Written from a prompt to look at different characters at different ages; this specific one was for Anora at age thirteen. Alternately, it's also my Elissa at age five, and plants the first seeds of a feud between the two that will go on for the rest of their lives. As always, I'm just playing in Bioware's sandbox.

The girl was a tempest, and Anora had scarcely set foot in Castle Cousland before she heard the child like a storm just over the horizon. Somewhere just above the courtyard where her father was greeted by the teyrn and his wife there was the sound of a battle, and when the tree nearest the wall shook Anora was shocked—and yet not—when a small girl tumbled out of the branches, her toy sword not far away and a pot lid shield thumping her solidly in the head as it fell after her. Black braids had long since been pulled loose, and a mass of waves, leaves, and twigs surrounded the little girl's shoulders like a dark cloud.

Teyrna Eleanor excused herself and hurried over to check on her daughter, but the little girl just laughed as dodged out of her mother's way and ran for her father instead. Scooping her up without a thought, the teyrn picked some of the more obvious debris out of her hair as he turned back to Anora's father. "Loghain, you haven't met my youngest yet, have you? Elissa, pup, show some manners and introduce yourself to the teyrn."

The little girl squirmed back out of her father's grasp and performed a clumsy curtsey. "Good afternoon, milord. My papa says you're a hero, is'at true? My name's Elssa and I'm going to be a hero too, and a princess, and a Grey Warden and when I get bigger papa's going to find me a griffon to ride!" She had a slight lisp, and she spoke so quickly that one word tumbled into the next. Overall, though, she seemed sweet in spite of her… excitement. Enthusiasm. That was a more accurate term.

"Is that so?" Anora watched in amusement as her father kneeled down to face the girl, pretending to measure her up. He had done much the same with her when she was the about same age, and recently Anora had begun to wonder if her father remembered how to smile. "You seem a bit scrawny yet. Bryce, what have you been feeding this one? She'll never grow big enough to fit on a griffon's back at this rate."

"She's not any scrawnier than I was at her age, father," Anora laughed as she came to kneel alongside the girl as well. "How old are you? Six?"

Elissa's face lit up at the attention. "Nu-uh! I just turned five last winter!"

Standing and brushing the dust from her skirts, Anora put one arm around the girl's shoulder as she turned back to her father. "See? Five years old. She's a perfectly good size for her age."

"Still too small for a hero, yet though. Now then, Bryce, have you some place we can speak before supper, and someplace my daughter can clean up from the trip?"

"Of cour—"

"She can use my room to rest and get pretty again!" Elissa interrupted, tugging impatiently at Anora's hand. "It's right this way, miss..." Her face scrunched up as she realized she didn't know what to call her new friend.

Kneeling again, Anora whispered her name in Elissa's ear. "…Anora! You can use my room, it's this way!"

The younger girl started pulling at her arm again, and Anora let herself be pulled along with a smile. "Don't worry, your Grace," she laughed as they passed the teyrna, "I'll get her cleaned up as well."

As Elissa led them through the winding corridors, Anora couldn't help but wonder if they were taking a detour of some sort. Sure enough, they passed through the teyrn's kennels, a portion of the barracks, and a practice yard before the dark-haired girl instructed her to wait in a passageway near the kitchens. Minutes later, Elissa ran out again, squealing and laughing and with her arms full of pilfered sweets. Anora chased after her, but this time their path seemed to lead to the family quarters on the upper floors.

At the top of a flight of stairs the girl struggled to push open a door and dropped half of her loot in the process; once that obstacle was finally clear Elissa took off again through the next two doors, the first straight ahead and the second just to the left. Depositing what remained of her treasure on a table just inside the room, she spun around to face Anora with a proud grin on her face. "See? These are my rooms, and we have goodies for dessert after supper tonight!"

"Do you often have to… provide… your own dessert, Elissa?"

The little girl nodded. "Mama always says I speak out of turn too much, and papa sometimes too. They say I have to be a lady if I want dessert after supper." She paused, biting at one of her nails. "I don't think mama and papa know I know how to get into the larder to get my own sweets. Please don't tell 'em, Miss Anora, they'll put extra latches on the door that I can't reach to undo."

"I'll keep your secret this time," Anora began, "on one condition. I promised your mother that I'd make sure you're cleaned up by the time our fathers are done talking. Deal?"

