Fight Song, A Lannister Always Pays His Debts, Starry Sky, Sariel, Adamant Fortress, Journey to Skyhold.

Hello and welcome to Disgrace of Redcliffe, the sequel to Apprentice Guerrin!

It's gonna be long. The first portion of this story is pretty plot-less and is mostly world, scene, and character-building. I'll let you guys know via author's notes when I get the actual plot written. Like AG, a lot of this is gonna be very self-indulgent on my end. I have currently pre-written up to chapter 6 and will continue writing when I can to keep that gap in place.

The muffin titles are gone. I'm gonna flex my creative muscles and try to make puns.

Here we go!

Disgrace of Redcliffe

Prologue

The Grey Wardens of Thedas had existed as an order since their founding during the First Blight, back centuries before Andraste and her Chant of Light. Five Archdemons had rampaged only to fall on the blade of a Warden in the end, and though their hellish forms appeared decades and often centuries apart, the effects of the last Blight, twelve years ago, were still being felt in Thedas today. It was a long and decorated history, and it came as no surprise that theirs' was a brotherhood of many secrets and even greater sacrifices.

Chief among them today: Connor Guerrin's patience.

"Are you going to buy it or not?" Because whether or not anyone chose to believe it, Connor Guerrin, Mage of the College of Enchanters, ex-son of the Arl of Denerim and disgraced nephew to the Arl of Redcliffe, was a Grey Warden. And he was about to go off on his brother-in-arms in the middle of a Val Royeaux market. "Hawke. It's been an hour. The others are already done their shopping!"

"But it's such a waste of coin, isn't it?" Warden Carver Hawke asked him, and Connor was ready to put his hands around the warrior's thick neck. "Who really needs this much gold on a book?"

"Maker's Breath, Hawke, just buy it." Connor told him.

The summer sun over Val Royeaux was nothing compared to the blistering heat of the last four months out in the Western Approach, but it was still too warm and thick to go running around in full gear. Grey Wardens also weren't too highly thought of in Orlais after the chaos of Corypheus' rampage. Hawke had left his silverite plates and sword behind at the inn where the Wardens had spent the night, wearing a long, mean-looking dagger at the belt of his dark blue tunic. His gauntlets he had tucked into his belt, black trousers a sin in the heat but the only thing he had, his greaves removed and his boots looking blistered and tired from the many miles.

The months of sun had burned deep red pads of colour across Hawke's hands, over the bridge of his crooked nose, and down the back of his neck. He'd complained about the possibility of shaving his black hair away completely to get it to stop soaking up the heat, but had been wisely talked down by the prospect of having his scalp burn away without the protection.

Beside him, Connor was by far the more miserable for their time in the desert. For a healer he'd done a wretched job caring for his face before leaving Ferelden and a horrible memory had burned the skin across his eyes months ago. He'd mended what he'd had the time to think about in the deep roads: his eyes themselves, his lids, brows and lashes and the rest of the important parts, but he'd forgotten the skin.

The sun had darkened him and bleached his auburn hair until it was nearly white at the ends, but it had stubbornly avoided his eyes. He looked like someone had peeled the brown away in a band, or perhaps they'd thrown chalk at him, and he felt like an idiot any time someone on the road or in the city stared out right at him. Aside from his idiot scars he felt normal enough though, and after the desert he had no issue wearing a pale blue jerkin and shirt over his own trousers and sand-blasted boots.

"What now?" Connor griped, watching Hawke fuss again and look back at what he was holding.

"I don't need an Orlesian copy." He admitted, almost timid.

"I thought you said your mother's copy was written in Orlesian?" There were over ten years seniority between them but if Hawke did not cut it out Connor was going to lose his mind.

In Hawke's hand was a thick green book whose ornate cover was webbed with shining gold leaf. The cover alone was a work of art. The pages, which Hawke had flipped through several times looking for any kind of flaw with the binding, the lettering, the glue, the threads, the smell, were soft high-quality paper with illuminated chapter faces and thick black and red in scrawled throughout. It was the epic ballad "Ride of the Chevaliers", a cornerstone of Orlesian folk-tales and songs and according to Hawke it was one of the few books his mother had used to teach her three children how to read. Connor had spent his early life in Ferelden's Circle of Magi, he knew a well-made book when he saw one, and Hawke had touched this book and no other at the stall they were still standing in front of.

