Author's Note: Once again, major props to Phaonica, my beta reader. And lovely thanks to all of my reviewers: Shakespira, Eva Galana, jackkel dragon, lilachsh, Gene Dark, Forestnymphe, Arsinoe de Blassenville, icey cold, and Persephone
"We all make mistakes, Duncan. Some of them are going to cost others dearly. What's important is that your intentions were good, and that you learn from what you've done." - King Maric Theirin, page 233 of "The Calling"
Loghain slowly opened his eyes, then narrowed them as the dull, bothersome ache in his head returned. However, as he took a sweeping glance at his surroundings, the headache quickly became the least of his concerns. Collapsing, ruined buildings stood clustered here and there, the crumbling remains of what had once been a city. Taint-covered walls rose up from all around, stretching to a black ceiling that was not quite visible. Years of decay and blackened soot covered the ground and crumbling edifices with a fine layer of dust. This was the Deep Roads. This was Ortan Thaig.
This makes absolutely no sense at all, he thought. Surely this was just a dream or a memory. But it looked so real. There was no fuzzy, out-of-focus quality like most dreams. The air felt just as thick and oppressive as it had the last time he'd tread those endless paths. If he sniffed hard enough, Loghain could almost smell the lingering smoke from the spiderwebs they'd burned down. And when he looked down at himself, his heart nearly stopped. Fully expecting to see himself in the clothes he'd worn to bed or - in typical, dream-cliche fashion - wearing nothing but his smallclothes, he was instead greeted by the sight of his old, black leather armor. Heart now racing, he reached back over his right shoulder and, sure enough, felt his old longbow and quiver strapped across his back.
Was this a dream? A flashback of some kind? If so, it was surely the most intense dream he'd ever had. But how could all his senses be lying to him so perfectly? Unless... was it possible that almost everything he'd experienced after entering the Deep Roads with Maric, Rowan, and Katriel had actually been a dream? Some perverse, long-winded vision into the potential future? He dare not think it. The implications of such a thing were too vast and, honestly, frightening to dwell on.
So Loghain did the only sensible thing he could - he started exploring his surroundings in the hopes of escaping, either by finding a way out or, hopefully, by waking up to see the interior of the tent staring back at him in welcome. One particularly familiar building caught his attention. He made his way towards it. Taking a deep breath, he peeked his head carefully inside and almost choked at the sight.
"Loghain!" called Maric happily, looking just as young as he had during the rebellion. "About time you got back here. We need to talk."
"Maric?" Loghain rasped in disbelief. "How can this be? It... it wasn't all just a dream, surely?"
The prince merely smiled back, offering no answer.
Loghain felt his heart starting to race even faster. If they truly were still in the Deep Roads and everything else had not been real, then that meant... "Where's Rowan?" he asked suddenly.
Maric frowned. "She's dead, Loghain. You know this."
"But..." he faltered, then scowled. So, this was just another dream sent to torment him.
"She was right, you know," Maric remarked, shaking his head and looking suddenly anguished. The sudden shift in mood and tone made Loghain uneasy. "That witch back in the wilds. Everything she said was true, but I didn't want to believe it. I heeded her warning about the Blight, but nothing I did helped prevent it in the end." He sighed deeply, then shot Loghain a wounded look. "And I kept you close despite it all, but even now in death you still betray me!"
"How, Maric?" Loghain shouted, instantly furious. "How, exactly, have I ever betrayed you? I kept you safe, I led your armies, I rescued you when I shouldn't have more times than I can remember!" I gave you back the first woman I ever truly loved, he cried silently, the one you had foolishly thrown away. Gave her back when you needed her the most. His gloved fists shook at his sides with barely-contained rage. "Then I stayed by your side after... after the Queen's passing... left my wife and daughter behind to help you! So, yes, do tell me just how I betrayed you?"
Maric crossed his arms defiantly across his chest and set his jaw. "Shall I count the ways, then? Fine." He uncrossed his arms and held a finger up. "Katriel was one."
"She was an Orlesian spy!" seethed Loghain.
"She loved me!" Maric shouted back. "And she had turned her back on the Orlesians the night you led me into killing her! I know this now, though apparently you didn't find it to be important enough information to relay to me at the time."
