Disclaimer: I don't own Dragon Age or any of its related characters. This is just for my own enjoyment and the potential enjoyment of other fans like me, and no monetary gain was expected or received.

Rating: T

Spoilers: Shouldn't be any. AU. A "what-if" one-shot that explores a possible outcome of life in Ferelden for one character if the Blight (and thusly the Hawke exodus, thence the Chantry explosion, thence the Mage Rebellion, thence the Inquisition) never happened.

Blood of the Father

He sat with his shoulders hunched, head hanging, hands dangling between his knees. He'd never been afraid of his own mortality - not even when he was young. He'd learned to face it at a very early age. He could've been killed by guard patrols as a bandit, and rightfully so, though under Orlesian laws perhaps, laws he had never recognized. A thousand times he might have died on the battlefield. Duels, assassins, wild animals, any number of things could have killed him over the years. But this? This was no way to die.

He raised his head and stared at his own portrait on the wall opposite. That painting bore no resemblance to him, now or ever - he'd never sat for a portrait in his life, and the artist had taken a distinct dislike to him and made him as bestial as possible without giving him actual animal form. It didn't matter. He wasn't really looking at the effigy. Dull grey eyes hardened and seemed to turn pale blue as he finally came to a decision and stood.

He found a page. "My Lord?" the young elf asked.

"Could you summon Wilde for me, please, lad?" he asked, trying hard to keep his voice level and his breathing steady. The boy clicked his heels and saluted and was off like a shot. In a few moments his fastest and most trusted messenger was standing before him in his receiving chamber. He hadn't even had time to sit down yet.

He lowered himself into his chair. "I need to send you… to Antiva, Wilde. To track down one of my former students. I need you to ask them to do a really big favor for me."

"All right. I came. All the way from Rialto. What's this about, my Lord?" she asked, hands resting on the pommel of her sword as she stood with one foot resting on the dais where he sat in his chair to receive her. Darkly tanned with jet black hair, she almost looked Antivan, except for the distinct Fereldan shape of her nose and chin, and her dark blue eyes, an uncommon color in the north.

"Thank you, my dear, for coming all this way to speak to me. You were the best of all of my students. There is no one else I could ask this of."

"Ask what of? Your message was vague in the extreme. Terse I expect from you, Lord Loghain. Vague is a bit strange."

He stood up and walked to the far edge of the dais, away from where she stood. He didn't look at her. "I have a favor to ask of you. You don't owe me this, but I must ask it anyway. There is no one else I can turn to."

"Of course I owe you. You taught me everything I know. I wouldn't be alive if it weren't for you, and your training," she said.

"Don't go making promises before you know what it is you're promising," he said, and then he turned to her. "I want you to kill me."

If she had been drinking, she would have choked or spit at those words. As it was, she could not believe her ears. "You want me to what?"

"Kill me. I'm dying. I want to go my way, with a little dignity."

"You brought me all the way here from Antiva so I could murder you? Hire an assassin. It'll be the first contract in history ever taken out by the victim. Bards will sing bad songs of it for ages," she said as she ran distressed hands through her hair and paced to the back of the room with her back turned.

"I don't want to be murdered. Let me explain."

She spun around to look at him, blue eyes flashing anger. "Please do."

He raised his hands calmingly and directed her to a seat. Once she grudgingly did so, he fell back into his own chair. She was surprised at how weary he seemed. He had always been so inexhaustible.

"I've been to see a number of the best of healers. Not just in Ferelden. At Anora's insistence, of course. I've been having trouble… breathing. Getting tired easily. Old age, I thought, nothing to worry about, but she worries about every little thing and made me go see one, and that led to all the rest of them. Turns out I'm actually sick. I've got the Wasting. I'm dying slowly. At the rate I'm going, it could take months, maybe even a year or two for me to die, in bedridden agony most of the way. That's not the death I ever envisioned for myself. I'd sooner die on the rack than in my bed."

"Well, have Her Majesty arrange that for you!" she shouted, and he smiled just a fraction.