"This one's both, I mean." Hawke explained, something Connor already knew because an hour, Hawke, they had been here an hour. "King's Trade on the one side and Orlesian on the opposite-"

"Then you get two copies instead of one: you can read the Trade and just call the other one pretty."

"That's not the point." He argued and then worried his lips together. He abruptly put the book back on the stall. It was not the first time he had done so. The bookseller had grown so fed up with Hawke that he was barely paying attention any more.

"Hawke."

"No." Was the rebuttal. "No! I have books at Vigil's Keep, and they go for less than this in Amaranthine. I'll just read Lost in Lowtown again for the voyage back." It was over a month by ship from Val Royeaux to Amaranthine harbour at this time of year. The original voyage from Highever to Orlais had involved the company's one copy of Lost in Lowtown being read by every Grey Warden in the hold, on their own, twice.

"Buy the stupid book, Hawke." Connor told him again.

"It's too expensive, no."

"Do you know how much Nathaniel's spent on fabric for his sister's family since yesterday?" A lot. The answer was a lot. They were on their way home and for the senior wardens it would be their first time seeing home in half a year. For Connor and the fifth member of their company, the Orlesian Warden Bouclier, their first time. "Oghren spent half of what he earned in the Approach on soap. Oghren. With soap. Think about it." Hawke scoffed.

"Don't get your hopes up, it's not for him." The other warden worked his way up to a smile, crooked, but present. "Felsi just likes the purple one, whatever it is. If we're making comparisons then Genevieve bought wine and something from a jeweler, but what about you?" Hawke pointed quickly over Connor's shoulder and the mage knew better than to follow the direction because it would make him look stupid and he fell for it enough as it was.

"Still missing something." Hawke grinned, and Connor felt himself go sour.

"I still can't believe the nerve of that thing…" He grumbled.

"Be thankful the dragon ate the staff and not the mage attached to it." Connor was not thankful, Connor was bitter.

"No one will ever believe that story."

"The commander will." Hawke tried to cheer him up with a sharp slap on the shoulder. "Come on, lets go meet the others. I'm done here."

"You go ahead." Connor told him. "He has several books on poultices here and I want to flip through them again. Get one for the boat."

"They'll all be in Orlesian." Hawke cautioned.

"Genevieve wants me to practice mine anyways." The Captain was dead set on getting him back to fluency with a language he hadn't spoken since he was ten. "Might as well learn something useful while I'm at it."

"Suit yourself." Hawke cast one final mourning look back at the ballad on the stall and finally tore himself away. "Meet you at the inn, Guerrin."

As soon as the other Grey Warden was gone, Connor pulled out his money.

"Five sovereigns." The seller immediately told him in Orlesian, speaking from behind a polished copper mask. Captain Bouclier's language practice hadn't been an entire waste.

"If you don't sell it to me," Connor said in tired, grumpy, but moderately well-spoken Orlesian, "You will have to see him every time we come to Val Royeaux."

"He is not so ugly for a dog-lord." The merchant rebuked. "Five sovereigns, mage."

Connor paid up and swore Hawke would never touch the damn book so long as either of them lived.

Two weeks later, locked in the now-rank hold of a ship sailing east to Ferelden, if Ride of the Chevaliers wasn't being read out-loud by Hawke then it was wrapped up and tucked safely in the other Warden's saddle bags. Connor could have been bitter, but at least none of them had to suffer through another reading of Lowtown against their will. He curled up with his head and shoulders on his own saddlebags and tried to sleep the voyage away.

Four weeks in a small hold only about thirty feet wide and fifteen deep would be enough to drive any well-adjusted, sedentary person insane. For five Grey Wardens used to walking and riding over thirty miles a day, the ship was claustrophobic. Even Connor, who had spent so much of his life in a tower and a cramped medical tent, found himself beating his feet on the wooden walls at times just to mimic the feel of walking.

