Written for Loghain Positivity Week on tumblr, this is a little father daughter fluff. Hope you like it!
He stood, arms crossed, and waited. Anora was out here somewhere, Celia had said. All he had to do was wait for her to finish her business bothering woodsmen or picking up toads. She always came back through here.
It was only a few minutes before he spotted her with one of the servants' kids, laughing and racing back to the house. He was smiling when she raced past him. He didn't say anything; he knew he didn't have to.
"Daddy?" she said, slowing down to a half a few feet away from him, her bare feet skidding in the grass. Her dress was stained, almost ruined. Celia had picked it out knowing this was how it would end up…it really was rather ugly, when he looked at it.
"I wanted to talk to you," he said, bending down.
"About what?" she said, crossing her arms.
"I want to teach you how to hold a sword," said Loghain.
Celia had asked if he'd thought she was old enough. Ten was old enough, he'd said. If he'd known how to hold a sword at ten his life might have turned a different path.
"Why?" said Anora.
"Because you might need to know," he said.
"I don't want to be a soldier."
"Neither did I," said Loghain.
She stared at him for a moment. "Fine," she said.
"It could be fun, you know," he said, leading her towards the practice grounds. She perked up when she realized the direction they were heading. She'd never been allowed over here before, not while people were training. She grabbed Loghain's arm and grinned up on him.
"I thought you weren't excited about this?"
"How big is the sword?" she asked.
"It's small."
She stuck her tongue out. "I don't want a small one."
He ruffled her hair. "You're small too, you know."
"I won't be soon enough," she said. "I'll be big enough that I can win any fight I'm in."
"Maybe not any fight," he said, pulling the smallest sword they had from the outdoor rack. They had a training ground set up for his small standing army and kept the spare weapons her. The blade he grabbed was so short it might be more properly called a dagger.
"I won't pick fights I can't win," said Anora.
He looked at her. She was only ten and yet she was smarter than most of the Banns at any Landsmeet. He ruffled her hair again, and she smiled big and wide. She was missing a tooth right in the front. He remembered sneaking a sovereign under her pillow in exchange for it and smiled right back at her.
"That's a good policy," he said, leading her over to a training dummy. He held the sword out to her by the blade, waiting for her to grab the pommel. She did so and her arm went down with the weight. He hid a chuckle.
"Okay," she said. "Now what?"
He put his hand over her much smaller one and adjusted her grip. With his hands still over his he showed her how to swing and stepped back to let her do so without accidentally injuring him in the process.
After several minutes of determined swinging, Anora moved onto the practice dummy, which she attacked with ferocity. He had to pull its poor ruined self away from her in the end.
"How'd I do?" she asked, pushing sweaty hair out of her face.
"Considering I hardly gave you any time to prepare and pushed your right into this? Excellent."
She frowned. "But how did I do without all that? Like, how'd I do under normal circumstances?"
"You pushed yourself a bit hard," he said. "But otherwise? Still excellent."
She smiled. "Good."
They began walking away from the practice grounds together, Anora stopping to return the tiny sword to its proper place. "You know," she said. "You don't have to think of excuses to spend time with me."
He blinked. "That's not what I-"
She tugged on his shirt, and he obliged her and leaned now. She kissed his scruffy cheek and grinned. "I love you."
"I love you too," he said, watching her bare feet speed across the grass back to the woods. She had him all figured out.