Note from SurelyForth: First and foremost, there are spoilers in this chapter for the epilogue of The Calling. I tried to keep it vague, but it was impossible to avoid. (If you haven't read The Calling, I highly recommend it.)

I'd also like to say thanks! to the lovely folks in the Alistair thread on the BSN for being helpful and awesome.

Finally, Fiona and Alistair is dedicated to Sandtigress. She was a wonderful sounding board while I wrote this chapter and is responsible for pretty much every happy moment contained therein.


The baby in her arms might as well have belonged to someone else, for all she felt.

Part of it was the exhaustion of childbirth, the exhaustion of pregnancy as it culminated in almost two days of agony that knotted her muscles before settling in for the duration. Part of it was confusion, as the lyrium she'd taken to help her heal herself played off of hormones and rendered her thoughts thick and unwieldy.

But most of it was the knowing how much more painful it would be if she got attached.

It helped, in a horrible way, that he looked nothing like her. Nestled in the crook of her arm, red and wrinkled, he was every inch his father's son- from the tiny golden strands that clung to his bulbous head to the way his lips were already curved into a sardonic little smirk, as though there was a quip right there, just waiting for the voice to give it life.

That's when she started thinking about Maric, but not Maric. Rather, it was his son, but not Cailan. It was this child, grown and easy, a handsome human between his father and brother, looking down at her, so small, pale and elven.

His own mother, and she'd be able to stand right in front of him, to look him in the eyes, and he would think her no more to him than any other stranger.

"Take him away," her voice rasped; she was dangerously dehydrated. The attending healer, a brawny older mage named Lochrie, took the infant and returned with a skin of cool water. Fiona accepted the offering gratefully, and then moved to stare at the ancient stone wall at her bedside, the topography of rock a focal point until sleep caught completely and pulled her under.

It was Duncan's voice she heard when her eyes opened some time later, a sound that had become happily familiar these past several months. She knew he would be in the chair at the foot of her bed, and she assumed he'd be holding the child, cooing as he was.

"Baby, baby, baby!" She lifted her head just enough to confirm her suspicions, the sight of her friend the reformed street rat pulling faces at something that probably couldn't even see him was enough to take the edge off the vast ache of sadness. "You're a baby! Aren't you? Aren't you?"

"I hope you don't expect a response. Babies are notoriously taciturn," she was able to pull herself up into something resembling a seated position. He raised his eyes and smiled at her, his teeth flashing white against his tan skin, made darker by the beginnings of a beard that already shaded the lower half of his face in ebony.

"Don't you listen to your mother," Duncan's face stretched into an expression of exaggerated sympathy. "I bet she was smarting off to the midwife straight out of the womb."

Mother. Whatever amusement she could glean from the young man's excessively mirthful response to the baby died at that word.

Actually, it had flared for a moment towards hope and then died a death all the more painful for that brief upswing.

"We'll be leaving as soon as I can walk," Fiona tugged at the covers, her fingers clenched weakly into the rough fabric. Weisshaupt did not have the most luxurious of facilities, and there were seldom enough births here that they didn't think to improve the amenities. "We both have stations to assume."

Duncan's grin faded and he settled the baby onto his knees, his strong hands still careful.

"I was hoping you'd change your mind," he looked older when he said this, his black eyes grave despite the glint of sympathy at their core. "My offer still stands."

"Your offer," this was said with derision, although it had meant much to her when he'd pulled a chair up beside her preferred desk in the Weisshaupt library and laid out a sweet but ultimately unfeasible plan for a future where she could keep her baby and he would support and protect them. "It was kind of you, Duncan, but I don't have to remind you that we'll be lucky to not kill each other on the trip to Ferelden, never mind what would happen if we tried to have a life together."

He blushed. "We wouldn't have to be together...you know that I...it's not like that..."

"I know it's not, Duncan." She forced a grim smile, despite how much she meant the words that followed: "I would be lucky were it able to be like that."


They kept her for a month after the baby was born, fascinated by the way the darkspawn corruption that had gotten so advanced from their time in the Deep Roads had faded during her pregnancy and now appeared to be gone completely. Even the First Warden came by the infirmary to stare at her, his pale grey eyes never meeting hers, interested as he was only in her skin.

"Do you know what might have caused it?" She dared to question the First, and he responded with a wave of his hand.

"We'll study more when you get back, probably your whole life," he spoke flatly, as if she wasn't losing everything already. What was it to him that she become a test subject for the Wardens? It would be just another sacrifice. "Too much going on to know for certain, though. Might be worth trying some techniques to advance corruption and see..."

He trailed off when he realized that Fiona was staring at him with eyes gone wide and horrified at the thing he idly suggested, as if it wasn't his own men and women he'd be willing to sacrifice.

After that, there were false starts and recalls aplenty, three times she'd been at the stables with her pack secured on her mount when a messenger came running, breathless and requesting she return to the infirmary, or to the Second's office. When she and Duncan were finally officially allowed to take their leave, the baby in a wool sling that held him snug against her chest, she was ecstatic. Of course, she'd have to come back. It was an inevitability that stung so fiercely she'd packed only the barest essentials, leaving behind the few possessions she'd mind losing. Having those things waiting for her when she returned might make returning less horrible.

It would also make her less likely to stay away forever.

They would travel east to Val Dorma, the closest access point to the Imperial Highway which they were following southwards towards Cumberland. They wouldn't reach Ferelden for at least a month and Fiona secretly dreaded what it would be like with the baby at her heart all that time, knowing every pulse beat drew her closer to life without him.

"I still can't believe you haven't named him," this was the fifth day of their journey. They'd stopped to relieve themselves and Duncan had him out of his swaddling clothes, watching his tiny limbs flail with as much delight as the baby took in flailing them.

