Aeducan:

She always thought that the name would give her immeasurable power, the right to do anything she wished, go anywhere she wanted. More importantly, marry whoever she wanted. Gorim, he'd been her friend since she was in swaddling clothes, a few years older than she and raised to be her second. But when Bhelen outplays her, and Trian lies dead, she sits in her cell in the depths of Orzammar, knowing it is a traitor's death in an unmarked grave that awaits her. Or worse, she'll be sent to the deep roads as part of the Legion of the Dead. Hours and hours she sits and ponders, waiting for the assembly to call for her, and all that time she wonders how in the name of the ancestors did Bhelen manage to work up something so flawless.

She was the favourite, not him, and when Gorim arrives two days later to her cell with the news that the assembly will not be calling for her, she sinks to her knees on the floor and weeps. Gorim reaches through the cell to take her hand in his own, and as he informs her of his punishment she wonders if she'll be given the same. But her punishment is different, as she soon finds out; a punishment for a kin slayer – something she is not. Gorim holds her one last time through the bars of the cell, leaving a fleeting kiss on her forehead before he is told to leave, and she is sentenced to death.

She knows she'll never find him on the surface, but she searches for the Grey Warden Duncan anyway. And a year later, when she sees him in Denerim, her heart breaks when his pretty, blonde haired dwarven wife appears beside him. He doesn't see her; for he was too busy trading with Alistair to notice. Sinking back into the shadows with her dog Duster, she leaves Denerim for the campsite, and never seeks him out again.

Brosca:

Leske. She had feelings for him, sure. And yes, she had done stupid things at his urging before, but none quite like this. Then again, she had never banked on actually getting into the proving in that dwarfs armour. When the helmet is removed and most of Orzammar notice that the 'brand' had lied to them all, she knows that Beraht is going to kill her when he sees her next.

Under the threat of an almost certain death when she waits in the cell in the carta jail room, she casts a small glance over to him and scoffs in disgust. He'd always shown an interest in Rica, always made comments on how she was pretty and lovely and sweet. Never any comments to her though, Rica's own sister, the one woman who would look most like her. There was a time when she would have even allowed herself to be a replacement Rica for him.

But now, only survival matters. Beraht is put out with her, far from happy, Jarvia is loving her embarrassment and all her 'feelings' fly straight out the window. They fight together to get out, she kills Beraht in the process, says a final goodbye to her sister, and leaves. Duncan takes her with him, and she's fine for the next year. Even when she runs her blade through Leske's treacherous heart, she finds that she no longer possesses the will to care.

Cousland:

He's a sweet thing, Ser Gilmore. He's known her since she was a little child, and their bond grew beyond the borders of friendship many years ago. He's sweet, gentle, nice, nervous and anything but bad. And she's so certain that she's in love with him. Not even the childish affections of that lanky annoying blond who always visited with Arl Eamon changed her mind. She was set on marrying Ser Gilmore, right up until she turned sixteen.

That's when Bann Teagan visited her mother and father, bringing in tow a much older, much better looking and far from lanky blond. The boy was training to be a templar, apparently, and instead of going back to Redcliffe castle for the month he had away from the Chantry, Teagan had brought the boy with him.

Of course, after the boy had left, she went straight back to Ser Gilmore, her affections blooming and dying, a repeated process. She never bedded any of the suitors who asked for her hand, nor did she become as involved in fashion and etiquette as her mother would have liked.

Arl Howe had been a close friend of her fathers, and when she wakes up to her dog Rhea barking at the door, her armour is thrown on when she recognises the voice of the guard outside. It's a Howe guard- killing him is the only sane thing to do, and Rhea watches silently on guard as she talks to her mother about everything that's going on. It shouldn't happen, and for the first time in years she hears her mother swear.

For the first time in her life, she sees her mother shoot her arrows, and damn is she good at Archery. When they reach Ser Gilmore in the main hall, she almost breaks down and weeps when he pushes her towards the other door to get her to safety. Her mother has to drag her out and lock the door behind her, and Amatae Cousland bangs on the wood and bawls her eyes out right up until an arrow misses her face by mere inches. She glares at her mother, shocked and annoyed that she nocked and shot the arrow, but Eleanor merely shrugs and drags her towards the Larder.

A year and a half later, she declares herself Queen alongside her new love. She never realizes that he's the same boy who had briefly captured her affections at sixteen.

Mahariel:

It's like a bucket of ice being poured down her throat when Fenarel speaks to her, just after she's woken up. She'll admit, although waking up alone had been her intention, injured and feeling exceptionally sick hadn't been planned. But that's not what's causing her to feel like ice has just been shoved down her throat. It's the missing silver ring that she hadn't even worn a full day and the news that Tamlen was missing that hurts and shocks her. Because by the creators, it wasn't supposed to go like that.

He'd asked her, after months of waiting for him to hurry up and ask for her hand, he'd finally asked in that small forest glade, slipping the ring on her finger whilst giving her a nervous kiss. She hadn't even worn the ring for two minutes before the Shem's had arrived, and after killing them they'd agreed to look for the cave, find it and then go back to camp. All she can think is that for once, she deserved the happy ending, not the bad one. When she questions Marethari on the location of the silver ring, Marethari looks at her with a look of confusion, before telling her that nothing was taken from her when she arrived, and no ring was on her finger.

