Part 1

Looking to the Future


After making it back to the Keep, Arianne found herself swamped by various matters of court that she had been neglecting. Varel was adamant that she hold court and host the Oaths of Fealty ceremony, which took up a great amount of time. These proceedings left little for her Wardens to do so some of them did what they could to help out around the Keep. This, in turn, aggravated Velanna and Hale, who believed being Grey Wardens, they should be out battling darkspawn, or even studying them, not doing chores. Arianne generally shut them up with, "You want to run the Arling? I didn't think so." Someone had to. Anyway, it wasn't long till Hale approached the queen about one of his fellow Wardens. As he told it, Nathaniel Howe had been sneaking off to Amaranthine whenever he got the chance and it was horribly irresponsible of him and blah blah blah and it piqued Arianne's interest. So, off they went to follow Nate to Amaranthine. Hale had refused to come, saying that he 'had better things to be doing', so it was just Anders, Oghren and Arianne. They quickly lost track of Nate and ended up getting a drink at the tavern.

"Tell me again, Commander, why are we following him?" Anders asked, sipping on his drink.

"Because Nate is a dutiful person, to a fanatical point. What could possible cause him to want to come here when the rest of our group is at the Keep?" the Commander said. Their conversation was interrupted by some drunken chatter.

"Who'd you think would win in a fight, Andraste or the Archdemon?" one man asked.

"The Archdemon."

"But Andraste could call on the Maker!"

"That would be cheating, are you calling Andraste a dirty cheater?"

"She cheated on her husband, didn't she?" The two burst into drunken laughter.

"That man has a point." Anders said, "Our society idolizes a woman who not only killed for a living, but fundamentally went against her own teachings, if we hold her to today's translations of her teachings. Does that make any sense?"

"I look at religious teachings in the same way I look at folklore, stories that could contain a grain of truth at their center, but have no real bearing on life except to children." Ari said, "But the other man had a point too, unless Andraste was a Grey Warden, she'd have no chance against old Archie."

"'Old Archie'?"

"If you can't laugh in the face of your enemies... I... don't really know where I was going with that."

"You can't drink much can you?"

"Nope." She took another swig of her drink and belched loudly as she set the mug down. Oghren responded quickly with a louder and longer one and soon involved some of the other patrons in a belching contest. Ari sat back with a smirk on her face, "People will follow you if you're on their level. If Andraste was a war leader, she probably, more often than not, drank and joined in her soldiers merrymaking after winning a battle, all the best leaders do." She set down her drink and laughed loudly, "Maker, do I sound like I know what I'm talking about or what?"

Just then, to their luck, the door to the tavern opened and who should walk in other than the point of why they had come to Amaranthine in the first place. Arianne nearly tackled Oghren to the floor to get him out of sight as Nate's eyes skimmed the tavern. Apparently too occupied to notice the woman and the dwarf fall to the floor and the mage behind them facepalm, Nathaniel took a seat at one of the empty tables near the door. The tavern waitress, Tara, made her way over quickly and the two of them chatted and laughed about something. Ari only caught the last bit of their conversation.

"-Something wrong?" Nate asked.

"Umm... that group over there is kicking up a fuss, I should go see..." the girl answered motioning to the other Wardens. Nate resisted the urge to smack his forehead as he recognized Anders, the only one still sitting at the table, who smiled and waved.

"Dear Maker, don't worry about it, Tara, I'll handle them."

Arianne, still on the floor, was trying to shush Oghren, who was trying to continue the burping contest. Nathaniel's boots suddenly came into the Commander's vision and she looked up to him looking down at her with that unamused face of his, "Oh hello, Nate, what brings you here?" she smiled. Nate rolled his eyes and looked at Anders.

"Following me?"

"Not my idea." the mage replied, "But, don't get me wrong, I was curious where you go all the time. Hard to believe you were just out drinking, but now I get it." he finished with an amused glance at Tara.

"So help me, mage..." the archer began.

"You need help with something? Well, why didn't you just ask? Maker, Nate..." the queen said.

"Commander, please get up." he sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose.

Ari rolled onto her back, crossed her arms and frowned up at him, "I do what I want, Howe I want to." and dissolved into giggles.