"Justice needed to be done," Loghain answered through gritted teeth. "She was responsible for us losing nearly the entire rebel army at West Hill! Rowan's father among them!"
"Gee," Maric quipped sarcastically, "that's almost nothing at all like what happened at Ostagar, is it?"
As illogical as it was to do in a dream, where nothing was truly real, Loghain punched Maric in the face. To his surprise, dream-Maric stumbled backwards a few steps and reached up to touch his bleeding lip. He glared at Loghain, who was quickly becoming increasingly unsettled by the whole situation. Maric held up a second finger. "Two," he said, "was my son."
Loghain scoffed, "Cailan was an idiot. Perhaps you should have raised him better, spent more time with him rather than off running around with Grey Wardens." Without warning, Maric punched Loghain in return. He closed his eyes and shook his head, fully expecting the sudden pain to cause him to wake up. Instead, he found himself still looking at an angry Maric. When he tenderly reached up to his nose, Loghain's hand came away bloody. "He got himself killed," he continued, scowling heavily. "He should never have been down there on the front lines, but much like you, he trusted the Grey Wardens too much on top of feeling himself invincible. Didn't you once tell me that Ferelden and its freedom were more important than any one man, including the king?" He narrowed his eyes.
"Don't lie to me," Maric spat. "You can lie to everyone else - including yourself - but don't lie to me. You were moving against Cailan before either of you ever headed to Ostagar."
"Have you forgotten everything we fought for, Maric? Cailan was far too friendly towards Orlais," Loghain growled. "The Orlesian chevaliers were going to be invited right back in for a second chance at occupation unless something was done."
Maric shook his head, frustration clearly on his face. "You were never fond of my attempts to make some kind of peace with them either. Were you planning on taking me out of the picture, too, before my ill-fated voyage took care of that?"
Loghain reeled, staring at his old friend in shock. "Maric, I never..." he sputtered. "No, that wasn't the plan. The plan was to confront Cailan about it, but I never got the chance. It all started spiraling out of control..."
Maric snorted, then held up a third finger. "My other son is now exiled from Ferelden entirely, dooming the Theirin royal line completely."
"Now that," Loghain said, pointing a scolding finger, "cannot be pinned on me! He made his choice and when it backfired on him, the Warden made the final decision."
"Only because your own flesh-and-blood was going to kill him otherwise."
Loghain turned his back on Maric then and closed his eyes. It was utterly cruel, what this apparent Fade demon was obviously trying to do to him. There had to be some way to force himself awake.
"The final betrayal," Maric spoke up, his voice grave, "was delivering our country to the Blight on a silver platter."
Loghain spun back around, fire in his eyes. "What?"
"The Blight I was never intended to see..." he said sadly, recalling the witch's haunting words. "Ferelden's armies are decimated, partly from Ostagar and mostly from your civil war that followed. You split our dwindling forces between guarding against a non-invading Orlais and sent the others to hopelessly fall upon darkspawn blades, with no Grey Wardens to aid them. Half the southern Bannorn has fallen to the darkspawn already. And yet it takes an elf forcing you to become a Grey Warden to get you to take any real action against all this?"
"The nobles had to be brought into line before I could..." Loghain started, then hung his head and remained silent for a long time. When he finally spoke, it was barely above a whisper. "I am truly sorry, Maric. That much... I agree is my fault. I did not... could not... believe this was truly a Blight until it seemed too late. With nearly four legions of chevaliers at our borders, the threat of re-occupation seemed like the clear and present danger at the time." When he looked back up, Maric was looking at him sadly again.
"My poor, old friend," the late king sighed. "It seems no matter what decision you make these days, it's always the wrong one. What happened to the tactical genius I knew? The gut that never lied to you? I thought you were a better man than that?"
"You and Rowan were wrong," Loghain rasped miserably. "I have always been the lesser man. You two were just too stubborn to believe it."
