounded so distant as she grabbed his hand and gave it a light squeeze, her thumb gently caressing the pulse in his wrist. "Sleep now Darrek, I have you."