Disclaimer: "Dragon Age: Origins" and all its expansions and additional content is the property of Bioware and EA Games. Large portions of written content within the game, as well as Dragon's Age: The Stolen Throne, and Dragon's Age: Calling, are the creative genius of one David Gaider. Original scenarios and characters are used under the creative license of the writer, ItalianEmpress1985. No profit is being made and the following story is for entertainment purposes only

Words From The Author: So I guess 'officially' that the events within the game are suppose to take place over the course of a year. I don't know about you, but that feels too long a time to me, so I've gone with a timeframe that my mind feels more comfortable with. So while the events between The Joining and the defeat of the Archdemon didn't take place over a few weeks, it wasn't a YEAR either. More the case of half that, so five - six months. So you'll see the companions refer to those events as 'those months in passing' and such.

'Stone Prisoner' was never anything I got around to playing, so I didn't include Shale in the companions for this story.

I haven't seen much of what the language of Ferelden is called other than 'Ferelden' but that seems strange to me. If you lived in England you wouldn't say you spoke 'England' so for the purposes of this story, it is has become Fereldish. :p

Thank you for stopping in. Watch out for low flying dragons!


Chapter Three:

Meant To Say Goodbye


Even with our fists held high,

It never would've worked out right.

We were always meant to say goodbye.

- Kelly Clarkson


Sunlight filtered into the room, harsh against Gwyneth's slowly opening eyes. As she regained her consciousness, she almost wished she hadn't; every bruise and overworked muscle was brought into awareness. At least she could be glad that her cuts seemed to have healed.

A sharp twinge in her skull had the young woman seething through her teeth, head pressed back into the small army of pillows behind her.

"Don't you dare try to get out of that bed yet." Wynne's voice came, full of warning, but a comforting regard as well. One that reminded Gwyneth, more than faintly, of her old governess, Nan Melda.

Noble gave an excited bark and was up from where he'd been napping in an instant. The mage tried to keep the mabari hound back, but there was nothing for it, as the chestnut colored dog bounded up onto the coverlet with Gwyneth.

"Oh get down, Noble!" She scolded him, but only half meant it.

He whined once, licked her face and settled onto the floor next to the bed, panting happily.

Wynne rolled her eyes at the canine, though at least he wasn't filthy anymore, 'and hadn't he fought that bath but good!' "He's just happy to see you up, as am I." She smiled kindly, the light etching of lines on her aged face doing nothing to erase the beauty that still remained there. Blue eyes twinkled with a life undimmed as she stepped closer, clean mage robes swishing around her legs.

Gwyneth turned to reach out her hand, Noble quick to nudge it with his nose, eliciting a pleased grin from his mistress. She remembered Alistair first asking about how he'd come to have that name. "I named him Noble, for he is noble indeed."

With a sigh, she faced Wynne again. "He's a good boy." A light palm pressed against her forehead and she eyed the older woman. "I'm amazed to be intact, your work I take it?" At a modest nod from Wynne, the future queen smiled. "I've always been in awe of your healing talents. Some within the Chantry would say your kind are capable only of destructive magic, but I've seen proof to the contrary."

"Some in the Chantry would say Thedas is a flat cube and if you sail out onto the ocean far enough, that you'll fall off the end of it, but I hardly think that's true either." Wynne's face maintained a playful smirk, and in that one could see the beautiful woman and wizened mage both. "Now then, let me see to you. Any bruises still incredibly tender?"

"Does my brain count? I feel like it's just sloshing about in there, banging against my skull." This came complete with a groan.

"You knocked yourself silly up on that roof, and here you are, three days abed and finally rousing. The worst part is over. We were all more than a bit worried for a time, but it seems you are fine now." Wynne leaned forward to a press a cool, dry hand against the woman's head. "No fever, that's good. It's probably just a headache, a bad one mind you, but nothing to be concerned about. I've got some chamomile and teberen root I can give you in a mug of tea if you like."

Gwyneth nodded, but reached out to clamp a hand around Wynne's forearm as the other woman made to leave. "Three days?"

