Chapter Twenty-Nine: To Each His Own

"I didn't see the assassin leave with the other warden," Sten remarked as they cleaned their blades free of mercenary blood after an encounter with Loghain's hired thugs and apostate witch just beyond the slope leading to the massive entrance to Orzammar.

"Zevran?" Leliana extracted, arching an eyebrow as she took Teagan's hand by way of his assistance in helping her up the ill-maintained, crumbling steps that led to the main thoroughfare of the trading hub high in the mountains. "No, I didn't see him go with them either. How odd."

"If Mordred sent him one way or another, on one errand or another," Fergus interjected testily, "it's little of our concern at the moment."

"But much of my curiosity," said Teagan, stealing another glance at Leliana and relinquishing her hand with much regret, "I must admit. The warden-commander seems a man who would hardly let a resource go to waste; he must have a plot underway, some reconnaissance at hand for his comrade. Mordred's a sharp one, for all of his youth and being shut up in the Circle for many of those years."

"That's not even his real name," Fergus muttered, looping the reins of his horse around one wrist and guiding it off of a side path into a clearing sparsely populated by leafless trees, dark branches swaying in the winter wind. "Hopefully we just bid a final farewell to the last of the Regent's men here. Sten, you'll stay and watch the horses with Niall. Hopefully, we'll be in and out of Orzammar before anyone has to shake the snow from the tents."

"That would be nice," Niall replied fervently, already shivering in the chill as Sten nodded, saying, "As you must, kadan."

"If we're inside for a while, feel free to go and do as you need at the market up the hill," Fergus continued. "Food, ale, blankets, whatever you need, my coin will see to it. I don't envy you, being out here, but it's a necessary task when we've got the benefit of traveling on horseback and someone's got to do it. If we're to be inside for a decent amount of time and they've got suitable accommodation for horses, we'll come and get you."

That being done, Fergus, Leliana, Teagan, and Alistair started back up the slope to the hub of activity that marked the entrance to the last surviving dwarven stronghold in Ferelden. The four travelers melted smoothly into the bustle of trade, the throngs of scavengers, surface dwarves, and the rare surface collector of dwarven arms and artifacts. Everyone had something to buy and something to sell. Both customers and merchants were completely invested in their commerce, leaving Fergus's eyes and mind to wander as they passed through the raised center of the market, the massive doors into the mountainside looming ahead.

Where was Zevran if he was not with Mordred? The warden-commander had implied heavily that the assassin would be accompanying him and Morrigan to Vigil's Keep, had remarked implicitly that the elf preferred the company of the Cousland daughter to the Cousland son. And yet two accounts claimed that they had not seen Zevran leave with the other party. Had the elf given them the slip? Or was Mordred, once again, up to mischief he hadn't seen fit to confide in Fergus?

Misgivings aside, it was as he had said to Sten and Leliana before: it had little to do with the task at hand. Given the gravity of that task, Fergus was loathe to let wonderings and theories absorb any energy that could be put forward to attaining Orzammar's aid against the Blight as smoothly and swiftly as possible.

Excepting, of course, the possibility of an attempted knife in the back, however unlikely that might be; Fergus thought they would all do well to pay attention to that, should it come to pass. There was no telling where the claimed former Antivan Crow's loyalties truly lay.

Of course, there was really no telling where anyone's loyalties truly rested. Sten, Niall, Alistair, Leliana, even Teagan; they could all be suspect.

"Somewhere in Howe's twisted little mind, he probably has it all worked out that he killed you for the good of Ferelden. He must; I don't know how else he could live with himself. He didn't trust you and he didn't trust Mother and that all started somewhere. I don't want this 'trust no one' to be the start for me."

Fergus pinched his temples between the thumb and forefinger of his right hand and sighed at the memory of his own avid declaration to the shade of his father.

"Oh, that man does look angry, doesn't he, the one with the dwarf guard? I do think he's actually stamping his foot. Maybe we ought to stall a bit, wait our turn."

"Don't be ridiculous," Fergus muttered by way of Alistair's suggestion and led the way up the shallow stone steps to Orzammar's entrance proper.

"I am King Loghain's appointed messenger," an ill-shaven soldier in the pale violet of drakeskin-scaled armor, "and he demands the allegiance of the deshyr or lords or… or whatever you call them in your Assembly! I will not be turned away like a page at the door."