Elissa pointed through another door on the left wall. "Nan keeps enough water in there for me to wash up after fighting dragons. Although, I didn't find any dragons today, just that witch in that tree earlier."

"Well, why don't we start there? I think my dress is still good enough, but we need to get you one that's not torn."

"Ah… I'm not allowed to wear those ones unless Mama says I can. Those are saved for when we visit Denerim, or when really important people come to visit. Before, I used to wear the pretty ones more, but then some of them got ripped up, too."

Kneeling down and taking the girl's hands in hers, Anora pretended to glance around for spies. "What if I told you that I'm going to marry Prince Cailan someday? And that when he becomes king, I'll be queen? Do you think you mother will let you wear one of the pretty dresses for me?"

"You'll tell her it's okay for me to wear one of my good dresses?"

"You've got to clean up, first."

Elissa darted toward the dressing room, and then immediately back out again. "I don't have to wash my hair, do I?"

"Let me see you," Anora instructed. "No, I think once we brush you out properly your hair should be fine. But get that dirt off so I can see if you have any scrapes from that fall and then I'll braid your hair like mine if you like."

More than half an hour passed before the older girl was satisfied with Elissa's condition. Through some miracle, Anora found only a single bruise on the girl's shoulder—from where the witch hit me with her spell, she was informed—so shortly afterward they picked out a pale green dress from the wardrobe for her to wear to supper.

They sat quietly for a while as Anora brushed and braided Elissa's dark hair, wrapping and pinning it carefully into a crown over the little girl's head. Then suddenly, when Anora was about half finished, Elissa finally spoke again.

"Miss Anora, do you know how to fight?"

"I'm much better at hunting than fighting," she replied cautiously, remembering Elissa's entrance earlier that morning, "but yes. My father believed I should be able to defend myself if necessary."

"Could you teach me?"

"I don't think that would be wise, Elissa. Your parents might not approve, and I probably don't know enough to be a very good teacher."

The little girl sighed dramatically. "You mean my mama might not approve."

"But your mother has the right not to approve. Besides, don't you want to be a lady someday? I used to fight dragons and witches when I was your age, too, but when girls grow up they have to learn to be ladies."

"So… when you become queen, are you saying you won't fight anymore?"

Anora smiled, but was distant when she replied. "Ladies don't fight with swords, Elissa, if they fight at all. And a queen's purpose isn't to fight anyway. A queen is there to inspire her people, to give hope to them when they need it."

"So you won't fight anymore."

"No, probably not."

"But what if Ferelden is attacked? What if there's a blight or something? Can't you be queen and give hope by fighting the bad guys?"

"Don't be a goose, there won't be a blight anytime that we have to worry about."

Scowling, Elissa pulled away before Anora could finish her braid and turned on the older girl. "You don't know that," she accused. "What about Queen Rowan? Or the king's mama, the Rebel Queen? They both fought, and they were ladies!"

"It's not that a lady can't fight if she has to, but they don't go looking for fights, either."

"You said ladies don't fight with swords."

"Ladies don't," Anora replied, slightly irritated, "unless they absolutely must. Queen Moira and Queen Rowan weren't normal queens. There was awar going then, and they had no choice."

"Would you fight if there was a war?"

"Elissa, that's hardly relevant…"

"Would you, though?"

"I…"

The little girl's shoulders slumped when Anora didn't answer. "I thought, since your papa was Teyrn Loghain, that you'd be a good, strong queen like Rowan and Moira were. But you'd just let other people fight for you, wouldn't you?"

"Elissa…"

Anora had reached out to the girl, but Elissa shrugged her off. "Leave me alone. It's not like you'll help if I'm ever in trouble. You're too much of a lady to help anyone." With that Elissa stormed into her bedroom and slammed the door behind her. Anora waited a bit for Elissa to come back, but it wasn't until she stood to leave that the bedroom door opened again and a red-faced Elissa glared at her.

"I'm going to prove you wrong when I get big enough, Lady Anora. I'll prove that you can be a lady and still fight, and that you can fight and still be a lady. And maybe I'll find a prince too, and I'll grow up and marry him someday, and when I get to be queen of someplace I'll still fight for people who need me. Then you'll see."

The door slammed again. Not knowing what else to do, Anora let herself out of the front room and made her way to the guest quarters until supper.