A light chuckle from the mage. "More than a beauty rest, hmm?" A smile, and a proud one. "Alistair, he did very well addressing the nobles at the conference he held. Congratulated all of us, but thanked you up, down and sideways. He has developed a knack for speeches. You were introduced as his queen officially, so don't be surprised if you start hearing some 'Highness' around here."

Gwyneth groaned. "Where is 'here' exactly?"

"The royal palace."

"This . . . ah, this wasn't Anora's room, was it?" A note of cautious curiosity entered Gwyneth's voice, eyes searching out the contours and furnishings of her current quarters. The idea of laying abed in the same place that Anora once had, left Gwyneth with an uncomfortable pit in the middle of her gut.

"I don't think so, but it isn't as if I'm privy to every little detail about this place." Blue eyes winked with the light, the upper lip of that wizened mouth curling to let free a wisp of humor. "Surely you didn't ask for me only to have me recite the 'where to's and 'how for's of your new residence?"

"No, no of course not." Gwyneth's smiles were always simple, or very nearly so. They never quite reached her eyes the same way that her laughter might have. There was a lingering darkness behind those silver irises, and Howe's death had done little to erase it. One corner of her mouth went up as her thoughts shifted. "I . . . misjudged Alistair. I thought he hadn't possession of the skills necessary for The Crown. . . but, he does, doesn't he?"

"Yes, it would seem so, but he'll still need you. I'm under no illusions to the contrary."

Gwyneth only nodded, careful enough not to jar her skull. "And the others?"

"Morrigan left before any of us had a chance to speak with her. I don't even know where she went." A knowing glance was sent Gwyneth's way, as Wynne noticed the deep set to her mouth at that news. It wasn't unexpected, it seemed. "You wouldn't happen to know why she left so abruptly, would you?"

"No." Short and terse. "What about the rest of them?"

Wynne sighed, thinking back to what she'd been told. "They're all still here, for the time being. Sten is anxious to leave, I can tell. The Blight is over and he has to get back and report what he has seen to his . . . what was that word again?"

"Arishok . . . I think."

"Yes, that was it. So he will not be here long, I don't imagine. Oghren is soon headed off with some foul mouthed dwarven woman he picked up, he says at an inn near Lake Calenhad, but who knows really. It could've just been down at a local tavern." Wynne scoffed, thinking back at the foul, rude dwarf. He had some charms though, like his home-brew ale. 'Marvelous!' "Zevran said something about traveling, still worried his former assassins guild will be after him. Though he won't say as much."

"And Leliana?" Gwyneth braced herself, ready to hear some saddening news.

"She's still here." Alistair's voice came from the doorway, and both women looked over in surprise.

The man himself stood rigid in posture, not even leaning against the door jamb. Someone had helped him dress, if the style of his attire was any indication. Everything was impeccable, and for a moment Gwyneth didn't even recognize him. The golden armor she imagined he'd worn to impress those at the conference was absent, replaced with a fine embroidered tunic of rich blue, the breeches of just as nice a quality, boots polished as if they'd never seen even a hint of dirt.

"We didn't hear you come in." Gwyn, always one to state the obvious.

Wynne straightened her back, moving away from the wide bed. "Well then, I'll go have that tea made, and leave you two to talk."

As soon as she'd arrived she was gone, Alistair watching the door for a time even after Wynne had left. "Subtle, isn't she?" He smirked in humor.

The room was all but bathed in the sunlight of late morning, and from Gwyneth's grimace she wasn't so pleased with it. In but a few strides, Alistair was across the room, and drawing the curtains so that only slivers of light escaped inside, to caress the smooth wood of the floor in long lines.

"Better?" He asked.

"Very much so, thank you." She nodded, that small smile telling him she was well, more than the fact that she looked fairly hale.

Propped up with pillows and wearing a ridiculously frilly and overly conservative nightgown, she should've looked like a little pampered girl, but she didn't.

Alistair recalled meeting her for the first time, and his complaints to Duncan.

"Really? You think she has 'potential'? Because she seems like a spoiled little brat to me. Only just twenty, turned last month, she told me. She's a child."

"She's your companion now. You'd best get used to it." Duncan's kind but stern face, had held a grin of amusement. "Besides, you've only been twenty for four months yourself."

