A Warden's Best Friend
Dragonage and all of its content belong to Bioware, not me.
"Do you have a moment Sten?"
The pale giant looked over and frowned slightly.
"It would appear so."
Only the Qunari could make a simple greeting sound combative the Warden mused. He stood in front of Sten. The Warden craned his neck back to better see him before giving up and sitting down on a nearby stump. He had to look up at him anyways, might as well be comfortable doing it.
"I want to ask you something" He said.
Sten's frown deepened.
"Undoubtedly."
Four whole syllables, the Warden thought, in one reply no less. He must be making more progress than he thought. A slight smirk flitted across his lips before continuing.
"I wanted to ask you about something you said earlier" he explained. "You said that there were no mages in the land of the Qun. Why is that?"
Sten blinked once, and then shook his head.
"I believe I misspoke then. There are no practicing mages in our home."
The Warden waited for a moment, but no more information was forthcoming. He resisted the urge to roll his eyes as a vicious headache began to blossom. Getting information out of this man was about as easy as squeezing water out of a rock. He paused a moment as he realized that there was actually a spell for that, and it probably was easier than talking with Sten. This time he really did roll his eyes as the mental image of squeezing Sten's head until something popped off played in his head. Realizing he had trailed off he resumed the conversation.
"What happens to those born with magical talent?"
"They become mages."
The Warden pinched the bridge of his nose as the headache took on a new throbbing sensation right behind his eyes.
"What happens after that?"
"They are rounded up and marked." Sten said, "Then chained and watched by armed guards."
The Warden gaped at the information, as well as the Qunari's matter-of–fact tone. This was horrible! Even the Chantry was not nearly this terrible.
"That's ridiculous! You mean to say the mages are treated as beasts?"
Sten shook his head and said "Of course not."
"Oh?"
"Beasts learn."
For once the Warden was completely speechless, without a single snarky comment or clever quip.
"You know I'm a mage, right?" said the Warden said, slowly.
"Yes" said Sten.
"And were I in the land of the Qun you would try to do this to me as well?"
Sten blinked and was silent for a while.
"That would be… unwise" he managed.
"Damn right it would."
"Alistair!"
Alistair jumped from his seat next to the fire. "Maker's breath friend, don't scare me like that!"
"I wasn't exactly being subtle." the Warden laughed.
"Well, I was kinda out of it." Alistair said defensively, sulking slightly. The Warden raised an eyebrow in response. "Does that happen often?" he asked.
Alistair smiled, "All the time" he said cheerfully.
"Right…" That explained a lot about Alistair now that he thought about it. He shook his head. Way too much. "You wanted to see me?"
"Oh yeah, about that," Alistair began, "well you see Morrigan and I were-"
"No!"
"-arguing and… what?" said Alistair, puzzled.
The Warden's headache, which he had by this point affectionately nicknamed "Sten", was returning to stomp on his head like the giant would a particularly stubborn spider that wouldn't quite die.
"For the last time I am not your babysitter! I don't care that Morrigan insulted your intelligence, or that Zevran is flirting with you or whatever! You are, in theory, an adult. Handle it."
The Warden took a long, shuddering breath as Alistair did his best impression of an orphaned puppy that had just been kicked. If only they could find a way to weaponize that look and the blight would be over by next week. Alistair would get to single-handedly stop the blight, and they would get to take turns abusing the whiney man-child. A win-win scenario.
"Now, is there anything important you need to bring up while I'm here?" the Warden asked.
"Well, umm, yes actually. You know the healing potions you asked me to hold?" Alistair said nervously. The Warden began to regret his decision.
"What about them?"
"They kind of, umm, spoiled."
The Warden gaped. "How? They can't go bad. It's impossible! We found some of those things in thousand-year-old thaigs!"
"Well I can't imagine that helped. Certainly would explain that peculiar aftertaste." Alistair mused.
"Never mind that, it builds character. More importantly, how did you spoil our healing potions?" asked the Warden, exasperated.
"I didn't do it, Oghren did it!" Alistair claimed.
"How exactly?"
"He threw up in my knapsack. Again."
The Warden buried his face in his hands. The Qunari stomping on his head had decided to tap-dance. Tonight was going to be a long night.
Sure enough, by the end of the night the Qunari on his head had invited all his friends over for an impressive shindig. The Warden sat down and massaged his temples. "Why hello there." said Zevran as he sidled up the seat. "You look like you could use some company, and I-"
"Zevran?"
"Yes my sexy warden?" he purred.
"How much do you enjoy having hands?"
Zevran did a double-take and hesitated. "As opposed to what exactly?"
"Oh I don't know," said the Warden, "claws, wings, tentacles… stumps? I can do stumps. Stumps are easy."
"I see" said Zevran, his roaming hands carefully retreating to safer waters. He quickly disappeared, leaving the Warden in blessed peace. The weary man sighed as he tried to relieve the pounding in his head. In the half hour since his conversation with the other warden Morrigan had tried to turn Wynne into a toad, Wynne had nearly succeeded at turning Zevran into a eunich after one too many comments about her "magical bosom", and Leliana had been caught trying to poison Oghren after he threw up in her tent before passing out in a drunken stupor.
If it wasn't the constant bickering on the job it was the infighting at camp. If they weren't fighting amongst each other they were fighting with him over every little thing they did. He swore they were never happy with his decisions. Not that any of them would ever try the responsibility of leading themselves of course, but they were more than happy to criticize. The Warden's thoughts were interrupted by a sniffing sound beside him. He turned to see a large Mabari war hound beside him. The dog's big brown eyes stared mournfully at the Warden.
"Oh come here." He said, pulling the dog closer. Galahad barked and wagged his tail, snuggling closer to his master. This is what I needed, he thought. The dog never complained, never argued, and never whined. He didn't ask the Warden to complete dangerous and life-threating quests to earn fickle approval. He simply followed, no questions asked. Sometimes the Warden felt like Galahad was the one true friend he had since leaving the circle. He buried his face in the dog's fur, willing the outside world to disappear. Galahad licked him, his whole body expressing joy at his master's attention.
"The others may betray me, leave me, or irritate the crap out of me," said the Warden, "but you'll always be here. Won't you boy?" Galahad barked happily. The Warden smiled for what felt like the first time in weeks. "I guess that'll have to do."
AN: This was floating around in my head for a while, now that I'm on Christmas break I thought I'd write it down. Intended to be a one-shot but might write more if I get some interest.
Whatever you're celebrating, have a good one!