"Aww, Commander, you stole my joke!" Anders complained.

"Maker help me." Nate groaned.

"Wait, wait, you gotta hear mine!" the mage cleared his throat, "I'm fond of the Howe's! I'm also fond of the 'why's' the 'who's' and the 'what's'!"

"How clever."

"It's shameful how long it took me to come up with that."

"You know, Nate, it almost looks like you're smiling from down here-" Ari started but was cut off by the door slamming open and a group of armed mercenaries coming in. They sat down two tables away from the Wardens and called for drinks immediately. As soon as Tara made her way over, one of them latched onto her and pulled her into his lap, trying to grope her.

"Hey!" Ari yelled from the floor, and was subsequently ignored.

Nathaniel had better luck, striding over and grabbing the man's hand, allowing Tara to move away, "Keep your hands off her." he growled. The man looked over at his companions and laughed.

"Well, look at this, men. He's got a crush." he sneered, standing, "I don't like that look on your face, boy, but I'll let it slide if you run on home to momma and leave the tavern wenches to real men."

"Real men, my boot." the queen said, having stood and planted her foot proudly on the edge of the table, "I eat little squawking chickens like you for breakfast."

"Commander, I'm trying to avoid a fight..." Nate said, trying to pull her off the table.

"But that's no fun..." she pouted.

"That's it!" the mercenary leader roared angrily and grabbed Nate, practically throwing him out of the way. He picked Ari up by the front of her shirt and she replied by sticking her tongue out and spitting at him. A bar brawl ensued and ended with the mercenaries kicking up dust on their way out. Ari laughed triumphantly and turned to go sit back at their table. She was stopped by the infuriated barkeep, who proceeded to kick them out, as well as firing Tara.

"Tara, I cannot apologize enough. If we hadn't been there..." Nate began as they stood outside the tavern.

"If you hadn't been there, I'd have been raped. Simple as that." the girl laughed, "I've never liked it there anyway, I just had nowhere else to go. I wonder what I'll do now..."

"Do whatever you want! Don't dance to their tune! Why dance at all? Why not sing?" Ari suggested.

"Oghren, does this happen a lot?" the Howe asked, pointing at the Commander.

"Not nearly as much as it should!" the dwarf laughed. Nate sighed and turned back to Tara.

"Do you have anywhere to go tonight?"

"Oh, I'm sure I'll figure something out..."

"Why don't you come back to Vigil's Keep with us?" Anders spoke up.

"What?"

"You know how the Commanders been griping about how few women there are, and I, for one, am inclined to agree." the young mage said with a wink at Nathaniel.

"Yeah! The only fellow woman I have to talk to is Velanna! Do you know how hard it is to get an answer out of her, any answer!?" the queen nodded, leaning heavily on Oghren.

Tara giggled, "Well, how could I turn down an offer from the Queen?"

"You really don't have to if you don't want to, but it's the least we could do. I- I'd like to be able to see you more often and we did cost you your job..." Nate said, stumbling a bit on his words.

"Oh, I'd love to, Nate." she reassured him, smiling shyly, "But I don't think we should head there now. Those two don't look like they would get very far..." She pointed at Ari and Oghren, who were strolling away, singing loudly. Nate stared after them for a few second and smacked his forehead, groaning.

Ari glanced over her shoulder at the two of them, "Why don't you two just get married and be done with it? You gotta move faster, Nate, otherwise someone will come steal her away!"

Nathaniel blushed, looking anywhere but at Tara when she glanced up at him. She laughed and took his hand.


Part 2

Stuck in the Past


The group spent the night in a different inn and, much to Ari's confusion, she awoke the next morning with a pounding headache and a very fuzzy memory of the night before. After Anders laughingly filled her in, and they had a sober conversation about Tara coming to live in the Keep, they decided to head back. Of course, as they were leaving the city, a small rock was pegged at Anders.

"Ow! What-?"

"Oy! About time you showed up." An elven woman stood in the shadows of a house to their right.

"Namaya? You're still here?" Anders asked incredulously.

The woman crossed her arms, "I keep my promises. Here, turns out you were right. The cache is here in Amaranthine." She handed the mage a folded up piece of paper.

