9:33 (Eight years ago)


It still felt wrong to report to the Commander's study and see Caron behind the desk instead of Elissa, Nathaniel thought. More so than Elissa usurping his father's place ever had, which truthfully had bothered him a great deal at first.

After dinner earlier that evening, Caron had taken him aside to ask that he stop by her office later. Although he attempted to put it off for a while, he could only put up with loud conversations and inane questions from guard recruits for so long. Velanna had disappeared as soon as the meal had ended and he envied her for it.

His new position as Warden-Constable made him considerably more conspicuous when he tried to sneak off, these days. People noticed him.

He knocked on the door and waited for the faint call to enter before opening it. Lamps spread warm light through a room as spotless as it had been since Caron first took command. The Warden-Commander herself sat behind the neatly ordered desk, still wearing her uniform despite the late hour. Nathaniel spotted the seal on the report next to her arm and recalled suddenly the messenger who had arrived at the Keep that afternoon.

"You wished to see me, Commander?" he asked, closing the door behind him and arranging his expression into something suitably polite.

Caron looked up at him and nodded. "Yes, thank you. Have a seat, if you would. I am not sure how long this will take."

"Is there a problem?" Nathaniel frowned as he settled in the chair across from her, searching her face for some indication of what was wrong. Amarathine had been quiet lately, and the rest of the Order rarely bothered them.

She didn't appear to be concerned about anything, but she rarely did. Then she smiled before she continued, which made him concerned. "Not at all. I've received a request from the First Warden," she said. "He wishes to investigate a dwarven expedition in the Deep Roads that took place two years ago. They managed to delve further than we had previously believed was ever possible, and he has reason to believe it may be of relevance to our Order."

Nathaniel furrowed his brow, nodding slowly. "Have our…allies had anything to say about it?"

"The First Warden wishes to contain knowledge of the discovery until we know more of what we are dealing with. Even the surviving members of original expedition have spoken little of what they encountered."

"Understandable…but what has this to do with me?"

Caron picked up the report marked with the First Warden's seal and held it out for him to take. "The Warden-Commanders have been asked to make recommendations of those we would send on such an investigation."

Nathaniel scanned the page briefly. Then he stared at her, brow raised. "You think I should volunteer?"

"You and perhaps Sigrun, given her extensive knowledge of the Deep Roads from the Legion of the Dead. You know already that I trust your judgment and your skills. I expect that your experience in the Free Marches may also prove to be of use, given the expedition's origin." She shrugged. "It is, of course, entirely up to you."

"I doubt I would find myself much more welcome in the Free Marches now than I am in Ferelden," Nathaniel murmured with a mind to several bridges long since burned, but he considered again the offer. Personal concerns aside, the ramifications of the found thaig were no small matter. If he could lend them his aid, could he rightly turn the offer down?

He returned the report to Caron, looking at the gryphon seal as he pushed it across the desk. "Do you need an answer right away?"

She shook her head. "The investigation is still months away from being formally put together. You have some time to think it over, if you need."

"Very well," he said. He drummed his fingers along the side of his chair. "Why me, really? You would be losing your second-in-command for however long this takes."

Unless that was intention, he supposed.

"Warden Cousland expressed her confidence in both your abilities and your loyalty when I spoke with her last, and I have seen little to discount either." Caron straightened another pile of other reports on her desk, watching him from the corner of her eye. "I was also impressed with the reports of your actions during the siege here last year. I have every confidence that you would be an asset to an expedition into uncharted territory, as I am confident Vigil Keep will find a way to hold while you are away."

She paused and then added, "You have also shown yourself to be highly capable of diplomacy when you have cause to use it, which I suspect will become necessary before the investigation ends. Simply put, the benefits outweigh the potential loss to us here."

He snorted quietly. What she called diplomacy, he might rather call it self-control. Yet he could not deny her logic, and that, perhaps, was what worried him the most.

"You disagree?" Caron asked.

"I…see truth in your reasoning," he said after a moment, meeting her gaze carefully. "But I would still like to think it over. I would not make so important a commitment lightly."

"But of course." The Warden-Commander inclined her head and motioned at the door. "Come speak to me again when you have made a decision, if you would."

