There is no shortage of food in the dining halls the following morning.
In fact, there is such an over-abundance of food that he wonders, sitting down and waiting for the servants, if Grey Wardens are thought to eat three times as much as an ordinary warrior.
Loghain himself is not particularly hungry.
"Here you go, ser," an elven girl says nervously and moves the first of many plates to his place at the table. When she returns with the fifth selection of meat, fruit, bread and cheese he feels his stomach tie up in a knot and raises a hand to stop her.
That's when Cousland enters and, with a tired sigh, slumps down opposite him.
"Warden," he offers, oddly aware of the shift in hierarchies between them since yesterday.
"Loghain."
So it's not brother today, then. He is thankful for small mercies.
For a little while he occupies himself with dried meat and a slice of cheese, noticing her plate in the corner of his eye – it's loaded and she eats like a Mabari, shoving large chunks of everything at once into her mouth, almost as though she is oblivious to anything else.
He reluctantly takes a serving of bread.
"Bad night?" she looks up, suddenly, still chewing on a bit of ham and wiping her mouth with the back of her hand. All these months on the road certainly seem to have burned away her Highever manners. Loghain is vaguely amused but her question touches at a part of him that is definitely not.
"What is the purpose of asking questions you already know the answer to?" It comes out even sharper than he intended it and he thinks he can spot the hint of a cruel smile as he looks at her.
You will have nightmares, the damned Orlesian had mentioned in passing.
That part was no lie, at least.
In his memories he is clawing at the bedposts, sweating, squirming and praying - and even now, with morning light outside and his armour back on he feels bare just thinking of it.
Elissa puts down her cup.
"I ask because I don't know if the nightmares come immediately," she says evenly. Her dark brown eyes are unreadable and unflinching."As you may recall, my first night after the Joining was in Ostagar. You will have to forgive me if I can't separate the side-effects from drinking darkspawn blood from the side-effects of almost dying."
There is scarcely anything he can say in response to that, at least not without transforming the meal into a bloody fight, so he eats his seemingly never-ending bread and she goes back to inhaling another plate full of grapes and figs. Through the hissing sounds in his head he hears muffled voices from the kitchen scullions, but not much else. The room is very still. He supposes they are late or possibly early as there is no sign of the others this Warden travels with and just when he is about to ask her about it when she leans back in her chair, looking at him intently.
"I use potions made from elfroot and briar bush," she says. "It sedates the mind. Makes you sleep a full night. As for the noise, it depends on the darkspawn. But you should be able to ignore it after some time."
And before he knows it she has marched out of the room.
.
.
.
.
His daughter is not satisfied.
His daughter is most definitely not satisfied but quietly furious, pacing the room and only just refraining from gesticulating dramatically.
Watching her stride from one side of the room to the other throws him back into a different time altogether, a world where Cailan had done or not done something or refused to see reason and Loghain had groaned and tried to escape into the maps on his desk - it had never worked but still remained his strategy of choice. A world in which Anora wanted respect and Cailan had demanded his kingly decisions were carried out unquestioned and Loghain had felt like a widower in every meaning of the word, urging his late wife and Maric – and Rowan, Maker forgive him - back from the Fade to help him raise these bloody children.
At least Anora is no fool.
"He acts like a petulant child," she complains, sweeping past Loghain once more. Sitting in an armchair next to her bed, he rubs the bridge of his nose and his temples, leaning forward and wishing the soaring whispers would stop before he goes insane. Some time, the Warden had said. Some time. "I have no desire to be in his company at the moment. And I do not take kindly to being yelled at."
"Kings do that a lot," he mutters. "Yell, that is. Queens, too, as it happens."
"Oh, you are so funny."
But she isn't a hair's breadth away from strangling him tonight, unlike last night - once she understood he was going to live.
She has always had a temper resembling neither his own sour, introverted aggression nor her mother's quiet acceptance. If anything, she reminds Loghain of a past best forgotten.