"King Loghain," Fergus repeated and the messenger turned around to glare at the nobleman in response. "That's new."

"But hardly unexpected," Teagan commented. "I told you he was setting up the play."

"I just didn't think he would go about it quite so ham-fistedly."

"If you have something to say about your king," the messenger said shortly, "speak it plainly."

Fergus looked to Teagan. "Was I not clear? Did I mumble?"

"I don't know," replied his old friend, also clearly enjoying this, "maybe the esteemed errand boy is just hard of hearing."

"By the sodding Paragons," the dwarven guard cursed, "if you humans want to have a pissing contest, do it on someone else's watch. Say what you came here to say and be gone. Or maybe I can save you some breath and tell you –remind you as I have been telling some of you for the last week," he added with an irritated look at Loghain's messenger, "–that Orzammar is closed to outsiders while our Assembly deliberates."

"You would deny the King of Ferelden his due respect," fumed the messenger.

"Nobody I know voted for him. Don't see how a piece of metal on his head does us any good when we don't have a king of our own for him to trade crown-wearing tips with."

Fergus was surprised that Alistair, given his vendetta against the regent on the late Duncan's behalf, hadn't spoken out himself –and perhaps given them all away in the process. But it seemed the former templar was preoccupied with the gravity of the task ahead of him, of becoming a Grey Warden in name as well as deed, contrary to the usual challenge, of having no greater fear but that of recognition.

Eamon had certainly done a number on the poor fool.

Without looking at him, Fergus reached back to take hold of Alistair's shoulder and drag him forward, muttering, "Well, go on. Just like we talked about."

The young Grey Warden swallowed hard and looked to Leliana and Teagan as though for reassurance. The latter was seemingly too occupied with taking the measure of Loghain's courier to look back at his brother's former ward, but the former nodded encouragingly with a heartfelt smile that made something twist in Fergus's stomach. They had not spoken of or acknowledged their discussion some nights ago in any way, save a casual mention from Fergus to Teagan that they would have to part ways briefly after business was concluded in Orzammar to see to an affair in the capital.

And perhaps that was for the best. As this haphazard encounter with Loghain's courier indicated, there was too much invested already, too many wild cards in play, to bet anything on an emotional entanglement. Besides, it wasn't right, wasn't honorable, so soon after—

"Right," Alistair said with a second nervous gulp of air. Stepping forward while the courier's attention was focused on Fergus and Teagan, he pulled a bit of tattered parchment from the pouch at his belt. "Pardon me, but if you're done here, which it seems you are," he added hastily with a glance at the messenger, "I've got this paper –treaty actually –from your Assembly, if you could take a quick look —alright."

Patience apparently exhausted by the other visitors from the surface, the guard had snatched the treaty Mordred had entrusted Alistair with from the Grey Warden's grip. "Careful," Alistair squawked. "It's very old. And fragile."

"Should've carved it into a tablet if you wanted it to last," the guard snorted, brown eyes quickly scanning the faded ink on the unrolled scroll. Fergus casually rested one hand on his sword's hilt, all too aware of the bright gaze of Loghain's courier looking on.

Alistair wrung his hands, fingers plucking at the material of his gloves, until Fergus caught his eye, imploring him to extrude a bit more confidence. The younger man ducked his head a bit, neck flushing a slight crimson, but his hands dropped to his belt and his shoulders straightened some. Satisfied, Fergus looked back to the guard for his reaction.

Slowly and with surprising care, the dwarf rolled the ancient treaty back up and handed it back to Alistair. "Atrast vala, Grey Warden. You should have made yourself known, although I don't know what aid you think you'll find here in these circumstances. This contract compels a king and we have none as of late, despite what some seem to think," he added, irked, with a look at the meddling courier.

"Oh," Alistair blinked. "Then, well, what do you have?"

"A kinslayer and an old man, if you believe the town criers," was the weary reply. "The truth is that one is just a rumor and the other is unfortunately a fact."

"The only facts here is that you have a kingslayer on your doorstep," Loghain's messenger spat out. "The Grey Wardens turned on their own king in the field. How d'you think your deshyrs will fare with them and no doubt a couple of miscellaneous traitors besides?" he added with a scathing look at Fergus, Leliana, and Teagan.