"Of course."

He excused himself and slipped back out into the hallway, waiting for the door to close completely before he leaned back against the wall and shut his eyes. Diplomacy, as Caron named it, was exhausting.

He had long since resolved to serve the Grey Wardens to the best of his ability. Theirs was a noble cause, and he was still desperate to redeem his family's honor.

But it had been far easier when serving the Grey Wardens aligned directly with protecting the people of Ferelden and his highest point of authority was Elisa Cousland. Now Elisa was gone without more than a letter in the past year and he found the Wardens' duties extended further beyond Ferelden's borders the more time passed.

Nathaniel rubbed his forehead and forced his feet into motion, navigating the dark halls more by instinct than conscious action. Could he leave Vigil Keep in the hands of an Orlesian, even if she was a Grey Warden, and one he knew? For all that he professed to acknowledge that the Keep no longer belonged to his family, it had been easier to pretend nothing had truly changed with someone he trusted in charge and himself on hand to protect it.

A year gone already and still he held out hope that Caron's assignment in Amaranthine was merely temporary.

It felt too much like abandonment to leave it now, but he knew such thoughts were selfishness he could not allow himself. Sooner or later he would have to leave Vigil Keep, whether temporarily or when the Calling finally came for him. Perhaps it would be better to ease the break now when he had only been back a few years.

Eventually, he would have to accept that the Howes had fallen far enough that his family, what remained of it, would never recover in his lifetime. Vigil Keep was no longer theirs to protect.

He passed walls where portraits had once hung, Howe heraldry now years gone. The corridors of his childhood remained only in bones and memory, and even those now changed as the Keep saw further renovation and repair.

He swallowed a surge of uncomfortable emotion and stepped into his room, locking the door behind him. It was not the room he had grown up in, but he knew every inch of it the same. The east-facing window where sun shone through on mornings when he forgot to close the curtains; the knot in the ceiling that looked a bit like a nug if he turned his head to the left and squinted; the bed where he had spent weeks recovering after the siege; where he had first awoken terrified after his Joining.

Strange how quickly it had become home again after eight years in the Marches.

Caron had said it was his choice. He believed her, at least in that. He could say no and she would likely just recommend Sigrun alone. But the case for his participation in the investigation made too much sense for him to ignore.

Perhaps it was time for him to leave Amaranthine again, even if only briefly. For all that he had bled in its defense, Vigil Keep would continue to stand long after he was gone and the Howe name lost to infamy.

Choking as it was to admit, he knew that Leonie Caron would not let Amaranthine fall.

He stripped off his leathers methodically, tossing them over a chair before snuffing the lamp and climbing into bed. Crickets chirruped outside, familiar nighttime sounds drifting through the window. Darkness swallowed the room but sleep did not easily overcome the foreboding roiling in his chest.


The next day found him practicing archery by filling a target with as many arrows as he could without removing any of them, and it was there that Sigrun finally tracked him down. He suspected Velanna had helped, having seen the look the elf gave him when she passed through the training yard earlier. Usually they respected each other's solitude enough not to intervene unless asked, but he supposed this particular act of revenge had been coming for a while now.

Sigrun took a seat on a bench and watched him for several minutes in silence, so he continued as he had before she arrived. He managed to get four more arrows off, lined up one after the next down the side of the target, before she finally spoke.

"So Leonie talked to you, too, right?" the dwarf asked, kicking her heels idly. "About the expedition?"

Nathaniel lowered his bow and eased his stance, looking over at her. "She did. Do you intend to volunteer?"

She shrugged. "Probably. There's not much going on in Amaranthine these days. And, I mean, a thaig that old has to have something fun waiting around inside for us to find."

"Not to mention a new source of darkspawn for you to throw yourself at?"

Sigrun grinned. "Death isn't going to find itself, you know. We're running out of darkspawn in the Deep Roads around here. The Commander's too efficient. May as well start looking somewhere else, right?"

He shook his head and crossed over to begin pulling his arrows out of the target, grunting as a few refused to budge. "You're not going to wait for Elissa to return, then?"

