Author's Note: Big thanks to my beta reader as always. Sten's story is an homage to The Seven Samurai, one of my favorite movies ever. This will be a series of oneshots about the Warden's companions after the events of Dragon Age. As always, please read and review.

Ghosts

There were seven that stood at the top of the hill, seven against more than a dozen. Parshaara, it was not honorable to go against so few, but they stood between them and the village. The village would not accept the ways of the Qun and so they would be put to sword. That was the only path, the only way when one refuses enlightenment. One of the ashaad had been injured when they had told them they were to be sent to labor camps. That was a mistake, letting the Qunari go, thinking they had scared them off with their weak pitchforks and kitchen knives.

But when they returned, there stood the seven. They were Dalish Elves - he had seen them before. Their leader had drawn a blade so thin he could have bitten it in half. "You will not harm these people. They are friend to the Dalish, and we have extended our hand to them in their hour of need. Return to your lands, Giant." the woman said, her voice cold and her eyes sharp.

She was blond. She had skin cut by blades into some pattern over her face. Her eyes were green. Like the rest of her kind, she wore simple leathers meant to give the greatest speed in battle. While the karashoks snorted behind him at this abomination, he did not smirk nor did he frown. The Sten gave her a long, hard look. She reminded him of someone.

"I do not understand. You look like a woman."

It had been a cold night. Nights like these made him ache for the jungles of Par Vollen. he desired nothing more than to feel the sands of Seheron against his feet, to smell the spices and tea...But little matter that. Nothing would be accomplished by yearning. It would not answer the arishok's question sooner. But the Warden- the Elf, had walked past him. He took the opportunity to ask his own question.

Her name was Sylrien, but that was insignificant, she was 'Warden' to him as he was 'Sten' to her - stopped and looked at him, cocking an eyebrow towards him. He continued,

"Women are priests, artisans, shopkeepers, or farmers. They don't fight., but you are a Grey Warden. So it follows that you can't be a woman.""

She shifted her weight from one foot to the other, sizing the Qunari up. She was trying to find a suitable response for him, he could sense it. Or she was about to attack him. That was also an option. He sighed in dismay, trying to find the right way of expressing it to her limited mind.

"A person is born: qunari, or human, or elven, or dwarf. He doesn't choose that. The size of his hands, whether he is clever or foolish, the land he comes from, the color of his hair. These are beyond his control. We do not choose, we simply are. But you were born a woman. You cannot be a Grey Warden."

She looked down, then back up to him. Then she furrowed her brows slightly before nodding. "You are right, Sten. I am not a woman."

"But you are a-" His mouth opened to form a reprimand and he began to speak in order to expound upon the contradiction further. But then he realized that she had agreed with him.

She folded her arms against her chest - she wore thin leathers and fabrics that clearly showed a female form. The Antivan elf had often remarked upon it and the human Warden had watched her. It was immodest.

"The question you seek to answer, the one your.....arishok? asked of you. He asked you 'what was the Blight?' No?"

Once he had mastered the surprise she caused him by her response coupled with her interruption, he resumed his usual stoic attitude and nodded. "It is so."

"Then tell him this: The Blight is unnatural. The Blight twists all it touches. It distorts and corrupts everything. No person escapes unscathed - unchanged." As she spoke, he did not fail to notice that her hand had drifted down over her stomach; her nails slightly dug into the leather over her lower abdomen. He understood.

"When I became a Grey Warden, I ceased to be a woman. Perhaps that is how it was meant to be, I do not know. Perhaps I was born to this and did not realize..." Her voice trailed into silence as thoughts overwhelmed her mind. Suddenly she looked up at him. "But mark me, Sten. I did not choose this. This is who...this is what I am." He had noted she had a habit of being warm and open when she talked to the other people that traveled with them but now...now her voice was cold, and her eyes razor sharp. 'This is not a topic you shall speak of again,' her eyes told him.

He nodded his approval. "We will see."

The four of them charged, their oddly shaped swords sharp and shining in the light. The other three rained arrows down upon the Beresaad. But they were fighting more than a dozen Qunari in mail that deflected their arrows, wielding swords that shattered their flimsy blades at first contact. This did not mean they were unskilled for several of his brothers fell against them. But in the end they were few against too many. The elf woman lay on the ground, bruised and broken; her body was twisted and bleeding. He approached her and he could see the death overcoming her body but she still reached for her fallen sword, curled her fingers around the hilt so that she might strike out one last time against the foreign monsters.

Sten watched her carefully. She no longer posed any threat to him. The other three elves had run once the four that had charged them fell. The other Qunari did not pursue them for they had to attend to their dead brothers. This elf would be the last to die this day. She looked up at the him, feebly thrusting her sword in his general direction...only to give her last breath in the effort. The sword fell from her hand.

The Warden was laying on a stone slab, but the body that lay there did not look like the Warden to Sten. There was no creasing of her chin as she regarded the situation before them, there was no careful step. What lay before him was a dead woman, peaceful in her final slumber. The other Grey Warden, now the king, spoke of missing her. He spoke of her sacrifice and of her duty. He told of a glorious monument, of a mausoleum constructed for her in some fortress far away. He spoke that he could not abandon her to some cold, foreign mountain; she would remain here with her people - those that loved her, that knew her. This caused Sten great unease. The only people that could claim to know the woman that rested on that slab were two elves dressed in rags. They were related to the Warden somehow. But this Sylrien was a stranger to him.

When it came to be his turn to pay his respects, he bowed deeply towards the former Warden. When he finally stood, he turned around and left the area. He had to complete his mission now. He had nothing to say to this woman he did not know.

He saw the ghost of the Warden in this woman that had stood defiant till the end. For a moment he wondered who she had been before taking arms against the Qunari. For a moment he wondered if the Qun was not entirely that different from the Blight. It had changed this woman and made her into a warrior that she was not supposed to be, forced her into a role she was not born to that had ultimately led to her end. For a moment he questioned if the Antaam were not unlike the hordes of Darkspawn he had seen tear apart the land, fanatical in changing the world to fit their own, twisted vision.

Parshaara! He was a warrior of the Qun! The moment was soon over. Sten bent down and placed the sword back in the hand of this stranger, but he did not see blond hair matted with blood; he did not see green eyes that were dulled in death. With the blade in her hand, Sten saw the Warden.

"Goodbye Kadan. Ashkost say hissra."