"Kingslayer?" Alistair yelped. "I, for one, was nowhere near Cailan at Ostagar, wasn't even on the battlefield, and the only one of us who was with the king was Duncan who was an honorable—"

But Fergus barely noticed Alistair's affronted objections. Turning to Teagan and Leliana, he remarked, "I am getting really sick of being called that word."

"Which word?" Teagan asked, mischief in his eye as he consented to playing along.

"Traitor."

"It does wear on the ears after a while," Leliana agreed.

"And a filthy Orlesian for company," the courier noted scornfully. "It would figure."

"I thought I said I wasn't hosting any pissing contests," the dwarven guard barked as Fergus and Teagan reached for their blades. "What is wrong with you surfacers, trying to settle a score whenever and wherever? Get yourselves a Proving and be done with it."

"He's not worth it," Leliana said to Fergus and Teagan, dismissing the ill-mouthed messenger with a wave of her hand. Smiling prettily at the guard, she asked, "But you'll allow us passage, yes? Perhaps your Assembly will come to a resolution soon. If that comes to pass, the Wardens will want to call in their contract as soon as possible."

"Pray to the Ancestors that it does come to pass." The guard exhaled heavily, running callused fingers through his braided beard. With a shake of his head as though he could not quite wrap his head around what he was about to say, he sighed again. "Fine, go on through. But don't cause trouble."

"Wait!" It was the courier's turn to squawk in outrage. "You're letting them in?"

The guard sighed heavily a third time and cradled his forehead in his palm. "Shouldn't have said that," he muttered. "Should not have said that. Now he's going to want to get it and then it'll be the merchants and next the scavengers and it will never end and my ears will start ringing all over again…"

"You're going to let in," the courier stammered, "you're –you're really going to let in this… this… traitor Warden and his traitor friends?! And an Orlesian! An Orlesian on top of everything else! And everyone else, no doubt," he added with another brutally contemptuous look at Leliana.

"Oh, quit your wiming and waming, surfacer—Partha!"

This time not even Leliana's insistence that it wasn't worth it could stop Fergus and Teagan from yanking their blades from their scabbards. With typical nobleman's grace, the latter settled into a fencing stance, at the ready to defend the honor of the lady with which he had become so enamored of late in courtly fashion, but Fergus saw little need for such pretense –even if it was pretense that "gentlemen" such as Teagan bought wholly into.

In these dark days it seemed that the only place for such gentlemen was six feet under.

With lazily brutal grace, Fergus disarmed the messenger with even as the poor fool pulled his weapon from its sheath and lunged forward, sliding his own blade along the outside of his opponent's and jerking inward, the other blade flying through the air past Alistair and clattering against the stone steps beyond.

By reflex, the courier reached for the accompanying dagger on his belt, but Fergus raised an eyebrow, sword still pointed at his opponent's chest, and the man dropped his hand back to his side. "Do you have a name?" he inquired with seemingly misplaced courtesy.

"Imrek," the messenger spat out, ears burning as red as Alistair's sometimes did at the humiliation of it. "Ser Imrek."

"So apparently all a man needs for a knighthood these days is blind loyalty and a relentless loathing for Orlais," Teagan remarked disdainfully. "Couldn't even handle a blade. Pitiful."

"I don't know," Fergus commented idly in return. "I'm not sure I would blame his failure at swordplay. I am pretty great."

"And modest."

"I didn't come here alone!" Imrek insisted, backing up as Fergus walked forward, the point of his sword consistently close to the man's chest. "One way or another, Loghain will hear of this! He'll see all of you quartered!"

"And will he send his army to wait for us outside of Orzammar?" Teagan inquired. "I think not. He doesn't really have one; that's the choice he made when he left Cailan to die with the royal army and any men that he does have are caught up in his foolish little civil war in the Bannorn. Or are you saying he'll come personally?"

"That'd be a welcome sight," Alistair agreed, a surprisingly dark smile spreading across his boyish face.

"Can you ask him to bring Howe along?"

"Oh, mon Dieu, you all are such boys," Leliana exclaimed, nearly cutting Fergus's query off and storming forward to place a gloved hand upon the heir to Highever's forearm and pushing his blade down to point at the floor. "Let the poor idiot go," she said and then added with a roll of her eyes: "I can hardly be offended by what isn't true."