Silence answered him as Sigrun leaned forward, frowning at him. He glanced at her a moment, then turned back to the target rather than meet her too-perceptive eyes.

"What about you?" she asked. "Think you'll go or stick around here more? I thought you said once that you never wanted actually wanted to stay in Amaranthine."

He braced a hand flat against the target for leverage in removing another arrow, aware of how his shoulders tensed. "I said that I didn't want to follow my father as Arl. But things changed."

"Right," Sigrun drawled. She watched him quietly for a while longer before hopping down and walking around to drape an arm over the target to block his progress.

His eyes narrowed in annoyance. "Do you mind?"

"Not a bit." She smiled wide and he stepped back without realizing it, taking the arrow with him. The smile dropped. "But you do, don't you? We all wanted her to come back, but you're taking it especially hard. You thought she'd be back by now."

He didn't need to ask who she was talking about, Elissa's face flashing in his mind. His jaw tightened. "She said before that she didn't know when she would return. I know that."

Her brow furrowed in concern. "Sure, but you still hoped. And now hope is letting you down. You can't keep holding on like that, Nathaniel. It's…not healthy. Maybe she'll come back eventually, but you can't just keep waiting on the chance it might be tomorrow."

"I'm the Warden-Constable of Ferelden," he said with too much effort. "My duties lie here, at Vigil Keep. I can't just run off somewhere."

"Convenient, that." She arched an eyebrow. "Except now the Commander's handing you an opportunity to go somewhere else for a while and I'd bet a barrel Oghren's ale that you're thinking about turning her down."

Nathaniel turned and paced away to where he had been shooting from, though several of his arrows still remained in the target. "It's not about Elissa," he insisted. Silence echoed and he grimaced. "Alright, not entirely. I'm just not…ready. To leave Vigil Keep. It's complicated."

"Well, we've got time." Sigrun stayed where she was, working on retrieving the arrows he had left behind. "The guards aren't due to practice here for another hour. And I'm not going anywhere just yet. So: complicated. How?"

He sighed, emptying his handful of arrows into his quiver and pinching the bridge of his nose. "It just is. I can't just abandon this place. It was my home."

"Separation anxiety? Used to get that in the Legion sometimes, with the new guys. Letting go of everything is harder than they make it sound." Thunk. Clatter. The last few arrows dropped to the ground next to her. "It goes away after a while, though."

"I'm not sure I could forgive myself if the Keep fell while I was away."

"Oh, come on. You know the Wardens won't let that happen. The Commander definitely won't. Not that there's much to threaten it anymore, really. Maybe if your nobles decide to try something again, but it seems like even they've settled down. Oghren and Velanna will be here, even if you still don't trust Leonie."

"Perhaps that is what worries me," Nathaniel muttered.

"The investigation probably won't even take very long, you know?" Sigrun pointed out as she gathered the arrows at her feet. She took them over to Nathaniel and held them out. "We were trekking all over the Deep Roads after the Architect and the Mother, and that only took us a few months. You'll be back to lurk the halls here in no time."

"I don't…lurk…" He frowned, but took the arrows back anyway. He breathed in slowly and let it out, looking over at her. "You truly think I should go?"

"I think you could use a change of scenery. Darkspawn and old thaigs is as good an excuse as any, right?" She grinned.

Nathaniel snorted quietly and tilted his head, taking in the Keep walls rising around them. Guards walked the outer walls, but the day was calm and the surrounding countryside quiet.

He wondered how it was that peace came to suit him so ill that he sought out problems that might not even exist.

"I…" he started, closing his eyes briefly. "I'll speak to the Commander about it later."

"Great! Can't wait. I'll see you around, alright?" Sigrun clapped him on the arm and made her way back inside, whistling off-key.


Some time later, he found Caron in her office. The only change in the room was the reduced pile of reports at her elbow. She looked up as he walked in and raised a brow expectantly.

"Ah, Nathaniel," she said. "You have made a decision, then? Or is there something else?"

He hesitated, then shook his head before he could change his mind. "No, I've…decided. I'd like to volunteer for the investigation after all. Thank you for your recommendation."

She smiled and inclined her head. "Very well. I'll send the First Warden my response in the morning."


Cross-posted from AO3.