Loghain and Anora meet at Skyhold.
His room at Skyhold was drafty day and night. Even pinning his maps over the largest holes didn't help. The steps to his room were steep and narrow, offering no protection from the weather as he climbed them. The furnishings were old and dusty, clearly found somewhere and pulled out to accommodate his presence. The bed squeaked and wasn't nearly soft enough for a man who'd spent the last several weeks hiding in a cave.
He wasn't surprised. He didn't even blame the ambassador for giving him this room, not really. It was the farthest from the other guests, a slew of nobility from Orlais, Ferelden, and a handful of other nations. He would be popular with none of them - a few unfamiliar ones would complain about being given a room near a lowly Warden, while the vast majority would object to their proximity to a traitor. He'd already run into an old face and had barely avoided a fistfight. He'd almost forgotten how straightforward Fereldens were (no he hadn't, because Ferelden was always in his thoughts. His chest ached for his country sometimes, for what he had done to it).
The messengers hated his room too, he knew. It took them forever to get to it, and most of the time he wasn't in it, sending them on a wild goose chase for him. He could see it in their wound-up, tense expressions when they finally told him what he needed to know. Or perhaps he was imagining it - after all, most people were tense when they spoke to him.
"Warden?"
His proper title was Warden Loghain, but the messengers seemed to think that avoiding his name would stop it from being his. He stood from his seat on the bed, setting aside the sword he'd been polishing.
"Does the Inquisitor want to see me?" The Inquisitor had said they'd be prompt in their assault on Adamant, but it seemed more like they were preparing to attend some Orlesian ball instead. Loghain was trying not to express his impatience, but the buzzing song in the back of head was insistent, only letting him catch brief snatches of something that he instantly forgot.
"No," said the messenger. "The Inquisitor has…a surprise for you."
"A surprise?" said Loghain, furrowing his eyebrows. He put his sword in its sheath in one solid movement and belted it back to his side. That couldn't be good. The Inquisitor has been polite, but not friendly. He was a necessity, a tool to be used. Loghain understood, but that didn't stop him from being suspicious.
"In the main hall," said the messenger. The man hesitated, biting his lip at the expression on Loghain's face. "I'm not allowed to say what it is."
The messenger made it down to the ground long before Loghain did. His armor never weighed heavier on his shoulders than when he was maneuvering this wretched staircase, hands gripping the stone sides while his joints groaned. He'd wait to go back up until night since he was coming down now. The cooks had agreed to give him his dinners privately so he didn't have to deal with the whispering anymore.
When he reached the ground he adjusted his armor so it was sitting properly and headed for the main hall, no sign or reaction to the heads turning all around him. He'd been there for weeks, he would have thought they'd know he was there by now. Was the turnover for guests really so high, or was he that much of a pariah and had merely forgotten in his tenuous time with the Orlesian Wardens? They hadn't liked him, sure, but at least they had understood his usefulness (even if that was political more often than not) and treated him with respect.
The main hall was decked out in the fashions of the Dalish, the Inquisitor's people. Loghain rather liked it, if he was being honest. It made all the pompous types uncomfortable and he was always fine with that sort of thing - he liked to think the Inquisitor did it for that reason. He poked his head in the door, squinting in the darkened room, having just come from the bright outdoors. The hall was much emptier than usual. There were only a handful of people standing inside- he could see a woman with his back to him.
"He's here," he heard her say. "You can leave. I would prefer privacy for this."
The few people left in the room scurried out. Loghain's eyes were narrowed. He knew that voice, had heard that voice for thirty years, but it couldn't be- he was a foolish old man, obviously, wanting to see things that weren't there. The buzzing in his mind persisted, and he shut his eyes, trying to displace it for a few brief minutes.
When he opened them his daughter was standing in front of him.
"Anora," he said. He couldn't say anything else. The words wouldn't come. All he could do was look, take in the lines on his daughters face, both from worry and from happiness, half a life lived away from him, ten years with scant but letters passed between them as the gap between them grew wider. He raised a hand to rub the back of his neck, hiding the shake of his fingers. He wanted to say more. He had no idea what he would say.
"Father," she said, returning his one word reply. She smiled at him. She seemed happy. She had always been able to seem things that she was not, though, and he wondered.
"Why are you here?" he said, words finally bursting through to the surface. "I thought the Inquisitor met you in Redcliffe."
"I have some business with the Inquisitor," said Anora. "And I thought it would be a good chance to see you. I've heard many things, you know."
"Oh?" he said. "I didn't think I was getting up to anything particularly remarkable until recently."
"They say you're a changed man," said Anora, plowing through his statement. Her intelligent eyes were focused on him. They were both so happy to be here, and yet they were playing this…this game. They had been involved in politics too long, even Loghain, who'd been sent to Orlais to get out of them.
"I'm probably not the best one to answer that," he said. "I'm just trying to do what's best."
"For Ferelden?"
"For…" The Wardens. For Ferelden. Certainly not for Orlais. For…Thedas, maybe. For himself, to prove that he wasn't treacherous to the bone, not like people said. For her. Any one of them could have worked. "Because it's right."
