It seems to me that if you or I must choose between two courses of thought or action, we should remember our dying and try so to live that our death brings no pleasure on the world. -John Steinbeck

Years of training as a bard, paired with her time living in Lothering as a chantry sister had taught Leliana the gift of patience. She was slow to anger and refrained from saying a harsh word even when provoked. That was however, long before she had been introduced to the perpetually intoxicated and foul mouthed Oghren who seemed skilled in knowing exactly which buttons to push to elicit a response from her. The dwarf seemed set on a suicide mission that involved the trio storming the keep and cutting through the innumerable guards and hoping for the best.

Alistair and Leliana had agreed that tact and secrecy held far better odds for escaping the fort alive and Oghren had been increasingly vocal with his displeasure. They had devised a hastily thought out plan that would allow them to infiltrate the fort without provoking half of the guards to charge at them as soon as they set foot in the doors. At least that was what they were hoping for. The plan could very easily fall apart and they would be forced to go along with Oghren's plan anyway.

They had waited in the shadows until the nightwatch made their rounds through the back alley where they were hidden. The pouring rain and booming thunder allowed them to remain unheard which was a relief as Oghren had no experience in remaining silent. Just after midnight the patrol made their way through the streets. Leliana gave a stiff nod to Alistair giving him the signal that it was time to move. Leliana moved first, her movements as silent as the shadows as she approached the unsuspecting guards. Alistair was less experienced in stealth, his heavy footsteps picked up easily by Leliana's trained ears. Thankfully the guards were not trained to pick up such sounds. Leliana snapped the neck of the nearest guard, killing him before he ever knew what was happening. The second guard soon lay beside him in the street, Alistair having ended his life as quickly as his partner.

"Maker's balls, this plan smells like the back end of a hurlock."

Leliana did not make an effort to stop the exasperated sigh that escaped her. Even Alistair was beginning to show visible signs of annoyance, clenching his jaw as they drug the bodies of the unconscious guards into the shadows of the back alley.

"We have been over this, Oghren." Leliana said curtly as they began to relieve the guards of their armor.

Oghren grunted a response that meant he was still unimpressed.

Alistair and Leliana remained silent as they strapped themselves into the armor, each lost in their own thoughts about what was about to happen. This was not a simple rescue mission, it bordered more on the lines of a suicide mission. They were all aware that there was a very strong possibility that none of them including Aedan, would leave the keep alive. The thought carried a different weight for each of them and filled them with a different sense of dread.

For Alistair it meant the end of the Grey Wardens and the legacy that Duncan had worked so hard to build and repair. It meant a world where people like Loghain remained free and alive while good men and women lay in a shallow grave that he had created. It meant a world where justice and peace could not exist because men like Loghain would ensure that they were squashed. Alistair knew that Eamon intended to put him forth as king and the idea made his blood run cold, but maybe it would not be such a bad thing if it meant that Loghain would be brought to justice and the Grey Wardens would continue. He knew that failure was not an option for them, and it filled him with a sense of terror he had never before experienced.

Oghren's thoughts were with redemption and what was left of his honor. For all of his arrogance and bravado, he was weighed down by the guilt and failures of his past. He knew that he had failed his house, his family and his marriage. There was a time when he had truly loved Branka in his own way and he had carried around the weight of her leaving and her ultimate death around with him. There was not enough ale in the world to drown out the regret of another failure and another death due to his shortcomings.

Leliana in contrast did not care if she lived or died, for she knew ultimately her death would not leave a mark on the world one way or another. If she were to die tonight she was going to take as many people as she could with her. She did not fear death, she feared dying before she had the chance to see Aedan again. All she knew for certain was that these walls were separating her from the one thing she cared about more than anything else in the world and she would cut down anyone who dared get in her way.

"Are you ready?" Alistair asked behind her. Leliana nodded stiffly as she finished tightening the bracer to her arm.

"Oghren?" Alistair asked.

A loud, watery belch escaped Oghren followed by an obscenity that caused Alistair's ears to turn red.

"Am I to take that as a yes?"

"I still don't understand why this plan is better than mine."