"It is? You found it?" Anders unfolded it and saw a hastily sketched out map of where a specific building was in the city.

"I did. What you do with that information is up to you. I, for one, am done dealing with mages." Namaya grunted.

"Er, I guess I should thank you..."

"Damned right you should. You get caught, Anders, I'm not helping you again. That's all I'm saying." With that, the elf disappeared back into the shadows and was gone. Anders looked after her, conflicted, for a moment before turning back to Ari and the others.

"I... suppose that requires some explanation."

"Of course not, Anders! What makes you think that?" Ari snarked.

"Ah, I am fluent in sarcasm, you can't fool me!" He sighed and continued, "Namaya is... a friend. Last time I escaped from the tower, I asked her to look into some things. That's why I was in Amaranthine. The templars thought I'd come to take a ship, but it was to meet her."

"To find a cache?"

"During the Blight, the templars moved their store of phylacteries to Amaranthine for safety." the mage told the group, "My phylactery is among them, Namaya learned. So long as the templars have that sample of my blood, they can find me. I need to destroy it."

"Look, I completely understand that, and I'm not saying I agree with the system, but you are a Grey Warden now, the Chantry can't touch you." the queen said.

"What's to stop the Chantry from deciding that mages in the Grey Wardens are apostates too? I want to be sure they can't find me again. Ever."

Arianne sighed, "Anders..."

"You traveled for months with an apostate, it's not like being one means you use blood magic and steal little children to power your spells." he argued.

"It's not the fact that we would be making you an apostate. The Chantry probably thinks you're one already, but other than that, names are simple as that, names. What I'm worried about is by doing this, the Chantry will see it as proof that you're trying to hide something and they'll try to come after you anyway. Of course the other thing is that I'm the Queen, Anders. I'm working with Wynne and other Circle mages to make things better for the mages, but if someone saw me openly disregarding the Chantry's rules, well, a number of things could happen. But they mostly wouldn't be good." Ari explained. Anders chewed his lip and started to retort, but Ari held up a hand, "But. Investigating a suspicious house that some good citizen is concerned about harboring smugglers and finding stores of vials of blood, well, we all know that's a sure sign of a blood mage contingent, yes?"

The young mage sighed in relief, "Thank you, Commander! I know we're busy killing darkspawn and all. But the sooner we find this vial, the better I'll feel."

"Don't let me regret this, Warden."

"Commander!" a new, cranky voice called from further down the road. Velanna and Justice were making their way towards the group.

"Ooooohh, Velanna, lower the pitch of your voice..." the queen groaned, her head still pounding, "What are you two doing here?"

"Looking for you. Warden Hale seemed agitated that you had not yet returned." Justice said.

"Of course he was." Ari rolled her eyes, "Well, we've got one more thing to do here, then we'll head back."

"Also-" Justice began to continue but was stopped by Velanna.

"We're not supposed to tell her. It's supposed to be a ...'surprise'." she air-quoted boredly.

"What?"

"Nothing."

Arianne squinted at the elven woman for a moment before shaking her head, "Whatever, let's go deal with that house and we'll go." They followed the scribblings on the map and found the storehouse rather easily. Going inside carefully, they were surprised to discover it seemingly completely empty.

"No guards? Maybe they don't want to draw attention to the cache? Could we be that lucky?" Anders asked. Just then Ari passed the threshold into the back of the building.

"Not in this lifetime." she deadpanned.

"And here I almost believed the infamous Anders wouldn't take the bait." Standing in the corner was the templar that had accompanied Alistair when they all first arrived at the Keep. She had three others behind her, with their hands on their weapons.

"Ah. Yes, I suppose I should've known it would be you." Anders sighed, recognizing her.

"You made a poor choice with this one, Commander. Anders will never submit, not to us and not to you." Ser Rylock said.

"Well good, cause I never want him nor anyone else to submit to me. Not to mention he is a Grey Warden now."

"Hardly surprising. The Grey Wardens have ever been a haven for criminals and maleficar. But I'll make sure that this murderer is never a bother to anyone again."

"What? No, you can't arrest me! Both the King and Queen allowed my Conscription!" Anders protested.