Maric's apparition regarded Loghain for several drawn-out moments, expression battling between resentment, sadness, and the tempting pull of a reluctant smile. "Well," he finally said, eyebrows drawn together in a steadily resolute manner, "then I'm still too stubborn, I guess. Because despite everything, a part of me still believes you're a better man than that." He stepped forward and placed a surprisingly heavy, corporal hand on Loghain's shoulder. "I'm not particularly happy with a lot of your decisions lately... but if there is anyone made for pushing forward with the kind of grit and resolve needed to save Ferelden once again, it's you." Loghain looked up and held Maric's steady gaze, an unspoken pact passing between them. Then, with an errant smirk and a playful wave of the hand, the dead king quipped light-heartedly, "And now, not only do you have the golden opportunity of saving Ferelden one last time... you have a pretty elven girl by your side to help do it!" Maric almost doubled over with laughter. "I'm rather jealous, you know. Oh, the irony..."
Loghain opened his mouth to respond to that remark, but was cut off by a sudden, loud buzzing in the back of his head. Sharp prickles crawled up his spine and his stomach did a few somersaults while he looked around to try and find a source for his unease. Maric did the same, reacting to Loghain's alarm. The ruler looked down at his dragonbone sword and saw the runes glowing brightly blue. Loghain followed his eyes down to the blade and then the world suddenly pulsed out of focus.
Several beats later, Loghain found himself standing in the countryside, now donned in his more familiar River Dane armor. Up ahead of him stood a quaint farming village. It was overrun with darkspawn. Flames licked out of the chantry's broken windows and adorned the canvas blades of the windmill, still rotating in the breeze as if it wasn't at all consumed by fire. The acrid smell of smoke and the rancid scent of burning flesh wafted chokingly thick in the air as ash rained down light as winter's first snowflakes. Entire fields of crops were engulfed in flames, turning the horizon into a hazy sea of fire as far as the eye could see. Black, tainted mucus crawled up the charred, leafless trees and over the chantry's soot-ridden stone steps, already beginning its slow, crawling seige to corrupt the land.
"Ser! Ser! Please help us!"
He turned his head in the direction of the cry in time to see a frantic woman running towards him. Moments later, she suddenly staggered and lurched, her momentum carrying her to a flailing, falling collapse at his feet, her back riddled with black arrows. Like her, villagers scattered in all directions like ants from a destroyed colony, screaming in panic. Many were cut down on jagged, crooked, black blades. One hurlock close by gutted a young boy, then slowly licked the blade before looking up at Loghain with a bloody, horrifying smile. Loghain felt nauseated and, at the same time, completely paralyzed. The end game of this war was obvious. Unlike every other creature in Thedas, sentient or wild, that fought for freedom or family or pride or land or power or any other rational reason, the darkspawn fought for none of those things. They existed and multiplied only to kill, maim, and destroy everything they touched. And I let this happen, he mourned. Maker's mercy, what have I done?
Loghain couldn't stand the sight any longer and tried to turn away, to close his eyes for at least a brief moment. However, it was impossbile to move, as if he were frozen in place. While the village continued to burn and people shrieked in terror and pain, the edges of the vision pulsed brightly again and the scene changed. Now he found himself in the Deep Roads once more, only this time he stood in the middle of a teeming horde of darkspawn filling every crevice and cavity of the dwarves' underground routes. Yet, the creatures seemed oblivious to his presence. Their focus, instead, was on a stone bridge that traversed a river of lava. The heat radiating from it was almost unbearable and Loghain could feel the sweat beginning to coat his body, tickling down his chest and the small of his back, annoyingly running into his eyes.
Then, rising above the horde on powerful wings and alighting on the stone pathway ahead, a twisted, demonic-looking dragon gazed out over its growing army. Sharp talons gripped the rock, causing smaller pebbles to tumble free and fall down into the lake of fire below. Huge wings stretched out impressively at its sides, making the creature look larger than life. Bony spikes ran the length of its spine from neck to tail. Its horned head, corrupted and twisted with taint, held many, many teeth. But most frightening of all were its eyes which, despite looking milky white and completely devoid of pupils, appeared to contain an unnatural, sinister intelligence. The head reared back and roared, spewing a strange, purplish fire into the air. The watching darkspawn reacted with a mixture of fear and worship, some raising their weapons and answering with roars of their own, others falling to their knees as if in prayer. The transformed Old God snarled and growled and the constant humming of the horde in the back of his head threatened to drive Loghain mad. So, this is what awaits us? he wondered. Impossible odds against soulless creatures of hate.
As if sensing his thoughts, the Archdemon turned its gaze down upon the very spot he stood. It locked its hideous eyes with those of Ferelden's newest Grey Warden. And it grinned at him. Shortly after, the surrounding horde fell upon him with wicked blades and gnashing teeth.
