A/N: Ok, so here it is! The final chapter! It's much longer than all the rest, but I'm glad with it. So thanks to all who read, favourite, followed, and commented. It really means a lot! I hope you all enjoyed reading the story as much as I did writing it!

Kiwi out.

Alistair's shoulder erupted in white-hot pain, despite being pierced with hundreds of pieces of sharp ice. He dropped his sword, and it was kicked away by the largest, nastiest, and most terrifying ogre he had ever seen. He could only guess that this was their leader. "For an interval".

It was midday, and Alistair was wandering amongst the trees that bordered the forests surrounding Denerim.

An observer could easily tell he was looking for something amongst the pines and oaks by the way he was bending over, and gazing into the canopies, and peering around rocks. He was never good at this game. He was a clumsy, loud warrior trying to find two rogues and his daughter who was destined to become one.

It was a beautiful sunny day, cool and clear and with a slight comforting breeze which easily carried the songs of birds. He heard the voice of his wife then, who called them all over to eat their lunch. They were out in the forest for the day, enjoying the weather and had brought along some food. They brought no servants or cooks, for the king and the queen desired to feed themselves. Eamon had insisted that they bring along a small party of guards at least, just so they didn't get ambushed by an assassin hired by an angry nobleman wishing to be rid of the royal family. He had accepted grudgingly, but had told the guards to stay put while he played a game of hide-and-seek with Little Elissa, Leliana, and Zevran. For all their tough exterior and harsh lives the three companions had shared, they were still young at heart and enjoyed a little playtime now and again.

As the king turned to head back to where Idril was, he heard a small giggle from the large tree above him and looking up, he saw the small frame of his six year old daughter perched on the lowest branch. The sun shining through the leaves of the trees gave a soft green glow to the princess and illuminated her childish features and her cunning smile. Before he could say anything, she had leaped down with all the grace of the Dalish and landed softly on her father's shoulders. He was surprised to say the least, and laughed aloud when she giggled maniacally from her new perch, delirious from the fresh air and her successful 'assassination' attempt.

He heard the light tinkling laugh of Leliana and the deeper, haughty laugh of Zevran as they too jumped down from the trees and walked over to the man and his daughter. They patted her on the back and congratulated her with wide smiles, obviously proud that their roguish teachings didn't go unheeded.

The three companions and the princess stood in the bright forest laughing until they clutched at their sides and were gasping for breath. They eventually gathered their wits and their breaths and made their way to the small clearing where Idril had set up their midday meal.

The assassin and the bard loved Little Elissa like they would a niece, and indeed, she called them her aunt and uncle (though the two never had any sexual relationship, much to the elf's slight disappointment). They taught her the ways of the rogue – how to move unnoticed, how to use daggers swiftly, how to talk with a silver tongue and, much to her parents' chagrin, how to pick locks and pockets. She was a fast learner and already at the age of six she showed promises of becoming great. Well, she was taught by the best.

The other darkspawn had backed away and were cackling wildly at the scene before them. The king and the ogre glared at each other for but a moment before the massive creature bent over and gave a deafening roar right in his face. Foul breath and droplets of poisonous spit flew from the rancid mouth of the darkspawn leader and showered the king. Alistair squinted, but held his ground firmly. This infuriated the creatures. "Somewhere".

Alistair hadn't been to Weisshaupt since the day he watched them put her into the cement casket beside the four other Grey Wardens who met the same fate as she.

It was many years ago now, perhaps 30 or so, and the old fortress had never looked better. The Wardens had reclaimed and restored much of the buildings and surrounding land, and were stronger in Ferelden than they had ever been before. He granted them much money from taxes and was highly involved in their politics, and as such finally accepted an invitation from their commander regarding important business and to attend a meeting in the fort.

His wife and daughter, now nine, had accompanied him, both wishing to see for themselves the great fortress they had heard so much of from the king. Zevran and Leliana had tagged along too, of course.

Alistair hadn't been there in so long because he didn't think he could stand to look down upon the grave of the woman he once knew, or up at the marble statue carved in her exact image.

