The rose is wilted.

The archdemon is dead and all that is left for me is to leave this miserable city for good. Arl Eamon has already so kindly given me the most direct route out of town. Not that I can blame him much: I'm the biggest threat to Alistair's rule if I stay. Further removed from Denerim I'm simply Alistair's old traveling companion. I'm his Hero-of-Ferelden-Fellow-Grey-Warden buddy, not his shameful mage lover. Make that his shameful mage EX-lover, welcome to bear the title of 'Warden-Commander' but never the title 'Wife'.

I'm packing my bag, trying to find room for extra bandages when I see it. It's still pressed not-quite-right between pages of the one magic tome I'd managed to sneak out of the tower the day I was kicked out. I drop to the ground with the bag and softly brush against the outmost petal and am immediately sorry I've done so. It crumbles into dust. Into nothing. Into exactly what I feel like.

"Amell!"

Stiffening my shoulders, I try to pretend I don't hear him.

I still recall in vivid detail the night I received it: a fumbling, bumbling gift that was almost insulting until it was sweet. I hear the echo of it ring through my mind,

"I probably should have left it alone but I couldn't...I thought maybe I could say something. Tell you what a rare and wonderful thing you are to find amidst all this..."

"You're packing? You can't leave. We've just defeated the Archdemon. There are banquets to hold in your honor and parades to clutter up the streets and small children to impress, or frighten, and, and, and will you please turn around and look at me? ...Amell?"

It was just two nights ago and I'm supposed to be able to face him? He expects me to look at him and smile and be OK with all this? I can't stop hearing his excuses and platitudes.

"I will need to find a wife, one who can bear a child, one who will live to raise it. I don't relish it but I will have a duty as the King."

Doesn't he have a wife to go find and...impregnate? Some other slip of a girl to woo, love, and then destroy utterly?

I slip the crumbling rose out from between the pages of my tome. What was I thinking? I can't keep this symbol of what I had. It will destroy me to find this again. To look upon it and remember what could have been if I'd just let Anora rule instead... if I'd just thought selfishly of myself for once, for *my* happiness instead of the good of the Kingdom. The blasted Kingdom could sod itself into the Void, for all I care now.

It's starting to flake away slowly and I hasten the process by smashing it between my hands.

"Amell. You can't just keep pretending I'm not here. You can't ignore me forever!"

It flutters to the ground, like flakes of black snow. Rare & Wonderful, indeed: dead, the rose seems to suit me more-so than ever. Only the naked stem and thorns remain now and I contemplate picking it back up and keeping the shell of what we were. To remind myself of everything we destroyed.

Instead, I pick up my bag and walk past Alistair, leaving him to look upon the mess.

I whisper, "I can try, your Majesty."