Ashalle feels awful when she quietly says that she hoped Lina and Tamlen would get together, even more so when Lina goes sickly-pale before going off on a long rant on how the bad things always happened to her.

She doesn't find Tamlen in the cave, and Duncan drags her kicking and screaming both from the cave and away from her clan. Ostagar awaits them, but she'd rather die than fight the taint that killed her love.

Zevran flirts lightly for a while, watching her with interest as she walls herself off from everyone in the camp. He wants to bed her, that's what he tells himself and that's the main reason he became interested in her. But when she starts to open up to him, telling her about everything in her life with the Dalish, he finds himself no longer just wanting to bed her, but he wants to get to know her, speak to her and get through to her.

He almost gets through, almost destroys the walls she put up to keep people out, although all the efforts are wasted when the shrieks attack the camp. They all notice her wander off after the tormented ghoul; she knows this, but throws her Dar'Missan to the floor and holds only her dagger as her midnight eyes meet the ghoul's dark ones. A light flicker of blue flashes through the eyes before receding, but it's enough for Lina to recognise who he is before he speaks.

It's her friend, her love; the one she thought was dead. Hope briefly kicks her as she wonders if she can possibly save him, but it's not enough for Tamlen. He wants death, and he's willing to attack even her to end his pain. But not before telling her he loves her. And to the rest of the camp, it's a heartbreaking encounter, but something that anyone can get over. But they don't see or retrieve the ring that's hidden in a pocket in Tamlen's armour.

She does, and she never loves again.

Surana:

Cullen infuriates her. He's the only person who she can't win an argument against, the only person who manages to get under her skin and annoy her from all angles. And he really is at all angles; no matter where she goes in the tower, he's there. She almost begins to wonder if he's her personal templar. He certainly acts like it.

He thinks he's funny too, even if he does occasionally stutter. His jokes are daft, far from funny, and of all the people in the tower he chooses her to annoy over the others. There's hundreds of mages in the tower, and she has to wonder why in the name of the Maker she warrants his attention. A month later, however, he's changed shifts. No longer in the library when she is, no longer in the dining hall on her lunch hours and no longer walking her hallway in the evening.

It's not long before she starts to miss him.

So she seeks him out. After all, the itch that has become such a big part of her everyday life can't be seen in her normal routine, so instead of going to the library to study in the mid-afternoon, she decides that she needs to 'look for first enchanter Irving' and manages to bluff her way past every Templar on the way to the mages quarters. And when she sees him she smiles weakly before slapping him, hard.

It's a good job that he's the only templar on duty at that exact moment, as he glares at her for a second, and the next she's pushed up against the wall with his mouth on her own, locked in a steamy embrace.

Three weeks later, she locks him in the cell just below the harrowing chamber, a smirk on her face as she watches him watch his friends die. Her own sister is the one who releases him, and her own sister who kills her minutes later.

Tabris:

She hated the idea of marriage. There wasn't a reason for it, especially not when she hadn't even met the man. So for a full week before the wedding, she boasts on how she won't be getting married, on how she'll run away to the Dalish if that's what it takes. And she thinks this continuously right up until her wedding day.

Because that is when she sees him. Nelaros, her husband to be. Suddenly the pack filled with food and clothes and weapons that is hidden under her bed no longer felt important, because she's certain that if she has to spend her life looking into those deep eyes of her husband to be, then she can live with it. Soris has to push her forward, and when he introduces them, Kal'atae finds that she lacks the ability to speak. Nelaros grins awkwardly at her, and the smile makes her wonder just how much her father paid the Highever alienage to get her a husband like this.

Five hours later, after she searches every room in the Arls home, she arrives a minute too late to save him. She watches in horror as a guard impales him with his sword, and in seconds she's gone from calm and worried into a blood frenzy. The guards are unrecognisable once she is done with them, and she collapses next to the body of her would-be husband, tears forming fresh in her eyes. There's a small gold band in one of his pockets, and she holds it tightly to her chest along with his cold hand as she weeps.

She's arrested and almost killed for slaughtering Vaughn and leaving him scattered around the estate, but Duncan saves her not-sorry ass from execution. The price for her life is the responsibility of defeating the blight, and she'll do it, purely because no one else can.

And then the assassin comes along. He resembles Nelaros, in a way, although every time she looks at Zevran all she can think is

'I never got to know Nelaros. Is this what he would be like?'

The question can never be answered, and it brings tears to her eyes every time, yet she knows she shouldn't cry because she barely knew the man for a full day. Zevran tried to woo her, bring her in, but never succeeds. Grief is tied too tightly to her heart, for a man she could have known for a lifetime and instead knew for a day.

When she sinks her blade into the Archdemon's head, she suddenly realizes that Duncan wasn't giving her a life back; he was prolonging her death by a simple year, long enough for her to kill the Archdemon. He saved her, only to prepare her for her true death.

She doesn't mind, because she knows Nelaros is on the other side.