But here he was, on this chilly Autumn afternoon, where the sun couldn't decide whether it wanted to be seen or not. He was standing there with his family and friends, and not one of them spoke. The soft wind blew dead leaves around their feet, and the vines were crawling their way up and around the statues and plaques. The king looked up into the stone face of his fellow Warden, which managed to capture much of her looks. He felt no hurt or sadness as he did so, much to his surprise. But there was something missing.

The statue, for all it's precision and accuracy, had not ensnared the spirit of Elissa Cousland. The haughty, stubborn, impulsive, unpredictable, yet deeply caring noblewoman that few really knew was not shown in the sculpture.

It did not tell the story, her story, and how she had loved, lost, rejected, and loved again.

How she was saved by a bumbling idiot and a band of misfits.

That she had to make immensely difficult choices that would always condemn some, no matter how hard she tried.

How heavy her burdens were at times, and how she was not the unbreakable, faultless, untouchable hero that legend had fashioned.

It saddened the king that so many admired her and loved her, yet almost no one knew her. That no one, after he and his friends were gone, ever would. This exceptional woman deserved so much more than a statue made of stone.

But he resigned to the fact that he, at least, had known and loved her.

Maybe that was enough.

Maybe that was all she needed.

He walked over to the statue and placed a single red rose near her feet and above the inscription that read 'ELISSA COUSLAND - HERO OF FERELDEN, CONQUERER OF THE FIFTH BLIGHT, LEADER IN ALL THAT IS GOOD, AND FRIEND TO THOSE SHE LOVED - 9:30 DRAGON AGE'. He slowly ran his fingers over the smooth carved inscription of her name, and after a moment, his young daughter walked up beside him and took his hand. She pointed and asked who the statue was of.

The king smiled sadly, and simply told her she was a friend.

The ogre leader roared in fury and picked him up roughly. It brought the man very close to its face. The king did not struggle. He did not yell, and he did not fight. In that moment Alistair remembered how the previous king had died. Was he destined to end the same way – in the hands of an ogre? The creature tightened his grip on the king, and just when he thought he couldn't take any more pressure, the hideous monster hurled him with all it's might against the wall of the ancient dwarven stone halls. "Very Near".

It was a sizzling day in the city, in the height of summer, and the dust kicked up by the dry air was enough to choke you. Only young children ran through the city streets, their parents too hot and exhausted to venture past their front doors. And, of course, Little Elissa was out in the training grounds of the palace.

Sweat dripped from the face of the thirteen-year-old princess as she hacked and slashed at the straw dummies set up around her. She was alone in the yard, with only her young Mabari for company. The pup's sire was Kylo, and the princess was thrilled when the dog chose her as his master. For she had loved the old wardog that visited on occasion with the Teyrn of Highever, her father's friend.

Little Elissa was a rogue, and of course preferred her two daggers to the sword and shield. The daggers she was using were given to her by Zevran, and she treasured them greatly. They were of Antivan make, and so were extra sharp and relatively light. Perfect for assassins, the elf joked.

The young woman was erratic in her slashes, and one could tell she was easily becoming frustrated. The king was watching his daughter from a window in his study, and decided he better intervene before she hurt herself. As he stepped down into the yard, Little Elissa gave a frustrated and pained cry as she dropped her daggers, kicked them aside, and grasped her forearm. Her impatience had caused her to slip up, and she had cut through the armour her father had had made for her. It was not deep, and bled only a little, but what pained her more, as she told her father, was her ineptitude. She was too slow and clumsy, she voiced, and would never be learned in the art of stealth.

As he began to console her, she ignored him and picked up her daggers and started slashing at the dummies again. He smiled to himself. She never failed to surprise him. She was so like the original Elissa he had once known. His daughter was bold, and stubborn, and was not easily swayed. She was also a rogue, and a damned good one at that. He knew his daughter did not really think herself clumsy. It was just the heat and the dust getting to her. And, more likely, she was very upset over her mentor's recent death, and was venting her anger and sadness out in the courtyard. Her uncle Zevran had been dear to her, and for the past week or two she had been unapproachable.