"We should have walked…" Nathaniel Howe, the company's acting second in command, complained every day of the crossing as part of his afternoon routine. The lieutenant kept mostly to his hanging cot at one end of the hold, whittling wooden totems and planks to chips in a constant effort to steer off the madness of boredom.

"Dwarves weren't meant to float…" Constable Oghren, red haired, vulgar, and their acting first officer, kept himself perpetually drunk while on board. He was frequently ill for no fault of the liquor and none of Connor's herbs or the crew's remedies could keep the dwarf's stomach settled for more than a few hours. He was resistant to anything green Connor tried to feed him, but surprisingly good-natured about all the failed attempts.

"The fresh air would do you all some good." Captain Genevieve Bouclier, a black woman formerly under Orlesian Warden Commander Clarel's banner, was the Company's acting third. The Captain spent much of her time on the fairer days up on deck under the sun, a place Connor would not venture because he was desperate for his tan to vanish before they reached Ferelden. Genevieve ignored her armour and weapons for the voyage, and when she deigned to stay below decks in the hold she would quickly give in to her own competitive nature. "Hawke!"

And so did Hawke.

Push-ups with one or both hands. Sit-ups on the floor, or with knees hooked over one of the sturdy beams keeping the ship in form. Pull-ups from the same beam. They never challenged each other for anything under fifty and usually went many times beyond that number before becoming too tired, forgetting the wager, and falling asleep on their respective gear. Several times Nathaniel and Connor himself were dragged into their competitions just to stave off the boredom from another hand of diamond back. There was literally nothing else to do.

A complete ban on magic should not have been that difficult for Connor to follow, but it was. Magic was frightening, dangerous, and often put to foolish uses. Before joining the Wardens Connor had rarely touched the caustic fire licking at his insides more than a few times in a month, but in the months since then it had become a constant thing. Light a fire, douse a fire, check for enemies, make sure something that hurt wasn't actually injured, heal something that was very injured. Give light in the dark, send a signal to another point in formation, provide aid against exhaustion or immediate attack. Just… conjure something in his hand for the sheer hell of being bored and needing something to focus on except being bored.

The captain of this ship hated magic. The company had side-eyed the entire prospect of getting on board when the man had openly suggested having Connor hog-tied and locked in a different part of the ship from the others. Connor himself had been torn between wanting to find another ship or setting the man's hat on fire. He'd done neither. Nathaniel had later told him that if he ever felt threatened, the Lieutenant would make short work of the issue and that threat had actually given Connor enough confidence to board the ship at all. If Nathaniel Howe threatened to stab someone, he'd do it.

But no magic meant at least nine out of any ten things Connor had done on the original voyage to Orlais were now out of the question. He was worried about just tracing glyphs in case the man looked down through the grate that lit and ventilated the hold and see him drawing lines and immediately have him keel-hauled.

So he played cards, and counted push-ups, and tried to sleep through as much of the voyage as was humanly possible. By the end of the fourth week his cabin fever was no better than Hawke's or Genevieve's: he wanted out of here now.

Finally, finally, finally, with the Western Approach and its darkspawn canyon nearly a thousand miles behind them, they arrived at the port city of Amaranthine.

"Will anyone be there to meet us?" Connor asked as the city's walls and harbour began to form in the pale dawn mist. The one good thing about ships was that they didn't stop for the night, meaning the ship didn't furl her sails or bother slowing down at all until she swept around the breakers of the harbour's western lip and in to the shoulder of Ferelden standing on the edge of the Amaranthine Ocean.

"Doubt it." Nathaniel answered next to him in the early gloom. The wind reeked of salt and fish but land was coming closer. There was wood smoke on the wind now, there was refuse in the harbour's dark waters. "But the Commander's last letter said there will be horses for us with the city guard. Probably even the ones we left in Highever."