"We will live longer than a few seconds?" Leliana chimed in with ill-disguised annoyance.

Oghren stepped into the moonlight and Leliana was slightly taken aback by his appearance. He had traded in his armor for a simple cotton shirt and breeches, a look that did not suit him at all. Thick patches of chest hair could be seen poking out of his shirt where the top two buttons had been left undone, a sight that was not at all appealing. The breeches had questionable looking stains all over that Leliana did not care to know the origins of, but she was certain they were the reason for the foul odor she was smelling.

"Where did you find those?" Alistair asked making a face that indicated he was smelling the same foul stench.

"They're mine." Oghren replied.

"You wear these?" Alistair asked horrified.

"Well I don't sleep in my armor you half-wit. Anyway it's all I could find on such short notice since you insist on being 'cautious'. I still don't see why I have to be the fool in this little play you have planned."

"When was the last time you saw a dwarf as a city guard?" Ailstair said. "And besides, you're supposed to be a drunken murderer so you're only half lying."

"Well get me some ale and I won't have to lie at all."

"Let's just get underway." Leliana said curtly. Every second they stood out in the rain exchanging words were precious seconds that they could be searching for Aedan. A stint in Fort Drakon was not meant to be long term, and Aedan had already been in their clutches for a little over seven days. She was not even sure that he was still alive, and if he was she feared what condition he might be in. She took a deep breath and tried to shut out the terrible images that began filling her head.

Aedan Cousland knew that he was about to die. He had experienced many brushes with death in his life as a warrior, but he had never felt the life leaving his body in the way that he did now. Seven days without food, paired with the constant torture had finally taken a toll on his weakening body. Breathing was becoming more difficult, his breath was coming in short ragged gasps which was agony for his damaged ribs. His vision was blurred and the exertion of simply trying to stay awake had caused a thick layer of sweat to coat his body. The weight of his iron prison seemed to increase by the moment, causing his head to fall forward and an unbearable stiffness in his neck. Each moment that passed was increasingly more difficult to get through, and each new one that came brought with it the thought that it could be his last.

He was in more pain than he had ever experienced in his life, yet as much as he wanted the pain to end he chose instead to focus on it. He was in pain, and he was dying, there was no way around that. But he was still feeling that pain, and that meant that for now at least he was still alive. He focused on the pain, focused on feeling every ache and burn throughout his mangled body. He was not a man that was known to show fear, yet now that death was moments away from taking him he had no trouble admitting that he was afraid. Not afraid of dying itself, for he imagined that dying at this point would be a sweet release from the misery he was currently drowning in.

His father's voice rang in his ears, the same words playing repeatedly in his mind in a chant-like fashion.

Our son will live and make his mark upon the world.

No, it was not death that Aedan feared. It was dying without fulfilling his father's last hope for him.

Aedan had fulfilled his own goal for himself when he had plunged a dagger into Howe's heart in his own home. Aedan took satisfaction in the poetic justice that came with ending Howe's life in the walls of his own home in the way that his own family had been murdered. Yet it didn't bring him the peace that he thought it would, instead it had left him with an empty hollow feeling in the pit of his stomach. He had gotten the revenge that he had long desired, but he had left his father's dying wish unfulfilled. And the guilt that came from that would kill him just as surely as any blade.

He was in pain. Emotional, physical and mental anguish, but he was alive.

At least for now.

"This is never going to work human." Oghren said for what felt like the tenth time in half as many minutes.

"It won't if you don't start acting you're a prisoner rather than a petulant child." Alistair threw back.

"Is that a crack about my height? Eh?"

Tensions ran high as the trio stepped through the massive oak doors of the keep. Oghren marched in between Alistair and Leliana, fully equipped in the armor of the city guard. To any unsuspecting bystander they looked every bit the part of a captive being taken to the depths of the keep by two armed guards, a sight that was not at all uncommon in recent days. A closer glance however would reveal the fear and apprehension held in each of their eyes.

"Any joke I make would simply go over your head I'm afraid."

"Listen you loose lipped-"

"Is there a problem?" A voice behind them made their hearts stop.

Nobody said a word as they slowly turned around an found themselves face to face with the captain of the guard.