Childhood Truths

Disclaimer: I do not own Dragon Age.

Note: The prompt was Nathaniel and nose. I had quite a bit of trouble with it but at last I managed to get out a couple hundred words on the matter.

It's a little awkward to admit that his first memory of his father involved a great deal of terror on his part. Rendon Howe being who he was, this would surprise no one. What was a little more unexpected that it wasn't any of his dark deeds or some hidden evil that a young Nathaniel could sense within his father but rather his appearance. Rendon was a stern-looking man and not particularly fond of children, even his own, and so that would have been enough to put anyone on guard. Where Thomas and Delilah were merely uncomfortable with him, Nathaniel was incredibly frightened…of his nose.

Of all the reasons that his father had given people to hate or fear him – or both – his nose would probably not have made the list. Still, as much as Nathaniel would refuse to admit to it today (even if Delilah had thought it was hilarious and felt the need to tell his fellow Wardens all about it when they had last been in Amaranthine), he could definitely remember it in the vague sort of half-remembered way young children do. When he'd accidentally let Thomas see his fear, his brother had spent weeks teasing him about it and threatening to tell their father all about it. For all that Nathaniel feared his father's nose, he had never actually feared the man himself and so not wanting their father to know was more hoping to avoid looking foolish than worrying about any potential consequences.

Nearly nine years ago now he had been sent to the Free Marches for training. It was quite a distance away and he hadn't really wanted to go. Thomas and Delilah had cried when he left but he wouldn't break down in front of them. He was determined to be strong for them and to think of it as an adventure. It really did turn out to be one and he ended up becoming far stronger and more self-sufficient than he would have been had he stayed in Amaranthine like Thomas did. Thomas…Nathaniel did wonder sometimes how much truth there was to the rumors that still floated around about his recently deceased little brother. He was a drunkard, he cared for nothing but chasing skirts…Thomas was a child when he had last seen him, mischievous but sweet, and he had thought that Delilah didn't even count as a girl because she wasn't 'icky' like the others. How much of that had changed? How much of that was his father's fault?

The nose of Rendon Howe was long and hooked and slightly crooked like it had been broken in the past in some story that Nathaniel was never going to get a chance to hear and secretly worried that he wouldn't even want to. What were the odds that his father's misdeeds had only started with the Couslands? Maybe when the crimes were smaller, he had been better at covering it up. Even with the Cousland massacre, nobody had really been able to definitively link him to their deaths until after his own. But he dwelled on that often enough. His father's nose had reminded his childish self of a bird come to foretell death or to peck out his eyes or of an evil witch seeking to turn him into a frog. It really was fortunate that his father was the one with the nose instead of his mother – witches of the wild always being depicted as women – or he might never have agreed to go near her again. His mother had never been a pretty woman but she had never reminded him of a monster the way his father did. Chances are, she wasn't one, either, although she'd never been the most maternal of creatures.

Nathaniel had been out of the country for almost four years when he looked in the mirror one day and saw his father's nose protruding out of his own face. It had startled him a little, to be honest. He hadn't had his father's nose when he was younger (although there were similarities given that they were related) and he highly doubted that he had went to bed one night with his normal nose and woken up the next morning with his father's. This change must have been something that had occurred gradually over time and yet somehow he had failed to notice it until the transformation was complete. It was really a good thing he had long since grown past his childish fear or who knows how he would have reacted?

He had promptly placed the matter entirely out of his mind and went about the business of learning how to handle himself in battle, in court, wherever. It was only after he had seen Delilah again and she had brought up the old story of his childish fear that he had even remembered it. He had returned to Ferelden full of righteous fury and a thirst for vengeance, eager to strike down whoever had so defamed his family name and had stolen their lands. Instead, he had found a friend in the Warden-commander and a home of sorts at Vigil's Keep. It was, strangely, far more of a home now than it had ever been when he had been a child and the land actually belonged to them.

He had also found that the hero he had long since believed his father to be was a lie. Whatever he may have done in the past, no matter how brave and noble he might have been during the rebellion, Nathaniel knew of no hero that would come into the home of his friends and slaughter them all. He knew of no hero that would suggest selling his own people into slavery. He knew of no hero that would kidnap and torture the sons of nobles for daring to seek the truth or Templars for merely carrying out their duty.

Delilah had said that he had always known the truth even if he'd never admit it. When Nathaniel was very young, he had seen a monster when he had looked at his father. He had been right.

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