Connor tried not to show how high his heart rose with the news. All of them had been disappointed when the Warden Commander of Ferelden had sent word that he would not join them in Orlais, but Connor had felt especially lost. He'd only had a few weeks training as a battle mage before his Joining and then immediate assignment to Orlais. Not having the Archmage around to guide him had been frightening.

But they'd all survived the Approach, and Connor felt like he'd been useful out there too. Maybe things had turned out for the best in the end?

They gathered their horses from the stables at the Bann of Amaranthine's manor later that morning. Solid ground felt so good under his feet and the noise and smells of a Ferelden city, even one he'd never been to before, lifted his heart. Nothing had felt as real as this before. Once Oghren finished stamping an official document with his signet ring Connor felt his heart soar at the sight of the mounts waiting for them. He picked which one he wanted immediately, because she was his.

"I missed you," He whispered quietly to the familiar face of Issan, a chestnut Ferelden Foarder with wise black eyes and blankets cut with Warden grey and blue. He was overjoyed when the horse mouthed pleasantly at his open palmed when he approached, and she was patient as he saddled and readied her for the ride out of the city. "But you would not have liked Orlais."

They weren't going to waste time in Amaranthine. Vigil's Keep was the home of the Grey Wardens and the seat of Warden Commander Surana's power in the region. It was the home the three senior wardens longed to see again and in the early morning light they moved as quickly as five horses could through foot-traffic and the congestion of summer wagons. As soon as the crowd near the city gates began to thin and melt away, they mounted up and were on the road at a brisk pace.

The horses were up for the exercise and rolled smoothly from canter to run and back again. Apparently Oghren wanted to reach the Keep before noon and Hawke fell into a regaling description of the fortress that awaited them. The great hall, the kitchens, the barracks, the warden apartments, the baths, the Commander's office: he walked them through the keep and made it sound like a miniature Denerim.

"My own bed," Hawke ended off with a whimsical, almost desperate cry. "Oh Maker, I can't believe we're so close. I'm going to sleep like the dead."

"You've been sleeping for a month!" Genevieve gasped at him, her armour shining like his as they rode fast and light over the fine road and under the sun.

"Not in my own bed I haven't!" Hawke laughed, and then heeled his horse to get it running again. Connor let his horse keep pace with the two warriors, Nathaniel and Oghren quickly speeding up ahead of them so the company maintained its loose order between the rolling fields of green farmland.

"How many Wardens do you think have come from Skyhold?" Bouclier asked, her voice raised high through the sun and wind. "Surana invited my brothers from Orlais to gather at the Vigil, do you think they answered?"

"I sure hope not!" Hawke stated rudely. "I'm sick of Orlesians- no offense!"

"Ugh, why do I bother talking to you so much?"

"Because I'm the only one who hits things half as hard as you do?" Hawke asked with a brilliant smile.

"HAWKE!" he also said it loud enough that Oghren's head seemed to come away from his shoulders and spin straight around at them.

"But you hit twice as hard, sir!" Hawke's flattery never ever got him anywhere good, but it made Oghren turn back around with a huff and snap his reigns, the dwarf bouncing roughly atop his running horse. "…as Guerrin."

"Hey!" Connor'd heard that!

"You are going to end up in the stocks!" Genevieve warned him, and on they rode.

The road they followed curved inland as soon as they were away from the city. The cobbles faded to dust as they passed the tenth mile away from Amaranthine and passed their first marker pointing the way to Vigil's Keep, but the gravel was fine and even as they rode. They were hedged in on either side by greenery, rolling fields of young vegetables and barley waving them on in the sweet wind.

The slowest they rode was when something glittered across the next hill, the terrain becoming more rugged as fields melted slowly into pastures dotted with white sheep and goats. The glitter became a small company of men, about six in all, wearing Amaranthine's bear proudly on their breastplates and the colours of the Arling on their shoulders and backs. Nathaniel grunted sharply to them and the Wardens folded into a single-file line, trotting lightly by and offering salutes that were returned by the marching patrol. The fact that neither company stopped for the other smacked of either mutual respect or a little bit of rivalry, and Connor wasn't sure which until he found himself riding next to Oghren and their pace picked back up to a high canter.