Kallian perched on one of the logs by the fire. A large, metal flask sat propped up against the log, just next to her right foot. In her lap lay a bag filled with sugar cookies procured from the bakery in Denerim the day before. Any time she had cookies in her possession, she made sure to bring them out during shared watches with Sten. As a courtesy, of course. Granted, she'd prefer the jerky that she had stashed away in her tent - it would honestly go much better with the whiskey in her flask than cookies - but there was something comforting and bonding about sharing cookies and silence with the qunari.
Sten stood behind the Warden and held his hand down and out expectantly, just at her eye level. She chuckled and dutifully placed a cookie in his palm. Then, a muffled whimper caught their attention and both she and Sten looked over at the new tent in their midst. She figured Loghain would probably be utterly mortified to learn he'd spent a good part of the night whimpering in his sleep and she had mostly convinced herself that she should torment him with it while they packed up camp in the morning. The elf grinned mischievously at the thought.
"Kadan," Sten's baritone whisper reached down, washing over her like an unstoppable ocean wave, "would it not be wise to awaken him before his cries rouse the entire camp?"
"Let him suffer," she snorted bitterly, reaching down to grab the flask and throw back a shot. "It's the least that jerk deserves."
Several moments later, the whimpering turned into rather painful cries. Kallian suddenly sat up straight, the bag of cookies sliding off her lap, instantly forgotten. She stared at the tent in concern. From the corner of her eye, she caught a few of the others poking their heads out of their tents to see what the commotion was about. Sten started to step towards the tent, then stopped in his tracks when the point of a sword tore through its roof. Kallian was instantly on her feet in alarm, watching cautiously as the tent violently heaved this way and that, the sword ripping and tearing at imaginary adversaries. The figure inside roared out in desperation, hopelessly tangled inside a tent most obviously not meant to be stood up in. After a few more damaging swings, a large enough rent was torn into the canvas that Loghain managed to crawl out. Once free, he immediately jumped to his feet, sword clutched so tightly in both hands that his knuckles were stark white. Breathing rapidly, his eyes darted to and fro, but the look was far away, as if he wasn't really seeing what was before him.
"Woah... woah, now..." Kallian called out to him soothingly, holding both palms out towards him as if she were trying to calm a spooked horse ready to dangerously bolt at any moment. "Shhhhh... everything's okay. It was just a bad dream. It's all right." She slowly shuffled towards Loghain, careful not to make any sudden movements, and turned one of her palms facing up expectantly, fingers spread. "Give me the sword," she cooed.
Nostrils flaring, Loghain took a step back, the look in his eyes still wild and distant.
"Give me your sword," she repeated, wiggling the fingers on her outstretched hand.
Loghain tightened his grip on the hilt even further and drew the blade back threateningly.
Kallian noticed movement off to her right and glanced over in time to see Sten beginning to unsheath Asala. She held her hand out towards him and motioned him back. "No, no," she ordered. "No weapons. I can handle this." The elf turned back to Loghain and tried a different approach. "Okay," she breathed carefully, "put the sword down, then. Just lay it down by your feet. I'm not gonna take it from you."
He stopped looking around wildly and instead gazed in her direction. He blinked a few times.
"Shhhhhh... that's it," she said, trying her best to sound harmless and calming. "You're safe here." She turned both palms down and slowly motioned towards the ground. "Just put the sword down, Loghain."
He continued to stare at her for a few moments. Then, he blinked again and shook his head roughly. When he looked back up, Kallian was thankful to see that he was finally aware of his real surroundings. Loghain looked at her, looked at the sword in his hands, looked down at the torn tent laying at his feet, then looked at the sword again. He let it fall by his feet and started to tremble slightly, his breathing beginning to slow back down as he stared at the ground.
Kallian let out a heavy sigh of relief and turned back around. "All right, everybody," she said, addressing those who had been awakened. "Crisis averted. Situation under control. You can go back to bed now."
That seemed to satisfy everyone and Kallian found herself left with just Sten and Loghain. She and the qunari shared a silent look, then he took off to stand at the front of camp and out of earshot. "Hey," she called to Loghain. He looked up at her miserably. "Come sit with me a while," she said, motioning to the log laying perpendicular to the one to which she returned.