She was exceptionally clever and could talk her way out of any problem. She had a good heart, too. And she had those deep grey eyes so alike Elissa Cousland's. The king decided it was time.

He rose to his feet, and went back into the palace, leaving his frustrated daughter to herself. He unlocked a chest in his room, the one that contained relics of his adventures, and, moving aside an old Highever shield, a few stone statuettes, and a golden helmet, he took out a bundle of cloth that wrapped a very special weapon. He sighed, and left the castle halls, coming back to the training grounds.

And it was there he gave Little Elissa a beautifully crafted wave-edged dagger known to some as the Rose's Thorn. It had once belonged to his fellow Grey Warden and had been her weapon of choice. She had handed it to him right before she ran towards the dragon that day, and the king knew now that she meant it to be given to one worthy of it.

His daughter stirred from her brooding anger and accepted with a wide-eyed smile, and quietly asked who it's former wielder was.

Alistair smiled sadly, and simply told her it once belonged to a friend. The young princess smiled knowingly.

And though she didn't say it, it meant more to her than all the gold her family possessed. And he could not have given it to anyone more deserving than the young woman who shared his blood and was nearly Elissa Cousland reincarnated.

Alistair heard, rather than felt, his body breaking. As he lie upon the cold stone floor, and saw the large, purulent feet of the ogre slowly approach him, and the other darkspawn dancing and cackling around them in the darkness, he went numb. Perhaps it was a last effort by his body to prevent further pain and save itself. Maybe it was the grace of the Maker, or the spirit of Elissa Cousland. Whatever the reason, he felt no pain, despite being wholly broken. And this is why, in his last moments, the king was able to rise to his knees and face the ogre leader. His armour was rent beyond repair, and his vision was waning, but he looked the snarling creature in the eyes. "Just around the corner".

You are standing on the top of Fort Drakon, heaving deep breaths as your armour, dented and splattered with blood, weighs you down immensely, your body and mind exhausted beyond compare, sword and shield in hand.

The massive black and deep purple creature, it's colour and scales eerily and deceivingly reminiscent of a peaceful night sky, splits the air as it roars in pain and fury. A final death cry, you realise.

And as you slowly turn your head to your left, your tired eyes meet the deep grey ones of your lover, your best friend, your sister-in-arms. And you notice something amiss in her misty orbs. Something akin to understanding, sadness, pity, sorrow, remembrance, fondness, regret, and love. They all flash through her mind and show in her eyes in fractions of a second, but you notice all of them.

Not guilt, though. No, there is no more guilt in her eyes any more.

But the last one, love, flashes for a moment and flickers, as if she is thinking back on her life, back to times you never knew, and came across this emotion, and was stumped. And her eyes, now burning with love, light up, and look so deep inside of you that you feel for a fraction of a moment that she has actually reached down and grabbed your mind, your heart, and your soul. Perhaps she has.

But before you can come to terms with what has just happened, she pulls her favourite dagger from the sheath, tosses it towards you, and breaks eye contact. She turns away, and your world slows down.

She is running, running so fast, and yet so slow. You drop your weapons and try to yell, but nothing comes out.

The dragon is roaring, the city is burning, the sky has opened up, and little golden flecks of fiery embers swirl around the body of the slowly running woman. It is a beautiful sight. You don't think you have seen anything so magnificent in all your days.

And, after a thousand lifetimes, she grabs a simple longsword protruding from the chest of some dead body. Darkspawn or human, it doesn't matter now. After a thousand more, she approaches the ferocious snarling midnight dragon, absolutely mad with pain and rage.

She kneels and raises her sword, and you can see it all the way from here that her actions are deliberate, and have a smoothness and a force behind them that you have witnessed countless times before. But there is purpose behind them, which you have never seen. A resolute drive, one with finality, and the acceptance of the inevitable.