When he took her to Denerim for the first time, to meet Cailan, she had shrieked all the way out of Gwaren like someone put red-hot needles through her body. He had felt like a bandit, snatching a noble child as hostage. A few years later she had shrieked in a similar fashion when he explained she was not going to attend the celebration of Cailan's fifteenth birthday because Denerim was too far away when snow covered all roads.
Loghain has the distinct impression she would shriek now as well, if he wasn't there to witness it.
She is tired of nursing husbands, he knows, weary not of ruling but of ruling through the hands of others, of being the strong one, the very unbreakable foundation upon which the kingdom can rest.
He has a shoddy habit of forcing this role upon women he loves.
Once the rebels had won, all those years ago, Loghain had thrown himself into a self-assumed exile half a country away from the Queen, thinking only geographical distance could prevent disaster on that account. Stumbling into his role as Teyrn - a hog in fancy armour who never bothered learning how to dance or converse - he married a bann's daughter who reminded him of a girl in his father's band of outlaws. Kind and nurturing, mild-mannered and different enough to resemble the Queen of Ferelden as much as a puppy resembled a dragon.
And of course they raised a daughter that is more Rowan than even Rowan herself, which is just another example of fate's twisted bloody sense of humour.
"Are you listening to me?" Anora's voice is a sharp lash against the enjoyable silence of his memories.
"Yes." He looks up.
"Liar."
Grimacing, she sits down on the edge of the armrest of his chair. He notices she has removed the rings and bracelets – fancy bribes – Cailan gave her when he had been travelling somewhere. The idiot. Loghain decides he will not think more about Cailan tonight. Or at all, if he can avoid it. It threatens to turn the hum in his head into a tempest.
"I just... we will be travelling westwards with the first light of the day," Anora sighs.
"I heard."
She will lead a nation in battle. And although she would never openly admit it, she doubts her own abilities to do just that - at least here, at least tonight. He turns his head to look at her.
"You are Ferelden's queen. Not because of your blood but because of your skill and your worth. Do not doubt that."
She scoffs at his reassurance, entirely too old for it, but he feels her shoulders relax.
And they remain together for a while, not speaking. It has been years since they last sat like this, without urgent matters to fight over or various disagreements to solve. When Loghain gets to his feet, the sky outside is already dark. Anora walks with him to the door.
"Be careful on the road," he says, thinking he might never see her again.
"You as well." His daughter nods briefly, every bit the Queen in that moment. "I shall see to the Warden's supplies myself before we leave, make certain we have offered everything we can."
"Good."
He is already in the corridor when he feels a hand on his arm, holding on to him.
"Father," she says suddenly and her voice is six years old again and he is escaping Gwaren, his horse already waiting outside. "Maker watch over you."
.
.
.
.
He wonders when the banns will come for him, demanding compensation for the lives he took, paying for the war.
He wonders when the Orlesians will slip through Ferelden's undefended borders and wonders, too, just how long the country will be in a disarray. He won't be there to fix it this time.
He wonders when all his failures will stop tasting bitter.
But tonight, as he breathes night-air on a balcony, trading his heavy armour for a pair of trousers and a shirt, he mostly wonders if he will ever be able to sleep. Maker knows he ought to. Everything is heavy with sleep deprivation, his motions clumsy and his thoughts dull and shapeless. Perhaps, he thinks, some time outside will help. The stone bench beneath him is chilly but not unwelcoming; he closes his eyes and tilts his head back.
Then – footsteps.
"Here."
Looking up, over his shoulder, he spots Elissa standing there with a vial in her hand. He's about to ask what and why when she sits down on the bench; she puts the potion between them when he doesn't take it, then she stretches her legs in front of her and looks at him.
"It's Zevran's decoction."
"The assassin?" Loghain snorts. "Somehow that is not comforting."