He stumbled over and sat down heavily. Then, he looked down at his shaking hands and sighed in frustration. Kallian watched him carefully and wondered at how vulnerable he looked, sitting there in cloth pants and tunic soaked with perspiration, slowly but surely bringing his tremors under control. While his decision to sell the Alienage off into slavery still disgusted her to no end, she was shocked to find herself actually feeling sorry for the man sitting so morosely before her. So, she pondered, he's just a person after all. With all the fear and other doubts that come with the territory. The Warden looked down at her flask for a moment, briefly torn with warring emotions, then picked it up and held it out towards him. Loghain looked over at her, down at the flask she offered, then at her again, seeming unsure about the unexpected kindness the elf was showing him.
"It's Stebbins Wildwood Whiskey," she added, shrugging and trying to look non-chalant about it. "Not half bad, actually, if whiskey's your thing."
Loghain eyed the flask for a moment, looking conflicted, then sighed and accepted it. He took a sip, sniffed, then tossed back several gulps.
"Hey, now!" cried Kallian. "I don't have an endless supply. I'm trying to make it last a while."
He snorted in amusement, then handed the flask back to the Warden. She protectively set it down by her feet again. Both sat in silence for a long while before Kallian finally broke it. "It'll get better... in time," she explained. "The nightmares are pretty bad at first, I'll give you that. And they say it's worse for those of us who join during a Blight. But I'm told they get easier to control after a while." Loghain looked over at her with baleful eyes. "If you manage to figure out how," she deadpanned, "do let me know." That drew a small chuckle from him and she grinned reassuringly. Then, an uncomfortable silence fell upon them once more.
"Was it real?" Loghain asked finally, looking up at Kallian with eyes still haunted by the vivid memory of his nightmare. "Was everything I saw real and happening?"
She looked at him sympathetically. "Finally saw the Archdemon, did you?"
He gulped, ashamed at how badly the visions had shaken him. "Among other things..."
The Warden sighed and answered, "As best as we can tell, what we dream is very real. Our... connection... with the darkspawn, it allows us to tap into their collective hive mind. It's usually shut out when we're awake, save for sensing when they're drawing near. But when we're asleep, well, it's a little harder to block out. I'm told that some of the older Grey Wardens can actually understand a bit of what the Archdemon's saying, but... I don't know any." She shrugged. "Could just be tall tales."
Loghain stared down again at his hands laying in his lap, brooding. "And the village I saw being sacked by darkspawn?"
Kallian cringed. "I don't know," she answered, sounding helpless. "I'm sorry." When Loghain brought his hands up and buried his face in them, she surprisingly felt her heart aching on his behalf. She also felt like pretty poor comfort at the moment. Trying to sound hopeful, she added, "It might not all be true, though. I remember having a nightmare one time of seeing Alistair being tortured by hurlocks, but that obviously wasn't real because he was sleeping right in the next tent at the time. I think... I think the Archdemon is smarter than we've originally given it credit for. I think it might actually send us bad visions in the hopes of crushing our spirits."
Lowering his hands back down, Loghain glanced over at the elf. He seemed to be coming back to himself, looking more determined than disturbed now. "If we share such a connection with the Archdemon," he asked, "does it know what we're thinking? Does it sense us in return?"
The Warden shook her head. "Again, I don't think any of us know that. But I don't think it goes that far, no. If it could, surely it would've sent more darkspawn to overtake us while we were securing the treaties with the rest of Ferelden. It certainly had a good chance to take us out when we were trudging through the Dead Trenches in the Deep Roads." She shuddered slightly at the memory. "We actually saw it fly by. Either it didn't notice us or it didn't think us enough of a threat to bother stopping at the time."
"So," he continued, "we have to kill this Archdemon to stop the Blight, correct?" She nodded. "Then how do we do it? What is this big, Grey Warden secret for slaying the Archdemon? Surely it's not as simple as poking it with a sword or else any idiot with a sharp object and good armor could get the job done."