"Silver Order." The Constable grunted to him. "Civilian militia who patrol the Arling! Surana controls the Wardens as Commander of the Grey, and the Silver Order as Arl of Amaranthine. It's the best way to keep the Wardens neutral if Denerim ever decides to shit itself and start a war."

"I don't think King Alistair would let that happen," Connor replied, wrinkling his nose. It was true he didn't know his royal cousin personally, but he knew how Ferelden felt about him. He was a former Grey Warden, someone who carried the taint but no longer the obligation, he wouldn't waste people's lives for something stupid. "At least I hope not."

Oghren laughed something crude into the wind and they carried on. Connor's only attempt to strike up a conversation with Nathaniel got him a one-word answer and not even a flash of eye-contact, meaning the only thing to do was immediately back off and go back to where Oghren was riding. Nathaniel was not a chatty person most of the time, but he wasn't unfriendly. Maybe he was worried about seeing his sister again, or-

Or someone else. Someone who had not gone to Orlais with them all those months ago. Someone Nathaniel had tried very hard to stay near only to be told no and sent west by Commander Surana instead. Howe had done his duty and now he was on his way home as was probably his right. Connor stayed away from him.

"My wife's a proper woman!" Oghren began boasting some time later, probably Connor's fault for asking what the Constable thought of Vigil's Keep. It was a roundabout answer but very like the senior warden. "Never trims the fat or stops the ale! Feeds the whole damn Keep and always with an eye on the nugglets. Strong, healthy things those two! All Oghren and just enough Fels' to make a man proud! That woman's thicker than cream and sweeter too between those heavy thighs I can't wait to put my-"

"Maker's Breath!" Connor swore, giving his horse a quick tug back on the reins and falling well out of ear-shot of the rest of Oghren's declaration.

The terrain rose, climbing towards the west as the road wound over larger hills and wove between farms and homesteads. Amaranthine's trees and were in full bloom, the sky a piercing blue as it stretched over the rising arms of worn down mountains. The road forked in places to distinguish the parts of the Arling, but they stayed true along their path until finally, with the sun taunting them from just past midday, they arrived.

Connor had been there for the arrival at Skyhold. He'd been inspired and in awe of the keep hidden in the Frostback mountains when it appeared through the winter sunlight. But Skyhold had been empty, quiet, crumbling. Its bones had been strong but the flesh withered until the Inquisition breathed new life into it. Connor's arrival at the Vigil was very different for that reason alone.

Thrust up the back of the keep was a tall mountain, not high enough for snow, but it looked like the Keep and her towers had been pulled from the living stone behind it. The high tower in the far ground pierced down into a heavy body of black stone, and from there came down waves of rooftops, battlements, chimneys and flags.

Banners of Grey Warden blue and Amaranthine gold fluttered in the summer wind, clinging to the walls like vines, flying from the tops of towers. Even this far away came the distant echo of metal work and voices, the gates in her formidable walls propped open in the daylight as light traffic of wagons and travellers filtered through her doors. There were soldiers and townsfolk, men and women in silver armour like they'd seen on the road, training in squadrons along the road. Wagons and horses and hawkers and criers, there were vegetable stands with the season's early fruits lining the road approaching the keep.

"Surana's pennant ain't flying over the keep," Oghren pointed out in a loud, unimpressed voice. "He ain't home!"

"Welcome to Vigil's Keep, Captain!" Hawke laughed behind him, their horses having slowed to a stop with the keep so tantalizingly close. Connor's horse had pulled up close to Nathaniel's, and the Senior Warden had a quiet, reserved look on his long face. He was dirty and unshaven after the weeks of hard travel, and there was a solemnity as he gazed down at the last stretch of road before he would be where he belonged again. It surprised Connor a little bit when the Hunter finally chose to speak again, and when he did it was to the mage.

His voice was rough and tired, but satisfied.

"Welcome home, Guerrin."

Connor hadn't known a heart could hold this much happiness.

Drop a review below and let me know what you thought! Next chapter on Monday!