Vanyla Cousland grew on me, even though I originally created her to be a heartless bitch. Funny the way these things work out, ha ha ha. :P

Disclaimer: I don't own Dragon Age: Origins, or any of its following games. I only own Vanyla Cousland – but then again, who would really want to steal her from me anyways? I mean, really – this is Vanyla.

.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.

Vanyla Erinne Cousland, named for her great grandmother, could be described as many things. Heartless, sly, cunning, scheming, back stabbing, and just flat up a bitch were amongst these descriptions. The kindest of all of these adjectives for the noblewoman was probably 'ambitious' – no one could deny that Vanyla had had her eye on power since she was four years old.

Bryce Cousland had never personally cared for the rise of power – it seemed merely natural to him. After aiding the Arls Leonas Bryland and Rendon Howe at the Battle of White River, the teyrnir had been granted to him. He'd never sought it, but nor did he reject it. He had made a fine ruler, turning Highever into a respected town and province in the kingdom of Ferelden.

Vanyla was different from her father – when she saw all of the things her father could have done for her, merely by the snap of his fingers, she'd always wanted to be able to do the same. But not just over a teyrnir, oh no – she wanted all of Ferelden under her grasp, inside her slender white fingers.

And she'd come close, too – when Cailan was named the king after his father's death, it'd come down to choosing either Vanyla Cousland or Anora Mac Tir as his bride and as the queen. It was merely chance that Anora had been chosen instead, a fact that left Vanyla bitter to this day.

"I'll bide my time," she'd told herself. She wanted power, and she would get it. It was merely a matter of proper strategy.

Then… Arl Howe happened. Her family dead, all except for Fergus, and even then she wasn't sure if her brother was really still alive. She'd never wanted to be a Grey Warden – she could've cared less about saving the world from darkspawn. But yet it happened anyway – the arrogant, haughty, spoiled daughter of Teyrn Bryce Cousland, Vanyla, had not only ended up as a Grey Warden, but on having the lives of everyone in Ferelden on her shoulders.

Almost indirectly being the queen even then, one might say.

The only other Grey Warden that was left (thank the Maker it wasn't Duncan – that bastard, who had forced her to abandon her family to a horrible death just so she could have some sort of glorious heroic lifestyle, could rot on the spikes of the Black City for all she cared) was some stereotypical knight in shining armor named Alistair. A jokester, one who teased her gently at almost every turn, and – back then, she'd treated with amusement – had even flirted with her.

Her! She was Lady Vanyla Erinne Cousland, daughter of a respected Ferelden nobleman and noblewoman. Who was he? A commoner, someone who actually thought he stood a chance with her.

She'd told him exactly what she'd thought, too. Maybe not in such a direct way, but surely he wasn't dense enough to not be able to get a hint, right?

Apparently not. Alistair couldn't get enough of her – to him, Vanyla had the softest blonde hair, two braids left to hang around her face and another on the back of her head. And her eyes – a greenish blue color, ones that could make a man weak in the knees with the right look, and then make you feel like the greatest fool with another. Granted, she wasn't as innocent as the blonde braids and ruby red lips that told otherwise, but he still liked her anyways. What everyone else saw as bitchiness (except for Leliana; the redheaded bard had become something of Vanyla's best friend), Alistair saw as insecurities.

Yes, to Alistair, Vanyla Erinne Cousland was a treasure. But back then she didn't think the same of him.

It was only when Alistair revealed to her the truth of his parentage. He wasn't just any bastard child, oh no – he was the bastard child of King Maric himself.

All of the ambitions she'd held as a little girl, ones that she'd almost given up on because of this nasty Blight business, had welled up again inside her. Ferelden needed a new ruler; Alistair was a blood heir to Maric; Alistair had a crush on her; and she just so happened to want a shiny crown that told the world she was the Queen of Ferelden for Satinalia this year. Everyone would win, right?

Then her plans were put into motion. Seduce the bastard prince, harden his personality, defeat the Blight, and take Anora's spot as queen. Feelings were not needed for this particular political arrangement, at least not on her side. If Alistair was devoted to her during this king and queen marriage, it only meant that she didn't run the risk of having little bastard heirs running around.

She didn't expect to actually fall for the man during the Blight, and maybe she wouldn't have, if it hadn't been for that damned token of his affection.

"Here, look at this. Do you know what this is?"

A rose, one with enough thorns that one would have to be careful while handling it. A beautiful, vibrant, velvet red that made even Vanyla pause.

"How could something so beautiful exist in a place filled with so much despair and ugliness?"

And he was showing this to her? Along with those words? No, no, it couldn't really be…

"I thought that I might give it to you, actually… in a lot of ways, I think of the same thing when I look at you."