And so it finally comes to this, she sighed inwardly. The most important of questions. The one that holds Ferelden's very future in the balance. And I haven't the slightest clue how to answer it. The elf was quiet for a long time, staring down at her flask. Contemplating. Wondering if she should, perhaps, make something up. The idea was tempting enough because she was certain Loghain would not at all be pleased with the real answer. When she looked back up, the beginnings of a lie birthing on the back of her tongue, his cold eyes stopped her instantly. They appeared almost to flash a warning, locked on her so intensely and cutting straight through any pretenses she had. It was rather unsettling, to say the least, as if he knew what she had been thinking. She actually felt rather naked then, as if he could read her like tea leaves in a soothsayer's saucer. A sudden shiver ran up her spine and she decided that lying to this man would be a massively bad idea.
Instead, she took a deep breath and braced herself for the inevitable tongue-lashing. "I don't know," she answered simply.
Loghain stared at her in open disbelief. "What?" he barely breathed, blood running cold at this revelation.
"I don't know," she repeated more forcefully, feeling suddenly incompetent and hating the shameful blush heating up her neck and ears. "Okay? I don't know what the big secret is."
Instead of launching into a tirade, as she had expected, Loghain's shoulders drooped and his brows drew together in confusion. "How?" he asked. "How can you not know this?"
"How about because nobody ever told me?" she answered, immediately defensive in her embarrassment. "How about because I was only a Grey Warden for a whopping few hours before all but one got killed at Ostagar?" She shot him a venemous look.
"The other Warden never told you?"
"No," she sighed. "Apparently Alistair didn't know either, and he'd been a Grey Warden for six months already. I guess it's not something they tell new recruits."
"That makes absolutely no sense!" he responded, anger entering his tone. "Is that not the most important thing you Grey Wardens do? Is that not the reason why everyone practically worships your order?"
Kallian blinked. "Okay, first off, I'm not appreciating you speaking like I'm the only Grey Warden here."
"I'm not here to make you feel appreciated," he growled. "Hope you don't have any illusions about that."
"Oh, trust me, it's the furthest thing from my mind," she hissed back. "But you're a Grey Warden now, too, you know."
"Indeed, I'd almost forgotten that," he shot back sarcastically. "Thank you for the reminder."
She rolled her eyes at him. "But consider this: you've now been a Grey Warden for about as long as I had before everything went severely downhill. How much do you know about being one?"
"Next to nothing."
"Welcome to what's been my world for the past year," she sighed, taking a sip from her flask. "The Joining doesn't just magically imbue you with all the collected knowledge of the order, you know."
"I'm sure if you just explain that nicely to the Archdemon," he sneered, "it will pack up its armies and go home."
"Thanks," she spat, "the sarcasm really helps the situation."
He scoffed. "You'll get no sympathy from me. You could have asked the Orlesian Warden about this any number of times before or after the Landsmeet."
It was Kallian's turn for slumped shoulders. Loghain's comment struck a nerve, but he was absolutely right. She had a Senior Grey Warden right in front of her and didn't think to ask the most important question. Stupid, stupid, she reprimanded herself. Even though they planned to meet again in Redcliffe, any number of things could happen to Riordan on the road and then her ignorance could very well doom them all. "You're right," she sighed, "and I'm sorry. I know that doesn't cut it, but it's the best I can offer at the moment. It was incredibly stupid of me not to find out when I had the chance."
Loghain sighed and looked at her. She was very young, that much was obvious. Of course she'd have a disproportionate amount of ignorance and naivete, as frustrating as that made things for him. She'd also have a healthy feeling of invincibility, which probably explained why she hadn't thought to even bother asking how to kill the Archdemon. Obviously her pure, awesome power would be enough to strike it down. He frowned, feeling reminded of Cailan. Maybe he wasn't giving her enough credit, but the very continued existence of Ferelden depended on the two of them accomplishing this impossible task laid before them. He had honestly been expecting her to at least know something more than he did about doing such a thing. But this was all they had to work with and it would just simply have to be enough. Well, he thought, I was pretty young when Maric asked me to do the impossible. And Maric wasn't exactly ready for the trials of being a leader yet, either. Maybe there's still some hope for us.
"So," he said, surfacing from his reflections, "what do we do now?"
"I have a theory," Kallian started, sounding hopeful. "If something should happen and we can't ask Riordan later, I have an idea. But for now, we need to focus on gathering the armies."