The would-be Templar had never thought he would come to call that 'spoiled brat' a friend, and later, a sister in arms. Now he was soon to call her his queen, his wife. Life had a funny way of pulling terrible pranks on people. For all that, he looked at her then, really looked and saw not a young girl, but a woman with more poise in her little finger than most had in their whole body. She could've been queen already, crown or no, sat there like the watcher of all Ferelden, one brow raised.

"So . . . Leliana . . ." It was as delicate as Gwyneth could possibly be on the subject.

Noble, all but forgotten, raised his head up, ears twitching as he looked between the two humans. Perhaps wondering about their silly ways and guarded words.

"She's leaving soon, I think. I haven't spoken to her much, since . . . well, for awhile, but I can just tell. She has this look on her face, like she's already far away." He dropped his head, dark blonde hair looking to have a hint of red from the way the sunlight hit it.

"Alistair, why do you two not come to an arrangement? I would have no objections to her staying here, perhaps as a court advisor." Gwyneth spread her hands across her lap, moving to clasp them together as she looked up at the scowling man

"And what? Have her as my mistress, so the people at court can gossip about her? Maybe even have children with her, more bastards I sired?" His voice was raising and he had to clamp down on it, face visibly taxed with the effort.

'He's going to go there, really? After we agreed never to discuss it again?' Gwyneth's cheeks grew warm and reddened with heated anger, but at the dejected look on Alistair's face, her own fell. This wasn't about her wayward feelings for another woman, who could never return them, and of whom she would never see again. This wasn't about that same woman, swollen with Alistair's ill begotten seed. It wasn't about Gwyneth at all, but selfishness was a hard thing to let go of.

It occurred to her then, how changed they both were. Just past the cusp of adolescence when they had begun, and all those months had seen them grow into adults, the price paid for that transition, a high one. Fighting darkspawn, the weight of a Grey Warden's duties, time on the road, where fine things were faded memories, or rare treasured keepsakes hidden safely in her pack.

All of it was now as much the past as she had begun to think her nobility had become. Ser Gilmore had once told her that he heard becoming a Grey Warden was the end of your old life, that you could never go back. He was wrong.

Now she was to embrace that noble mantle again, and she wondered if duty would bade her to set those months on the road behind her, like so much unwanted baggage. Gwyneth couldn't deny some pleasure in that, in forgetting, but she doubted it would be that simple. In the end, neither she nor Alistair could run from who they were, Grey Wardens and nobility both. Despite his claim that there was little 'noble' about him, his father possessed the same long line of blue blood as her own. A person carried the legacy of their father, and both of theirs had been the pinnacle of nobility.

So here they were.

Gwyneth could say a lot of things to him. Things like asking him why he cared what anyone thought, but of course he cared, or at least he knew he should. It wasn't as if kings hadn't had mistresses before, but maybe Alistair wanted to be a better man than that, a better king. Even if it hurt him, even if it hurt Leliana.

Remembered words from Wynne came to the forefront of the young woman's mind. 'There is joy, even in self sacrifice. If you put others before yourself, then their well-being is yours and their happiness is your happiness.' The mage had been talking about duty, and perhaps that was exactly what Alistair was doing. Putting the people before himself, before his love for Leliana.

"I . . . I understand." Her smile was light and cautious, and his distance was near enough that she could reach out and touch him easily, fingers resting on his wrist. "But you should go speak with her. Do not let your last words be full of bile and anger." 'Such as mine were filled with deep regret, and the onus of doing something you know is wrong,' that silent voice added.

'Last words. That's what they would be wouldn't they?' Alistair sighed, heavy and weighted as all his decisions seemed to be anymore. For a moment he entertained what Gwyneth was suggesting, keeping Leliana with him, but even if the bard agreed, he knew he couldn't.

Leliana's life had not been an easy one, she'd been molded to be both a spy and an assassin. Those months in her company he had come to see that it wasn't who she really was. She was sweet, girlish, easily pleased, frequently excited, and so very warm of heart.