Again, there was that strange twist in his gut and Fergus let his sword arm drop and his blade to fall lax. She looked back at him, copper braid whipping across her nose in the winter gust, as though she knew what he was feeling as "Ser" Imrek took the unearned opportunity to launch himself down the stone steps, fleeing the scene as quickly as his legs would carry him.

"You never let me kill them," he said to her, aware of Teagan and Alistair's presence and unable to say –or acknowledge –anything else.

"Don't expect that to change," she replied, equally inadequate to the meaningful look she exchanged with him in return. Her pale blue eyes softened some, a bit of melancholy swimming in their depths, and she added more quietly, "I certainly don't."

And with that last sentiment, Fergus wondered at whose words she was really responding to –his own indignation about the limitations on manslaughter or her own remark about what she claimed couldn't be offended by.

"Are you quite done?" the dwarven guard demanded gruffly. "I've half a mind to take back my offer about admittance into the city after that little display."

"It's not like I killed him," Fergus complained.

"But you'll still let us in, right?" asked Alistair hastily, worried.

The guard sighed and took a moment to consider. "Well, you did manage to get rid of Loghain's toady, which has endeared you to me somewhat," he replied. "Go on through –and don't cause any trouble."

The massive doors into the dwarven city finally stretched open to admit the Grey Warden and his companions into the halls of the dwarven kings, the sorry scrap of ancient parchment still pinched between Alistair's fingers, fluttering weakly in the breeze. It was such a small thing to have won them this favor of entrance; Fergus already doubted it alone would be nearly enough to claim the dwarven troops needed to defeat the Blight.


It was not. And after the little glimpse into the inner workings of the dwarven Assembly and the characters of the two candidates for the crown, Fergus wondered why he had ever thought the Landsmeet painfully complicated.

He also was rather certain that he would grow to hate Orzammar by the time this business was done.

"Cheer up," Teagan implored him as they took their leave of Steward Bandelor and set out into the polished streets of the Diamond Quarter. "At least they're giving us and rooms in the palace."

"And I shudder to think of who will occupy that palace when the Assembly finally comes to a decision," Fergus replied darkly. "The guard was right: we have a choice between an ingratiating possible kinslayer and a decrepit, isolationist old man."

"They said we could bring our horses down here too," Alistair mentioned, but looked up at the cavern ceiling with a worried crease between his eyes. "I don't think they'll like it here much."

"I don't think I'm going to like it here much."

"Fergus," Leliana began to object, but Teagan cut her off, equally reproving. "Fergus, there isn't much of a choice, I agree," his long-term friend said, "but we don't have much of a choice either. Speaking plainly, we need to get a king's arse on that seat, one that will support us against the Blight and against Loghain, and be done with it."

Fergus's mood, already soured by his meeting with Eliante a week prior, spoiled further by his ridiculous unspoken game he couldn't seem to untangle himself from with Leliana, and darkened still by the very distinct knowledge that it shouldn't be him having to deal with these stuffed shirts of the Assembly, that it should have been Mordred, finally lost its forced steady veneer.

"Last I checked, Teagan," he said, starting calmly, "you weren't coming with us to deal with dwarven politics. You were coming to secure a new source for the arl's drugs. So I don't know what you're meaning by this 'we' business, but I don't think it means what you think it means.

"Meanwhile, I took a look at those two in the Assembly, the Lord Harrowmont and the Prince Bhelen, and all I saw were a couple of opportunists that will back out of any deal we make the moment the shiny crown is on their head. Harrowmont has no interest in the surface; he's actively trying to keep his people from it. And Bhelen… I wouldn't trust him as far as I can throw him. I don't doubt for a second that he didn't arrange for his brother to be killed and his sister to be tossed out into the Deep Roads like a…" He swallowed hard and went on, "like a traitor. They'll persuade us and use us to their own advantage and, who knows, maybe they will give us a bit of paper that promises an army at our backs."

"Fergus, please," Leliana whispered desperately. "People can hear you." But he didn't care very much.