Vanyla was humble enough to acknowledge that she wasn't the best person. In fact, on days where she actually bothered to get off of her high horse and really, really look at herself, she could see why she was so hated. She was also smart enough to know (and perhaps arrogant enough) that she was beautiful. Any attraction that men had ever had for her was purely physical, and nothing more. Feelings had never really been a part of her romantic life. The only man she had ever really felt anything other than lust for was Ser Roland Gilmore, and one could see how well that had turned out for her.

So when he presented this rose to her, she could barely breathe. She knew that Alistair had thought she was cute, but did… was it really possible that he was legitimately falling in love with her?

From that moment on after she had accepted the silly flower, she'd always felt so needlessly awkward around Alistair. It was stupid, she knew, but she couldn't help herself.

It was the small things he did – random acts of kindness for strangers. Like risking his neck for a little boy and his sister, stealing an apple and giving it to them. Or when he offered his best condolences to the wives of the newly dead soldiers, when normally Vanyla would just say, "Your ball and chain has been gutted. Terribly unfortunate, but life's a bitch that way."

It would be terribly cliché to say that her feelings for a man caused her to change – and perhaps even unhealthy from another's standpoint. It wasn't her feelings, per say, that had caused her to change. While they played a major part in it, seeing how people that she had always called "beneath her" lived had caused a tremor in what her brother called her "tiny, icy, black heart."

Alistair had even cared for her enough to offer his virginity to her. This wasn't new to Vanyla or anything – she had taken a lot of men's virginity before – but the way he had treated her while doing it, for some reason, made her feel warm and… loved.

It was strange to her. Foreign, odd, weird, every adjective one could think of. But duly accepted, definitely.

So when the day came of the Landsmeet, for a few moments Vanyla almost considered being true to her word and letting Anora take her place back as queen. Her dream had always been to become the Queen of Ferelden, but was that what she really wanted? Perhaps now she wanted something – someone – else.

That didn't happen, of course. Vanyla hadn't changed completely – Anora was betrayed, and Vanyla declared herself and Alistair the King and Queen of Ferelden.

Queen, she thought, it's finally mine. It's all mine.

It was what she had always wanted, and now it was hers. But at the same time, the position felt so much more complete now than it would have. She had someone by her side.

One night, she shared her thoughts with Alistair. "It's what I've always wanted, and I have it…"

"It's your dream, isn't it?" Alistair had asked her; Vanyla nodded. "Well, now you've got it. Your dream, I mean."

"That's just it. What if it's not everything that I've ever wanted? My… my dream, I guess you could say, it's all mine. But what if it's not everything I had hoped it would be?"

"You're a better leader than you think, Vanyla. I know it will be, for you anyway."

"The same could be said for you, my dear." She had cocked a brow, making him grin.

"True enough." He looked more serious now, looking down. "I… at least I have you, Vanyla. That's worth more to me than any silly crown. I hope you know that."

Even today, those sweet little nothings made her heart flutter.

Vanyla had been hesitant to accept Morrigan's ritual in a moment of complete and utter envy, but she knew that it would be for the best. She had finally come to terms with the fact that she had fallen in love with someone, perhaps more strongly than she had for Ser Gilmore, and Morrigan was saying that she needed to hand over her man to another for a night.

But Vanyla had done it – better to let Morrigan… do this to him, for one night, than to lose him forever, or to die herself.

The Blight had been ended when Vanyla slew the Archdemon, and everyone eventually went their own way. Zevran went back to Antiva to take care of his unfinished business; Shale and Wynne decided to search for a cure for Shale (the pigeon population was taking a massive drop, reports had told her); Sten went back to Seheron; Oghren decided to try settling down with Felsi; even Leliana had left eventually back to Orlais.

When Vanyla had first planned to seduce the bastard prince so she could become the queen, she had no idea it would end so much more happily than she had anticipated.

Well, she wasn't complaining. Vanyla Erinne Cousland had never believed that there could be such thing as 'happily ever after', especially after what had happened to her family, but she saw now that there could be. Perhaps there was something to these sorts of stories that Leliana liked to tell her all about, after all.

.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.

I'm not exactly a swooper, and I probably never will be (I'm always Team Zevran), but I did enjoy the Alistair romance with my Vanyla Cousland and my Lafira Aeducan play throughs. The rose scene always managed to make me go 'awww', especially considering that he's giving the rose (at least in this play through) to one of the most bitchy, mean hearted people out there and calling her something beautiful in the midst of all this despair and ugliness. D'awwww. :'D

Anyways, read and review!

AerisSerris