"No," said Loghain, reaching out and grabbing the elf's arm as if to directly re-focus her attention. "No more secrets. That is what has put us into this mess of not knowing how, exactly, to end the Blight. If you have an idea, share it now. Why wait?"
The Warden looked a bit shy and embarrassed at that. "Well, it's... it's just a guess. I don't have anything to prove it or back it up. It could be meaningless." She shrugged, feeling uncomfortable.
"It's better than nothing."
She took a deep breath and asked, "What makes us different, Loghain? How are Grey Wardens different from, say, just regular soldiers?"
"We aren't killed from consuming darkspawn blood," he answered immediately.
"It's more than just darkspawn blood, but yes," she nodded, "that's the main thing from what I can tell. It helps us sense the darkspawn and causes us to see and hear the Archdemon, like they do. I think that, in some way, it almost turns us into darkspawn. So, maybe it takes a darkspawn to kill the Archdemon. Obviously, none of the darkspawn themselves would do that. But maybe, because we're tainted, we're just darkspawn enough to have that effect if we strike a killing blow. Maybe it's something to do with our blood?"
Loghain shrugged. "It sounds like a logical theory to me. Then again, I don't profess to know much about arcane magic or blood rituals."
"Neither do I," she added, "but I can't really think of anything better."
They fell silent again, both feeling a bit like new sailors lost adrift in the sea. Kallian sighed and stared at the ground. She really felt like she'd let everyone down, not knowing what they should do if the Archdemon suddenly appeared. She'd just assumed that she'd know the right thing to do when the time came - or that Alistair would - but that now seemed rather silly and reckless. Now she had a battle-hardened strategist asking her for input so he could formulate a plan for them... and she had absolutely no tools to give him. Just another ignorant ally along for the ride, she thought bitterly. Way to go! When she tore her gaze back up, she found Loghain staring at her rather intently.
"Why did you spare me?" he asked. "What role am I to play? Despite your rather disturbing ignorance in how to end all this, you seem to at least have a working plan in place. One that your other Warden would have surely followed you to the bitter end to see carried out. And yet he has been driven out by your decision to go with me as 'the unknown quantity.' I don't understand your reasoning behind that. My execution was all but arranged. Nobody at the Landsmeet would have blamed you for wanting me dead. I assume, then, that you have something else in mind."
She looked at him for a moment and considered her answer carefully. "A few reasons, actually," she finally said. "I'd promised your daughter, for one thing, and she had fulfilled all that I had asked of her at the time. I don't break my promises." She paused. "Secondly, Riordan made good sense about needing more Grey Wardens in Ferelden and about how your battlefield experience and tactical mind might help our cause."
He nodded before prodding, "And something else that sounded much more personal, interestingly enough."
"Yes," she hissed, "something that you've no right asking me about."
"Fair enough."
Kallian was quiet again for several moments. Then, she continued, "But the short version is that I was granting you mercy. Something that, unfortunately, is hard to find these days."
"Mercy is a strange creature," Loghain chuckled. "They say the sword that struck Andraste was mercy and your mercy is to leave me in the fire. I'm no Chantry scholar. I don't know which is the cruel fate and which is the kind one. Death would have been easier, if not kinder. Instead, my sentence is life as a Grey Warden. That's the harsher punishment, certainly, and I can hardly say that it's more than I deserve. I suppose I ought to be grateful." He paused, looking bitter. "Despite what we each wanted, we're both here now, facing the same enemy, and we can be of use to one another. However little we may enjoy that fact."
"Well, your role in all this is to help me stop the Blight now... or, at least, that's what I had in mind, especially since we're down a Grey Warden," she said. Then, she looked at Loghain seriously and asked, "What do you want?"
"What I want?" he repeated hoarsely. "What an odd question. I want to go back to Denerim and sit in the war room and find no empty chairs at the table," he answered with conviction in his voice. "I want to lose nothing else. I want a line, clearly drawn, that I can defend. I want an end to this war."
The earnestness in his voice touched Kallian deeply. She looked into Loghain's eyes then; really, truly met them and saw the honesty and determination they contained alongside the fierceness. He was a smarmy, smart-mouthed bastard, in her opinion, but he appeared legitimate enough in his vows. She smiled at him, open and genuine, feeling a grudging respect for the man. "Good, because I can provide at least some of those things. You defend me and everyone else in this group. You kill darkspawn. And when the time comes, you help me slay the Archdemon and end this Blight once and for all. I'm giving you a second chance. I want you to take it."