To make his point, he turned about and took the treaty that Alistair still held from the Warden's hands and thrust it forward for Teagan to see. "But they already did all of that," Fergus stated grimly. "We can do them favors abundant but I don't want to turn around when I'm facing the Archdemon and its horde, waiting for an army of dwarves, and see an empty field. This is just a piece of paper, Teagan. They give us another one; it'll still just be another pretty bit of paper to them."

"Fergus," Leliana said again, almost pleading with him to lower his voice as she looked about at the bustle of the Diamond Quarter. It was, in retrospect Fergus would decide, a very good thing that most nobles didn't deign to walk the streets and most servants seemed preoccupied with accomplishing whatever errand they had been sent on.

Teagan looked long and hard at his friend, handsome face like stone. Fergus knew very well that he had insulted both Teagan and his brother in his little speech, but did not regret doing so. What he said was true; Teagan had come to Orzammar for a very different reason than the rest of them, and if he wanted to play Grey Warden, he could take the Joining and be done with it.

Fergus decided he could deal with the personal hypocrisy of that internal opinion later. Right now, he looked back at Teagan, equally unmoved, and said, "You all can sit pretty in the palace if you want. I'm going to go and find out who is really fighting the darkspawn around here."

And then, he stalked out through the Diamond Quarter's glimmering doors, taking the steps down into the Commons two at a time, for the first time in what felt like an eternity not caring who followed him, not caring if he looked like a child throwing a tantrum. He knew what a leader looked like, and that was not Pyral Harrowmont. He knew what a man who kept his word looked like, and that was not Bhelen Aeducan. There had to be another way, and he was going to find it.

He went into the Commons for answers and inevitably found himself at Tapster's Tavern. All of the merchants and guards had been strangely tightlipped about the circumstances of King Endrin's death and resulting squabble over Bhelen's ascension; it made Fergus wonder. If it had been Ferelden and the king had died under mysterious circumstances, the gossips and fishwives would be having a field day.

As they no doubt had been for the last six months since Ostagar.

"King Loghain," Fergus said to himself, twisting the cup of exquisitely terrible dwarven ale between his palms on the hewn stone table, repeating what the courier had said at the gates. "King Loghain Mac Tir of Ferelden."

Somehow, he didn't think that would pan out well with the Landsmeet. If one nobleman could rise up to take the throne, especially one whose father had been knighted the night he had died, if legends spoke the truth, every nobleman from Eamon Guerrin to Bann Ceorlic of the south would try to. It would start a pattern where no king would be safe that could take centuries to break.

He didn't think Orlais would think much of the crown on the Teyrn of Gwaren's head either. It was deliberately provocative, to crown the one man in Ferelden who hated their neighboring nation the most. Which no doubt the man himself didn't mind… nor did he mind spilling quite a bit of blood in the process, it seemed.

Cailan had been Loghain's family by marriage. Maric had been like his brother. Cailan's child would have been of Mac Tir blood.

Of course, the same could be said of Bryce Cousland and Rendon Howe, even more so if Eliante and Nathaniel's marriage had gone through.

It seemed there was no shortage of kinslayers each and every way one looked.

But what stake did Rendon Howe have in this? Fergus demanded of himself an answer as the flames crackled in the background and some sort of celebration went on in the main of the room, beyond the partition of sand-colored stone and iron railing Fergus sat behind with his untouched ale. What was the bastard really playing for? He had become the largest landowner in Ferelden, certainly, but hardly the richest once the debts and costs of this civil war in the North would rack up. The crown wasn't sitting on his head and if Rendon Howe couldn't stand to walk half a step behind Bryce Cousland, Fergus didn't give half a farthing for how long such deference to Loghain Mac Tir and his common bloodlines would last.

He supposed it was too much to hope that this king thing was a move on Loghain's own part and that a wedge had been driven between the teyrn of Gwaren and the new arl of Denerim.

Loghain becomes king. Anora hands over her crown to her father, but unless he remarries and has a son, it's only a temporary loan. King or queen, the ruler of Ferelden has got to have an heir if he or she doesn't want her country to dissolve into civil war all over again.

So who does Anora marry?