"He's not a very dedicated assassin," she replies, and if the bloody Joining hasn't dulled all of his ordinary human senses and replaced them with darkspawn ones, he can trace amusement in her tone. "As you may know."
"It has become clear to me, yes."
"I had thought you a man who kills his enemies himself." Elissa still looks at him, a little more introspective now, like she is mulling over his motivations. He is uncertain he wishes to elaborate on this subject at all, actually, but eventually resigns.
"I am... usually." He shifts position on the bench. When he allows himself to feel it, his right leg still hurts from yesterday's duel – not a surprise given that her blade must have pierced his armour at least five times if the number of wounds on his body is anything to go by.
"Then I was correct in my judgement of you," she certifies with a nod.
She seems oddly pleased about it.
"I suppose you think I'm some kind of monster," he says, not entirely sure where he is heading with this. Or why he is posing questions he doesn't really wants to know the answer to. Questions he doesn't care about the answer to, he corrects himself. "More so since I survived your ritual: you keep striking at me, and I just refuse to die decently. "
His fellow Warden turns her head at that, her brow furrowed. Then her face relaxes and she smiles and it appears to be a genuine smile, which completely confuses him. He is not known for making people smile. Least of all his former enemies.
"Indeed. I may have to resort to magic next time."
Loghain thinks of the pompous ceremony last night and can't help but sneer. He had never known the Grey Warden rituals were as conceited as the Wardens themselves. Even Maric would have found that laughable. Join us in the shadows. Maker have mercy.
"Oh?" he asks. "What was all that nonsense with darkspawn blood and mages, then? A puppet show?"
"Yes, we thought you needed a light-hearted distraction after having lost the Landsmeet," she retorts, boldly. She has crossed her arms over her chest and eyes him, still with that inexplicable expression in her face. It seems to be equal parts amusement and disgust.
Loghain doesn't know how to react to this. He hasn't spoken like this with anyone for many years, and finds himself longing for clear orders and brief responses.
"Well, what shall we do to settle things between us then?" he asks, to steer away from matters he does not master. "What concession do you want from me?"
"I don't know," she confesses.
"You don't know?"
"No."
"But what shall it be?" he presses on, because certain matters must be taken care of if they are to travel as companions. "What is it that you want from me?"
With that, her face shifts. Whatever mask she has been wearing – one of forced strength and momentum, he assumes – it dissolves as he looks at her now. And what he sees is an echo of someone else, someone he has assumed dead a long time ago, along with countless of rebels and his own childish ideas of heroism.
"There is one thing I need to know," she gives in. "If you are going to fight by my side..."
She falls silent, but Loghain hardly needs her to spell it out for him.
"I did not learn about your family until you arrived in Ostagar," he answers her never spoken question. "I used the knowledge of what had happened in Highever to gain a hold of Howe. Which, as it turned out, was not my best tactical choice this year considering he spent the better part of it discrediting my name all across Ferelden."
"Well, that couldn't have been very difficult." She is composed again, her eyes neutral and calm.
He grunts, but lets the statement hang in the air, entirely too tired for berating her.
"Why did you spare my life?" he asks instead. He hadn't meant to bring it up but figures that if they are going to be honest with each other he can grasp at the opportunity to find out. It has been vexing him, after all.
"Why would I have killed you?" Elissa looks down at her hands, folded and then quickly unfolded in her lap.
"I can think of several reasons."
"Yes, but I am not you," she says, shrugging.
"No," he agrees. "You are not."
"That disappointed you a little, didn't it?" She doesn't wait for an answer. He couldn't have given one. In a graceful movement that reminds him of how young she is, the Warden has left the bench and is standing several metres away, already on her way. "Drink that potion before you go to sleep. It's an order."
And with those words she is gone. Without answering his question, no less.
Loghain picks up the vial, looks at the yellow liquid inside, weighing the bottle in his hand.
Very well, he thinks. He will drink it.
Perhaps there is poison in it after all.
Perhaps she does know the meaning of mercy.