Her old mentor had really run the girl through a rack, both under the physical abuse she'd suffered while imprisoned in Orlais, and later the torture of an emotional sort. Bereft of an affection Leliana had assumed was real, and was little more than a ruse while the woman used her. Alistair might have known a thing or two about feeling used. Leliana deserved more than to be a king's mistress, so much more, and he wouldn't selfishly keep her for his own.

"I . . . I don't know what to say." They had him dressed as a king, but he didn't feel like one. He was back in front of that tower, unsure of the steps he should take, frightened of where they would lead. He needed Gwyneth's hand at his back, and there she was.

"Alistair, you say goodbye."


The windows were set high on the wall in the library, tall lined shelves of books catching the dancing light from the painted glass. The colors played over the tomes, both new and old, and finally found their way to the bard nearly hiding amongst them, running long fingers over their bindings.

Books had a smell, sometimes musty, sometimes like fresh papyrus, but it was always a comfort to Leliana, something that was hers alone, a facet of her personality that no one really knew. Not Marjolaine, and not even Alistair.

There were so many in the library, so many that the former spy would never read, never even look at. Light blue eyes were nearly shuttered closed, the mind lain behind them buzzing with thoughts enough to keep her well occupied.

She'd heard that Gwyneth was awake, a small sigh of relief escaping her at the news, but it was just that. Leliana couldn't bring herself to go see the noblewoman, couldn't look at the face that would be there before Alistair's as they exchanged vows of matrimony. She could not claim any real closeness to Gwyneth, the other woman's demeanor rarely allowed that, but Leliana did care. Yet not enough to be able to stomach seeing her then, it would've been too much for her heart to bear.

Leliana wasn't sure why she remained. They'd defeated the Blight, the vision that had set her on that path had reached its promised conclusion. She'd helped to save the world from the darkness the Maker had bade her to dispel, and there was nothing for her in Ferelden anymore.

"Someone told me you were here." That voice, so achingly familiar, came from her back and she whirled around.

"What do you want?" Leliana hoped the words were as cold as she wanted them to be, so he might hurt as she hurt, even if there was a time, not too long ago that she would have never wanted to hurt him.

There was something inevitable about all of it, a feeling of falling down into a canyon with naught but air beneath her, but it could not ease her heart break and her anger at how unfair all of it was. That the Maker would bless her with love, only to take it away, and that Alistair would be able to look her in the face and say such words of parting as he'd done. Yet, for all her grieved vengeance, there was a hitch in her voice, and she suspected Alistair noticed it as much as she did.

He peered around at those tall shelves, but the room was laid out so that there were no hidden nooks. An open library, to be sure.

"If you think someone will overhear us, I doubt it. Everyone has gone for the celebration out in the courtyard. Just a few servants now." Leliana's voice dipped low. "And who should care for those that are common?"

"Leliana, I don't . . . you know that I would never think of you as common! For Maker's sake!" Exasperated, mostly with himself, Alistair's broad shoulders slumped.

"No, don't do that! The Maker's name should never be used like that!" The tone went up, her eyes fierce. A sad cast replaced the anger and she bit on the corner of her full lower lip. "Besides, it is true, no? I am common and you are not." The richness of her Orlesian accent was heavier when she was upset, her Fereldish harder to form, both in her mind and on her tongue.

"I . . . I wish things had turned out differently." He ran a hand through his hair, the shortened strands looking nearly as red as Leliana's in that strange colored light. Dust motes caught in the beams of sun, as if painting a haze to the scene taking place in the library.

"So do I, but they didn't." The Orlais-born-Ferelden reached out for him then, her palm against his cheek and he leaned into it with a sigh. "I cannot stay here. To watch you marry her. I just can't."

"She thought you might want to stay on as a court advisor, so we could . . . well . . ." Alistair let the words trail off. He hadn't meant to mention it at all, his decision had been made, but there it was. His mouth five steps ahead of his mind, like always.

Leliana watched him, the silent question hung in the dusty air between them. Her hand fell back down to her side, as his voice thickened around his next words.

"I wouldn't ask for that, I can't. You as a mistress, our love reduced to sneaking around, pretending there is nothing going on and learning to live with unkind whispers. You deserve better than that." He finally was able to meet her gaze again, his own dark with his emotions.