It can't be Rendon himself, Fergus deemed as he once again attempted to swallow a mouthful of ale without spitting the foul stuff straight back into the cup. The both of them widowed or no, that wouldn't go over well and Loghain couldn't be such a terrible judge of character to trust his only daughter to such a snake. And Howe must know this…

Nathaniel then. Or Thomas. Fergus could almost hear Howe's voice in his head, weighing each of his sons in the balance and deciding that either would do well enough. Except that Nathaniel was with Eliante, in the North. How that must infuriate his father…

But there was still Thomas. Fergus remembered the boy well enough; he had the Bryland looks and the Howe coloring where Nathaniel had inherited both. A handsome enough boy, if Anora didn't mind his youth, but an utter drunkard, if gossip spoke true. And Thomas had never gotten away from Rendon, whereas Nathaniel had run away to the Free Marches ages ago…

So the course was clear: when the time came, they would have to get Anora away from Rendon Howe and perhaps her father too, Fergus determined. And then what?

Alistair could claim the throne, he supposed, but he doubted the Grey Warden would do very well without someone holding his hand every step of the way. And Fergus knew full well who that someone would be and he liked the idea not one bit. And besides: weren't Grey Wardens supposed to stay out of politics?

But if one ignored that detail, he imagined that Alistair could marry Anora, in theory. He doubted Anora would much care for the idea of wedding a man so alike to Cailan in so many ways, and many of them the worst. But it might do, if she could be brought around to it, and to the idea of having Eamon Guerrin practically in bed with them. Fergus certainly wouldn't like that, if he were her.

He could marry Anora.

Almost as soon as the notion was conceived, he dismissed it. Fergus Cousland liked smiling women, charming women, not women whose lips moved but their fathers' voices came out, which was no doubt what he would get out of the bargain of a royal marriage with her. No. Just like with the madness of Bhelen, Harrowmont, and the dwarven Assembly, a new option had to be found.

"Eh, are you gonna drink that?"

Broken out of his reverie, Fergus looked to his left to find that a stout dwarf with flaming hair and beard had come up alongside his solitary table to eye the mug of swill he was attempting to nurse. Of all of the dwarves that he had spoken to over the course of the day, not one of them had seemed genuine in their answers or willingness to assist. This one, at the very least, seemed genuinely interested in his drink. Fergus stared.

"I would say, 'are you gonna finish that?'" the red-bearded dwarf added with a burp, "but I don't think you ever really even started that, did you, topsider?"

Taking another look at his mug of questionable ale, Fergus shrugged and passed it over. The dwarf drained it without flinching and then belched. "You topsiders never can drink our swill," he muttered, "but at least you had the decency to hand it over to someone who can stomach the stuff.

Oddly charmed, Fergus didn't immediately retort against the dwarf's rudeness. Perhaps it was the novelty of someone talking straight to him for the first time in weeks that caused him to abstain from doing so. "You're a quiet sort," the dwarf observed. "I like that. Name's Oghren, but the ladies like to pronounce it 'Ohhhhh-ghren,' if you know what I'm saying."

"I think I know a mage whom you would get along swimmingly with," Fergus remarked idly, settling back into his chair as Oghren swung himself, plate-armor and all, onto the bench.

"One o' those skirt-wearers with the sparky hands," Oghren distilled, shifting in his seat with the screech of rusted metal scraping against itself. "Yeah, I know of 'em. But I don't know of any dwarf sparky-hands, much less lady ones, and I'm not sure what I'd be supposed to do with those legs…"

Fergus choked slightly. "I'm sure you'd think up something," he replied hastily, trying to dispel the mental image of a certain young woman of recent acquaintance and how long her legs had been revealed to be when she had exchanged a Chantry robe for an archer's arms and weaponry.

"Aye," Oghren agreed glumly, "but I'd probably have run out of time by the time I got my thinking done, if you know what I mean. So what brings a topsider to Tapster's? Would've figured you'd get your drinking done with the pansy-footed nobles of the Diamond Quarter and their fancy imported wine, rubbing noses and making nice."

"I'm sure my friend is," Fergus returned, thinking of Teagan. "Whether he likes it or not, he's always had a talent for that sort of thing. But to each his own."

Oghren lifted his now empty mug in salute. "Aye. Do what you're good at and sod the rest. What's your name anyway, blighter?"

"Fergus," he replied with a nod. "I'm…" He stopped, figuring that it would do very little good to laud his family name and title in the underground where the surface mattered little in day to day life. "I came with the Grey Wardens."

