Disclaimer: I don't own Dragon Age or any of its related characters. This is just for my own enjoyment and the potential enjoyment of other fans like me, and no monetary gain was expected or received.

Rating: T

Spoilers: Spoilers for The Stolen Throne only.

A/N: A retelling of a specific portion of The Stolen Throne.

Red Dress

He saw her, at first, without knowing that it was she.

What in the Maker's name does she have on? he thought to himself. Silently, he slipped through the shadows in her wake. Rowan darted ahead, seemingly on the run from something, but what? The gown she wore, red and off-the-shoulder, swished about her legs. He couldn't help but watch the skirt swirl and dance, watch her dark hair bounce on her broad, white shoulders. So beautiful…

Easy, Lothario; she did not wear that dress for you.

Of course not, but why then is she running away from Maric's tent? Cold feet?

Or did the stupid bastard reject her?

She reached the edge of camp, and abruptly stopped running. She stood with her head bowed, shoulders slumped, and trailed her bare toes in the dirt. The picture of dejection. His heart, so often in his throat when he gazed upon her, went out to her. Damn Maric anyway, what was the man thinking? How could any man not blind and drooling mad look upon such a woman and not feel desire, love? It was beyond his comprehension.

His head told him to leave it alone, but his heart demanded he make his presence known. He stepped out of the shadows.

"Rowan…"

She turned, startled. "Oh. It's you."

He swallowed a lump that rose in his throat. "Yes. Only me."

He looked at her for a long moment, long enough that she grew uncomfortable beneath the weight of his eyes. "Did you have something you wanted to say?" she asked.

"Yes. Only I can't really say it."

She laughed without humor. "Why not? You've never had trouble speaking your mind in the past."

He took one step toward her. The intensity of his expression, inscrutable as it was, made her take one step back. "I don't really have any right to say it. But you could give me that right, with but a word."

Comprehension dawned. She shook her head. "Loghain. Don't."

"Rowan, please - "

"No."

He threw up his hands in surrender. "Very well." He turned and started to walk away, but when he was half in shadow he turned back and spoke again.

"Rowan…one day, he'll realize what he's got. No man could be so stupid as to miss it forever."

The sound she made was a cross between a laugh and a sob. "It may be too late already."

He shook his head. "It's not too late. You're both still alive. He'll wake up, Rowan. He has to. He'll love you, someday." And I don't think I can stand to see it happen.

He walked away from her, then, and left her standing in the moonlight, in her red dress, alone.

Run, Boys, Run

Commander. That had a nice ring to it. Never mind that from the moment he stepped forward that first battle he'd assumed the duties of a General - Commander was very fine. He'd earned that much.

He just hoped it was enough to hold him through the hard times to come.

"Loghain, we need to talk." Rowan. Damn.

"We talked. I'm staying. What more need be said?"

"Plenty. How could you honestly think to leave us? Don't you understand how much we depend on you?"

"We had this discussion. What more do you want from me?"

"I want words, Loghain. I want to understand you."

"To what end, Rowan?" he asked, bitterly. "What possible use could understanding be to you?"

"We're friends."

He chuckled humorlessly. "Well, then understand this: When you say we are friends, it's a knife in my heart."

Her face blanched. "Loghain, I - "

"No, don't speak. It's not your fault. You can't help it that you can't love me."

Her face grew even paler. "But it is my fault if I can love you…and won't," she said.

He shook his head. "Don't. Don't tell me this."

"I have to. Loghain, it would be easy for me to love you. I just…I can't take that path. There's a direction my life is meant to go, and that direction does not lead to you."

"I said don't," he said. "Do you have the least clue how this makes me feel? Just to look at you is to have my heart ripped out of my chest. You don't have to trample upon it."

"Loghain, you can't mean that."

"Can't mean what? That I don't want you to stomp all over my heart? Or that it hurts me to feel the way I feel for you? Do you think me incapable of feeling? Do you think you can stab me, beat me, throw me over a cliff without regard because I am simply too hard to feel it? I'm tired of being too hard to feel. I want my chance to be weak."

"You can't afford to be weak," Rowan said.

"And why is that? Everyone else gets to be weak. Why not me?"

"Because too much depends on your strength," she said. "This rebellion would never survive without it."

He scoffed at that. "You'd all carry on without me," he said.

"We would. But we wouldn't last. We need you; we need your brains, your skill, your strength, your bloody-minded stubbornness. Without you, we would lose this war."

"One man could never make that much of a difference," he said, a bit uncertainly in the face of her utter conviction.

"One man can, and one man does," she said. "Do you think Maric would have the courage to carry on without the knowledge that you are always there to watch his back? Do you think I could keep pushing myself forever if I didn't have you to compete with? Even Father depends on you, to come up with brilliant schemes for our survival that he need only refine with his greater experience. You are stronger than any of us, and you have to be, for your strength gives us a foundation upon which to build ours. You cannot break, Loghain Mac Tir. Everything is riding on you."

Tears stung his eyes. "I can't be as strong as you need me to be," he said. "No one can."

"You can. Because Ferelden needs you. You can't let yourself grow weak just because you're heartsick. I'm heartsick, too. I can't afford to let it weaken me, either."

He turned away from her and continued unpacking his few possessions. She stood where she was for a moment longer, and then turned and started to walk away.

"Rowan," he said, and she stopped.

"Yes?"

"I take your meaning. We're both in the same position. But how much easier is it to be strong in the face of it when you know that, no matter what, one day you'll be with the one you love? I won't."

"That's why you have to be stronger than me," she said. She grasped the doorjamb momentarily. "I'm sorry," she said, and walked away.