"The Chantry's authority supersedes the Crown in this matter. You cannot hide within the Grey Warden ranks." the templar took a step towards him. Two things happened next almost simultaneously, first was a warning shot from Nathaniel's bow that flew past Rylock's cheek and second was Justice interposing himself between the templar and Anders. Rylock laughed, "I do not know how you inspire such loyalty, Anders, but it will avail you naught. Now you come with us."

"Not gonna happen." Ari growled.


Part 3

The Next Generation


The templars were taken care of and the group was finally free to return to the Vigil. Of course, that wasn't necessarily a good thing for their lovable dwarf. As soon as they came in the door to the throne room Ari was assaulted by a rather angry woman's voice.

"Where is he? I know he's here. Cough him up, Warden!" Felsi threatened.

"Er... you mean Oghren?"

"No, I mean my peg-legged uncle. Yes, Oghren. Where is that big bronto-tur-"

"Hold on to your beard, woman. Is this a conjugal visit? Looking for Oghren to grease the old wheel?" Oghren snickered.

"Oh, I'm exiting this conversation now!" Ari exclaimed and turned away hastily, shooing the others that had come in behind them away.

"Don't lay a finger on me! You've done a lot of stupid things on a whim, but joining the Wardens..." Felsi continued, ignoring the others.

Oghren laughed, "Didn't you say it would be... hot?"

"We were role-playing!" Ari turned back to say something, but then thought better of it.

"Look, I didn't sign up on a whim, all right? You kicked me out." Oghren grunted.

Felsi scoffed, "You were just looking for an excuse!"

"You kept trying to make me into something I'm not. I can't play house like you want me to. I'm only good at one thing, Fels, and it's killing."

"You had a good thing in the army. They respected you." she argued.

"Ahh, Felsi, I finally got the ol' conker on straight and I don't belong anywhere but here." Oghren sighed.

"Fine, Oghren, if that's what you want. The baby and I will just have to get by without you." the dwarf woman shook her head, a betrayed expression on her face, and turned and left. Oghren stared after her for a moment, then grumbled and began to walk away.

"Hey, hey, hey!" Arianne jumped back in and grabbed the warrior's arm, "Where do you think you're going? Aren't you going after her?"

"I'd just end up being hit." he sighed, "She's a tiny thing but packs a surprising wallop, and in this mood she'd go straight for my danglers." He shook his head roughly, "Come on. There's darkspawn waiting to be killed."

"Oghren..."

"Argh, sod it!" The dwarf slammed his hand against the wall, "This isn't going to make you think any less of me, is it? Ah, who cares." he groaned, "I didn't do right by Felsi and the nugget, did I?"

"Being a mother myself... No. No you didn't." Ari said.

"That's what I like about you. You're honest. Like a sock in the gut." he told her, "I think Felsi knew, even if she never acknowledged it to herself, she knew I could never settle down again. I did once and... well, you know."

"So what?"

"Huh?" Oghren glanced up at the queen in confusion.

"Who says you have to settle down and get some mundane job in order to be a father?" Ari laughed, "My son is two months old and I'm still here, fighting darkspawn and whatever else that stupidly throws itself at me. Being a Grey Warden is not really the ideal occupation of a dad but there are plenty of Wardens that have families. I don't see why you can't be a part of your child's life."

"Maybe I could visit once in a while, write some letters. That's the least I could do... as a father. And hey," He chuckled, "the little one will grow up thinking Daddy's a great hero."

Ari smiled, a smile that quickly faded as she thought about her own child. Wynne had warned her about this, that she would feel anxious about Duncan because of being parted from him so soon. Due to the hormones from being pregnant, her emotions were all over the place. She had even found herself crying once when she hadn't been actively thinking about it. She wanted to see the boy so much, but she knew she had to finish her business here first. Somehow, through the strange proceedings of Ari's mind, she remembered what Velanna had said earlier, "Hey, Velanna, what did you mean by 'it's supposed to be a surprise'?" she called over her shoulder. Just then, from outside the door, they all heard a loud wail. A baby's cry. Ari nearly flew to the door and couldn't get it open fast enough. Standing there, with his back to the door and trying to shush the squirming bundle in his arms, was Alistair. He turned and smiled goofily.

"Well, there goes my whole plan of how to surprise you."