"Might've figured," Oghren acknowledged. "Word travels fast when you live in a giant cave and the gate guard's got a mouth on him. Really chatty. Makes me wonder if that big ole sky bled the sense out of him."

"You've never left Orzammar, I take it."

"To do what? Being born Warrior Caste is an honor, or so I'm told. Nothing for me up there. Not much here for me either though," he added, half-muttering that last bit and Fergus heard.

"Would've thought they'd keep you busy fighting darkspawn," he remarked idly.

Oghren snorted. "You'd think. But being Warrior Caste amounts to little other than throwing weapons at each other in Provings these days, especially when there's a lull in the 'spawn throwing themselves at the gates and no king to command us besides. Not that Endrin did me much good."

"Were you asking for something in particular?" asked Fergus, curious.

As the dwarf drew back at the question, Fergus got the impression that he had unintentionally hit upon a very sore point. "That's neither here nor there, topsider," he growled, slamming his mug –Fergus's mug –down against the stone table. "What d'you think you're doing anyhow, poking your nose into random people's business? You know what," he stood up abruptly, slamming the cup down again, "go out and do yourself some good. Find a girl. Doesn't matter who, so long as there aren't any pants involved. And maybe if that part of you was satisfied, you'd stop asking so many damned questions."

"Wait," Fergus quickly rose to his feet as well. "Just tell me this: who does fight the darkspawn in Orzammar, if the dwarven armies don't?"

Oghren gave a parting belch. "Legion of the Damned Dead," he answered crossly. "Not sure they let topsiders in. If it turns out they do, I might just drink at your damned funeral. Good riddance."


He went back eventually. Where else was Fergus supposed to go, really? At some hour of the night, he stumbled his way back to the royal palace where Teagan, Leliana, Alistair, and the others had no doubt claimed their promised lodgings. He barely took note of the ornate carvings, the luxurious wall hangings, and followed a guard to the wing of the palace allotted to their use.

As the heavy hewn stone door swung shut behind him with a resounding thud, Leliana got to her feet, copper hair damp from a wash and dressed in a set of seemingly recently laundered shirt and breeches. "Where have you been?" she asked, anxious, apparently worried.

"This place feels like a mausoleum," Fergus said by way of answer, rubbing his forehead with the heel of his palm. "All of it, just one giant tomb waiting for a final burial."

"Kadan," came Sten's voice from one of the various doorways in the wing. Fergus rubbed his eyes and looked blearily at the qunari soldier who had yet to avail himself of his armor. "The horses have been housed in their own lodging outside the city as the Assembly's messengers suggested."

"Great," Fergus replied, waving his hand and pinching the bridge of his nose. "Teagan make it back?"

"I've been here."

He looked up to see that his old friend was, in fact, present, face and eyes very hard. "I've been meeting with Prince Bhelen all afternoon," Teagan continued levelly, "Alistair and I, that is. He's agreed to lend his support for the Blight as well as my brother's lyrium shipments should he become king."

"And I suppose we're expected to make sure that happens?" Fergus distilled with no small amount of cynicism.

Teagan nodded briskly. "A fair price. We're to go out into the Deep Roads and locate a potential supporter to the Aeducan cause, a Lord Dace. No small amount of trust is placed in such a request, I understand. Hardly anyone is allowed out of the city without a missive from a deshyr or lord of that equivalent."

"So I've been told," Fergus agreed quietly, thinking of Oghren. "I'll see it done. You'd best stay back, make sure Bhelen lauds our cause in that Assembly of his."

He saw Teagan hesitate, decide whether or not to accept this role. He saw Teagan remember the insult Fergus had dealt him in the streets of the Diamond Quarter. And he saw Teagan decide not to pursue the matter. Unsurprising; the younger brother to Eamon Guerrin had learned from an early age not to rock the boat. And Fergus was a soldier. Teagan, while many things, was clearly not.

"I'll keep him on our side," he agreed finally. "Take Alistair with you though, for good appearances' sake. And by the Maker, get it done quick."

Fergus shrugged and nodded. "Believe me," he remarked, "I have no interests in being buried here."


I hate Harrowmont. I hate Bhelen. I think Fergus would see the flaws in both choices. There has to be another way, with a bit of luck and some authorial intent.

Feedback adored, as always.