She smiled, delicate lips turning upward. It reached her eyes and lit her face up. Before he knew it he was reaching for her and had enveloped her in a crushing hug. She buried her face in his neck, pushing herself to her tip toes to reach past his armor. He wrapped his arms around his daughter's waist and pulled her close. He could smell the perfume she was wearing, the same kind Celia had bought her on her fifteenth birthday so many years earlier. He reached a hand up and ran his hand over her hair. She had more gray hair than he did.
When they pulled apart, he was smiling too. "It's so good to see you," he said. "I didn't know if I would again. Things have been getting big lately."
"Just like you, you know that?" said Anora, letting go of him and adjusting her dress. "You're involved in yet another big thing. Can't give it a rest?" She said the words with a hint of amusement in her tone, a slight lilt he hadn't heard in so long. When they had parted it had been all awkward pauses and clipped tones. Loghain's new armor had felt wrong on him, the tainted blood in his veins new and frightening. Anora had dismissed him with little ceremony. She had not yet come to terms with his sins. Neither had he, and people were determined to make sure he never did.
"This is important," he said. "The Inquisition can help. Trust me, Anora, if I could I'd let someone else take care of it. Maker knows I need a rest."
"Did you like the map I sent you for your sixtieth?" said Anora. "Your thank you letter didn't say much."
"It's one of my favorites," he said gruffly. "You knew how long I'd been looking for a map of Nevarra from the Glory Age. It's remarkably intact, too, and I don't know if you noticed the lines, but the ink they used was special ordered from Antiva, a rarity at the-"
"I know," said Anora. The expression on her face was…happiness, tinged with nostalgia. He thought those were the right emotions anyway. She was a difficult woman to read. "You know, after the fiasco that was your fiftieth birthday party, I had this big surprise party planned…and then the Blight happened. A map just doesn't feel the same, not for a gift from a Queen to her father."
"I really liked the map," said Loghain.
"It's not about the map," said Anora. Ten years were between them. What would life be like if he had made a different choice at Ostagar? Would he be in Ferelden? Or, more likely, would he be dead and the country in ruins? Sometimes, in the dark of night so far from home, he wondered if he had really made the wrong choice after all.
Loghain didn't know what to say. What could he say?
"You look like you need a seat," said Anora, changing the subject. She pulled out a seat at a nearby table and he walked over to it, lowering himself into it with a low grunt. He didn't argue with her not only because she was right, but because she knew it.
"Is fighting hard?" asked Anora. Before he could answer she walked over to him and pulled his long glove off. No doubt she was remembering the pains he'd begun to have in those last months before the Landsmeet. She was reminding him of her younger self with these questions - she'd been so full of them, full of curiosity. Her question was answered for her when she saw his red swollen knuckles, so bad he could hardly close his fingers.
"I make do," he said, watching the dismay flit across her face. She looked so much like Celia. She was lovely. His chest ached with the all the things left unsaid. Perhaps not- it could be leftover soreness from the skirmish he'd gotten after taking up some voluntary guard duties to relieve boredom.
"Aren't there herbs or poultices for this?" she said, running her soft thumb over his calloused knuckles.
"I use them."
She shook her head. "I'm sure they can be helped. I'll send someone for it." He didn't argue. It surprised her, but time had wizened him to her ways and the likelihood of him changing her mind.
They sat there in silence for a few long moments, her hand on his, being close to her, the woman he'd raised and watched grow up, for the first time in so many years. She was Queen. She was Anora Mac Tir and she was his daughter. And she had come here for him, to see him, and she didn't hate him (or at least she didn't seem to).
"Warden armor looks good on you," she said. He wondered if she meant that symbolically or if she thought blue was especially fetching on his frame. Maric had thought the latter.
"Thank you," he said.
"I should go," she said, smile slipping. "I have to meet the Inquisitor, the ambassador wants to see me, and we're stopping activities in this hall the longer we're here."
He couldn't help the way his posture sagged or the way he wasn't quite able to hide the crestfallen expression that crossed his face. "I understand," he said. "You rule a nation. You're a busy woman, and I'm not the leader of your forces anymore."
Her eyebrows shot up, but the emotion connected to them was unreadable.
"What am I saying?" she said. "Listen to me. It's been nearly ten years. You're more important than any meeting."
"Oh?" he said, the sick feeling escaping his chest as quickly as it had come. "What do you suggest?"
She leaned forward and kissed his craggy cheek, leaving a ring of makeup for him to rub off. She had a grin when she pulled away. "When was the last time you let yourself get drunk?"
"Not as long ago as you'd think," he said, crossing his arms. "Is my daughter, Queen of Ferelden, suggesting what I think she is?"
"I think I might let my hair down for a bit," she said. "But only if my old man decides to join me."
"I don't have any hair to let down."
Her eyes ghosted over the place where his braids used to be. When she was young she'd done them for him. She'd been the one who gave him the idea in the first place. But he had left Ferelden, and people recognized him when he wore them. They still did now, but he was spat at less.
"You're right," she said. "Still, would you like to go drinking with me?"
She offered her hand to him and he took it. Getting up took a moment and he stumbled when he stood, but she didn't comment. He was grateful. She hooked her arm through his and rested her head on his shoulder.
"I'm glad that we're…here, that we're…"
"I know," said Anora, squeezing his arms. He'd made a lot of mistakes; he'd thought the only thing in his future was paying for them. Maybe not.
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