And it is here that you suddenly and finally realise what is about to happen. Your heart drops through the hard stone floor of the fort, your limbs go numb, and your tired brain wheels uncontrollably into overdrive, your mind spitting out images, ideas, and alternate outcomes, doing anything and everything in it's power to come up with a solution to prevent what is about to happen.

But you know, deep inside, that this is it. The end is so close. Nothing you do now will change the will of the Maker.

You manage a weak, strangled yell this time, and watch in horror and awe as the sword slices effortlessly through the scaled neck of the writhing monster, bright red blood spattering the dented, worn silver armour of the creature's slayer. The enraged dragon thrashes it's enormous body around in white-hot agony, swirling even more tiny, fiery embers through the smoky air. The woman hears your call, and slowly turns her head in your direction.

And this is when you know that your light hazel eyes will gaze their last upon the deep grey ones. The ones of the person whose life you saved and is forever bound to your own.

There is a power behind that last glance, you can tell, and you can feel it wind its way around your body like thick cords, tightening slowly, until you cannot move. It is not uncomfortable, though, and not wholly restraining, more like a hand placed gently on a friend's shoulder than a harsh grip.

Your body is rooted to the spot by the power of her gaze, but your soul is as free as the wind. And like it, it flutters softly towards the essence of the only other warden in all of Ferelden.

And though you are not there in body as she plunges her sword into the thick skull of the corrupted Old God in the form of a dragon, you know you are with her as she departs from this world, and you can feel the God steal away her life, seeping it like water from her body. A piece of you attaches itself onto the passing soul, because you can feel it.

And for a moment you are one.

You can see in your mind's eye people and places you've never seen, but you know them as well as she does. You feel every emotion coursing through her at this moment, and the physical white-hot pain of the God stealing her life. It is almost unbearable.

You share in her suffering and together, you destroy the monster.

You watch as the light leaves her eyes, and you know this is as good a farewell as you will ever get. And you know that she is grateful for you being here with her, and you know that she loves you, because it is the last thought she ever has.

And when the world explodes in a blinding blaze of light and you and your companions are thrown from your feet, you know she is gone. You know because that little part of you is not here anymore, and you know that it never will be again.

.

.

This last memory comes flooding into your mind after thirty-five years. You've buried it so deep and for so long that you forgot exactly what happened that day. But here it is. You are not afraid of it anymore, though, and rather welcome it. The puzzle pieces, the real ones, finally find where they belong, and it all comes together. You can see it now. It's all part of the world's greatest story, waiting all these long years to be told. And the end is so close.

.

.

Alistair was fading.

He felt himself being dragged back into somewhere by an invisible force. He no longer felt the surge of youth and life renewed as he so recently had. He felt like the old worn man his years had given him. He was weak and tired. He was not afraid of death any more.

He was ready to die.

He was going home.

The massive ogre drew a gigantic cleaver from it's sheath on it's back and raised it high above it's head. And then, more memories flooded the king's failing mind.

Just small ones, insignificant ones, but they meant everything to him.

A full moon over a lakeshore.

A sly smile from a stranger.

The distant bark of a war dog.

A battlefield view from a bridge.

The sun peeking through the leaves.

A flicker of light from the top of a tower.

A figure standing in the snow.

The flash of silver daggers.

The laugh of a friend.

A beech tree on a hill.

A rose twirling in his hands.

The roar of a dragon.

The faces of his friends and family, and their voices too.

In the last seconds of his life, as the cleaver came down slowly, ever so slowly, not fast enough for the king, he saw her again. Just a flash, but she was more solid, more beautiful, more real than he'd ever seen her in life. She smiled at him, and reached out for him. And that piece of himself that had been lost ever since the day she left him found it's way back.

And as he looked into her deep grey eyes again, and reached out and grasped her hand, the cleaver came down upon the king.

In a blinding flash of light, and a note of song deeper than the abyss and higher than the firmament, Alistair, bastard child, former Templar, Grey Warden, adventurer, hero, king, lover, husband, father, friend, a broken and mended man, was gone.

He ran to his fate with a sword in his hands like death was nothing at all.

"All is well".