For the first time that night, Loghain smiled. A small, simple smile. "It's a good thing I'm a man who likes to take chances, now, isn't it?"
"Lucky for me, eh?" she chuckled and gave him a friendly wink.
He arched an eyebrow in response. "And just like that, we're allies? I can't imagine it's so simple."
"We don't have to be enemies," she stated simply, shrugging and splaying her hands out, palms open in the gesture of calling a truce. As much as she disliked the man, the thought of constantly bickering and arguing with him was an exhausting one, if she was perfectly honest with herself.
"It is, however, what we've chosen to be, considering last night you very openly disapproved of all my decisions to date," he observed, narrowing his eyes at the elf. "And I don't think changing that is a simple matter."
"I'm sorry you feel that way," Kallian answered, looking chagrined, "because we're going to have to work together, you know."
"Is that punishment meant for me or for you?" he asked in a dry tone, raising an eyebrow again.
The Warden snorted behind her hand, trying not to laugh too loudly and wake the camp up again. "Oh, very clever," she said. "You made a funny. There is more to you than I first thought, isn't there?"
"That depends," he responded cautiously, "on what you first thought of me."
Kallian stared at him for a moment, contemplating her response. Then, she shrugged. "Eh, I think the slap shortly after we started talking last night pretty well summed it up."
"Indeed."
She took another sip of whiskey from the flask and grudingly passed it back to Loghain once more. He accepted it, but then looked at her long and hard, eyes narrowed. "Aren't you supposed to be on watch right now?"
The elf ducked her head a little, blushing. "Yes, well," she explained, "you really can't drink enough to dull your Warden senses." Her face shifted to a long-suffering expression. "Trust me on that one." Then, stomach growling, she retrieved the bag that had fallen earlier. "Cookie?" she asked, holding the bag out towards him.
He stared at it with suspicion. "And so now we're trying to bribe me into not loathing you?"
The elf snorted. "Hardly," she said. "I'm just being nice and offering you a cookie. Does there really need to be an ulterior motive there?"
"Cookies hardly go well with whiskey. It's a strange offering."
"Seems to work for the other big soldier-type in my merry band... well, other than he doesn't engage in the drinking part, per se, just the cookie-munching bits," Kallian said, shrugging. "But there's some jerky in my tent, if you'd rather..." She stopped suddenly, reminded of something, and looked over at Loghain's rather decimated tent. "Hmmm," she pondered, "were you planning on trying to go back to sleep?"
He followed her gaze. "No, I suppose not," he sighed. "I'm not exactly relishing the thought of dreaming again so soon."
"I don't blame you," she said, nodding. "Well, it's not long before sunrise anyway. You're welcome to sit up with me, if my company will not be overly offensive to your sensibilities." She playfully stuck her tongue out at him. Loghain rewarded her with a most amusing roll of the eyes. The Warden continued, "I'll have Wynne try and patch it up for you tomorrow afternoon. At least try and get you by until we reach the Dalish. I can get you a good tent from them."
Loghain's stomach, much to his chagrin, rather audibly growled. It would certainly take a while getting used to feeling ravenous every few hours. "You said you had something to eat other than cookies?" he asked.
Kallian chuckled and got up to go scrounge around in her tent. Moments later, she reclaimed her seat and handed over a bag of beef jerky. "You wish is my command," she teased.
Loghain arched an eyebrow at her, smirking. "I suppose we'll see how long that lasts."
Author's Note: Please review, if at all possible, and let me know if it still sucks, has now started to suck, has improved from previous suckage, or is still rocking on hard and heavy! And as before, I feel the need to list a few songs that were definitely kept on "repeat" for their symbolism and appropriateness while conspiring for this chapter. Perhaps they will make good background reading tunes!
The Confrontation with 'Maric' was brought to you by Johnny Cash's cover of the Nine Inch Nails song "Hurt"
The Rest of the Nightmare was inspired mostly by "Nightmare" by Avenged Sevenfold and a bit by "A Bad Dream" by Keane
The First Civil Conversation was brought to you by "Behind Blue Eyes" by The Who (Limp Bizkit's cover is okay, but can't beat the original tune)