"I want you to duel me," he said. "You're the best student I ever had, a worthy foe to die to. The best end I can imagine for myself. Now, while I still have strength left for it to be a fair fight. Now, while I still have strength left to die on my feet. Please."

"You can't ask me this."

"I must."

"You're a rat bastard, you know that?"

"Yes. And you always knew that, too."

"You cannot do this to me. You practically raised me."

"And I taught you to be strong about this sort of thing, didn't I?"

"You rat bastard."

"Please, my child. Everyone else I know who has any skill at all actually wants to kill me. I can't give the bastards the satisfaction."

"So I have to do it? I have to kill the one man I respect and love above all others on this green earth? I repeat again, you rat bastard!"

"If you truly respect me and love me, could you truly stand to see me die slowly, without dignity, in my bed of a wasting disease for which there is no cure?" he said, gently enough for him. "Death by old age itself is bad enough, but this… this is cruelty. To have to have people take care of me for the rest of my days… feed me, dress me… wipe me? Please, you can't let that happen to me. I'm begging you."

"You had other students," she pleaded.

"Not like you."

"You rat bastard."

"I think we've established that fact by this time, my dear. Will you do this for me or not?"

In anguish, she started to shake her head and then nodded vigorously. "All right, you bastard, I'll do it."

Somehow, the weight he had lost was more visible with his armor on. It didn't fit him any longer, it didn't fit his proportions. His face was too thin, he was almost skeletal within it. It hurt her to see it. Still, he strode into the arena with his shoulders straight and square and his head up. No one was in the stands. They didn't want to be seen. He didn't want to be seen. Particularly not by his daughter, who would put a stop to these proceedings immediately if she knew of them.

"Are you ready?" he asked.

"I am," she said, girding herself against her inner thoughts.

"Then I am at your mercy, my dear," he said, as he drew his sword and flung his arms wide. "It is your move."

She drew her sword, readied herself, and attacked. His counterattack was more than competent, which was to be expected, but it was hardly up to his former standards. Still, she was pressed very hard by him, though she knew he was not fighting to kill. He simply did not want there to be any doubt that he went down fighting.

She could still see the old Master in him, the man who taught her to control the battlefield, but there was weakness in his arm, a barely visible tremor. If she were at her best she could take him, but not now, not with the tears in her eyes. As it was, they were fairly evenly matched, but he was tiring. Soon he would start making mistakes. Leaving himself open. Wasn't it better that he die at his peak? Wasn't that really what he wanted?

She looked for an opportunity. When he ran at her from across the arena like a cavalry charge, she saw her chance. She girded herself against the blow and allowed him to knock her back against the low stone wall below the stands, knocking all the breath out of her lungs and cracking three ribs in the process despite her stout armor, but it served her purpose as the blade of her belt knife sank twelve inches deep into his stomach. He looked down in apparent disbelief.

"Who taught you to fight dirty, girl?" he asked, as dark red blood poured from between his lips.

"You did," she said, gazing at him with mournful eyes.

He smiled, the first full, genuine smile she could ever remember having seen from him. "And I have never been prouder of you than I am in this moment, my dear… Rowan. Rowan the… Merciful."

He collapsed, eyes open, and she arranged him face-up on the arena floor in a more dignified manner with his hands folded on his breast. She made to close his eyes, but thought better of it. Let him gaze upon the Maker's heavens. Let those cold blue eyes unnerve whomever comes to collect his body. He would like that, she supposed. He always liked the way his cold blue glare unnerved people.

"Maker, take this soul into Your keeping," she whispered, head bowed. "Watch over him and protect him, and allow him to rest. And Maker, grant me mercy for my actions today."

She stood there a moment longer, then turned and left the arena. Mother was going to hit the roof for this, no doubt, but ultimately she felt it a small worry. Her elder brother and younger sister would be angry as well, of course. One or both of them might well call for a duel, but mother would never let it come to pass. Father might purse his lips and furrow his brow and say that honor must be upheld but mother would rail and say that she would lose no more beloved family to such a foolish concept as "honor." She went to divest herself of her bloody armor and take a long bath. She knew she could scrub herself forever and never wash away the stain of her grandfather's blood.