The bard sighed, and sent him a melancholic smile. "And what do you deserve?"

"I never deserved you, I don't think." His smile matched hers, unhappy and resigned. "As for what I want, I want to be a good king. I . . . I don't know that I can, but I want to."

"You will. It is as I told you before, complete fools are made kings all the time, and you are no fool. Besides, now you'll have Gwyneth to help you." The bitterness of the other woman's name could not be contained, and Leliana bit down on it, clenching her eyelids together, hot moisture sneaking out anyway.

Silence again, heavy and cloying, and she spoke first.

"I will go back to Orlais, yes, I think this is best." A chocking sob nearly stole away her words, but she took a deep breath, not able to glance up at Alistair's face. She felt his eyes on her, but her own went to the floor as she tried to compose herself, trying to find some inner strength. "I will look for Marjolaine. She is my unresolved problem, and I can't leave it that way." Though that seemed like a lifetime ago, before she ever knew that someone named Alistair existed.

Leliana couldn't have crossed the chasm that separated them, even if physically they were near enough to touch, to embrace. She could feel all her love for him bubbling up inside, threatening to take over her mind. If she remained there, she knew what might happen. She shook her head, brushing a stray wisp of copper hair from her forehead. "I must leave . . . I . . . tell Gwyneth that . . . tell her that . . . I'm glad she is better."

"Will I ever see you again?" The words were choked out over the thickness of Alistair's tongue, the shadow in his gaze so deep then, that no light could reach it.

Leliana shook her head, moisture falling at the corners of those crystal blue eyes. "No, I think maybe that wouldn't be a good idea." She turned away, looking past that library, past that moment and out to where her new life was waiting. Tears spilled out, despite her attempts to hold them back.

Before anymore words were said, Alistair had taken her face in his hands and his lips were on hers, tasting of the salty wetness spilling from her eyes.

"I love you, I love you so much. I never wanted this, I never did. Maker, I love you!" Everything he had wanted and wished for was in that kiss, heart wrenching in the face of unfulfilled dreams, promises left empty as he took a throne he never wanted. He said her name over and over, desperate to make the moment last an eternity . . . but then it was done and he felt as if his body was encased in ice, so cold and empty did he feel inside.

Leliana looked up at him, soaking in every feature, committing it to memory as much as she could with her vision blurred, "And I love you, until the last day I draw breath. " She kissed him just once more and left before her grief made it impossible.

"Goodbye." Alistair said to the empty library, the scent of Andraste's Grace lingering, the only proof that Leliana had ever been there. He leaned against a set of shelves and wept into his hands.


Gwyneth shielded her eyes with a flat palm, her forefinger pressed just above her brow, as she watched the courtyard. The edge of the thick curtains brushed her cheek, as she peered through the tiny opening she had made. Their faint velvet touch was like the caress of a mother long dead and the teyrna pressed her teeth to her lip.

"Oh, Mama, would that you could see me through this. I know that I shall make you proud as I take my place beside our new king, but there is such pain in that, such that I fear it will never pass. Worse, I am not alone in my melancholy. This betrothal is the bell toll of new life for Ferelden, but the death knell for the heart of its sovereign."

A whisper fell from her tongue. "The destination was not reached by the road I had imagined. How did it come to this?"

Leliana's copper head caught her gaze, though in all honesty the noblewoman had been looking for it. She stiffened as the bard turned, maybe feeling watched, and looked up, but she didn't seem to spot Gwyneth.

A breath she hadn't realized she was holding escaped and Gwyneth felt relieved and guilty all at once. The bard hadn't come to see her, and there was much to be said in that, but much that the young woman had expected. Had the situations been reversed, she wasn't at all certain that she would've handled it much differently.

As she watched the Orlesian move away from the courtyard, she spoke out loud in her room as if the bard could've heard her, even though there was no way she would.

"I wish I could say that I will love Alistair, give you some comfort in that, but I won't, Leliana. I cannot love him as you did, I never will, but maybe in that is your comfort, because just as I cannot love him, neither can he love me. Duty will be our only love."