Fiona had removed the sling from her shoulders and weighed it in her hands. It wasn't much, just a length of fabric, but it represented everything she couldn't bear to think about. Naming was one of those things.

"I thought I would let Maric name him," she began futzing with her robes, shabby blue linen that still fit slightly too tight across her midsection. "It seems like...the least I could do. Considering."

Duncan frowned, his eyes wandering to the sling hanging loosely in her grip.

"Do you want me to take him for a while? It can't be comforta..."

The fabric was over his head before he even had a chance to finish his offer, the baby wrapped and settled within a few minutes. For a long moment, they both stared down at him, his expression one of mild consternation at having his freedom of movement taken away.

"I'm going to name him," Duncan's tone rang defiant and Fiona was reminded of the rebellious boy he'd been when first conscripted.

"You can't just name someone else's child," she searched for a reason why that would apply in this situation. "Besides, there's probably protocol for naming the son of a king, even if he is an elf-blooded bastard."

They both flinched away from the harshness of her words, Fiona going pale as she realized how callous she must seem.

"That's not...that's not what I think of him," she withdrew from Duncan and the baby to trip towards her horse, pausing to gather herself before mounting. Tears were beginning to stream down her cheeks and she pressed into her cloak to catch them.

Duncan watched from his place by the side of the road, concern etched into his face. The baby let out a frustrated mewl that might have meant let me out or this bosom isn't as soft as I'd like or even make nonsense noises at me until I'm happy again. Duncan looked down again, and his lips curved in affection.

"Well, then I'll just have to think of a proper name to give you. Something kingly, or noble," he poked at the baby's belly. "You have no idea how ironic this is. There's exactly one noble person in all of Thedas who thinks I'm worth anything, and that's your father."

"Don't even think about it," Fiona's eyes were still leaking, but she managed a tremulous almost smile.

Duncan mounted his horse, somehow managing to keep the baby still against his chest. They moved at a steady canter, and the man kept putting his hand beneath the sling, as if measuring.

"Are you a...Reginald? No, too regal. How about...Comus?" The baby squalled. "All right, all right. Too barbarian. Uh, Hammond? Bartleby? Jarvis?"

The baby continued to wail.

"For the love of the Maker, Duncan. Bartleby?"

Duncan's lips pushed out sheepishly, "This is harder than it looks. Names just don't fall out of the sky, you know. Even temporary ones that you're only trying to come up with so you can stop calling the baby baby."

He remained silent nearly an hour, until the infant set to fussing again.

"Change of tactics, here," he looked at Fiona. "Care to take Jonah off my hands?"

"No."

"Araby?"

"Not even."

"Alphonso?"

"Honestly, it's like you've never met someone with a name before."

"I know...Lloyd!"

"That's it," she came to a stop. "I am taking him away from you before you accidentally doom him by suggestion alone."

"Aw, Lloyd seems dignified," he gazed down."Dignified is good. Don't you think so, Alistair?"

Fiona nudged her horse forward and continued past Duncan's mount.

"Alistair?" The baby gurgled and pressed his cheek against Duncan. It was about the hundreth time since he'd taken him, but this time was symbolic, if only because Fiona offered a non-committal shrug rather than a glare or an outright no. "Well, I guess that's your name then. For at least the next month or so, anyway."

Alistair blew a small spit bubble that popped back onto him, causing his eyes to widen with surprise.

"Alistair might have your eyes, Fiona," Duncan used the edge of the sling to wipe off the baby's mouth.

Fiona could not respond, the combination of Alistair and your eyes already too much for her to contemplate at once.


Ferelden was the same as when they'd left it, only she was no longer flushed with the glow of a sweet if tragic love affair and Duncan was positively dashing with his new beard. Well, that's what every woman they met told him, even if they did think he and the elven woman sitting next to him with a baby in her lap were together.

They were only one day outside of Denerim when the anxiety hit. One minute she was how she'd been since they crossed the Waking Sea- her mind carefully blank and focused on next. (Next they would get their horses from the ship, next they would spend the night at the Grey Warden compound in Jader, Fiona doing her best to keep attention away from the baby while Duncan did nothing but talk about Alistair.) But now they were at the worst next, for next they would see the palace, and Maric, and she'd be reminded of all that she couldn't have, or keep, or even remember.

Just thinking about remembering, before it even happened, was enough to make tears fall down her cheeks large, hot and unceasing. Then her shoulders shook under the weight of a decision she should have never had to decide.

They said this couldn't happen. Like it was a broken vow, a betrayal. They said this was impossible.

That part was, at least, mostly true.

The baby kicked up at her and cheerfully blew more spit bubbles.

"That's entirely inappropriate, you know," it was probably the first thing she'd actually said to him besides shush or I know, I know. "When someone is crying, you act sympathetic, you don't…joke around."

"It got you to stop crying, didn't it?" Duncan was leaning against the doorframe, the armor he'd gotten while they were in Jader worn with unmistakable pride. "That's a skill he got from his father, I imagine. Part of the charm that attracted you in the first place."

Fiona didn't much want to think about Maric's charm, but Duncan was right. It was there anyway. In the baby.

She drew him into her arms, holding him as a mother who could keep him. Pride swelled within her, baseless as it might be. He was beautiful and strong and a bit of a miracle, really. He might not look like her, and she might never know him beyond tomorrow, but…

Duncan sat down next to her on the bed, his arm awkward around her narrow shoulders on account of the bulky armor.

"It's ok to love him," he pressed his cheek to the top of her head. "You carried him, gave birth to him, and care enough about him to sacrifice your own happiness so he can have a better life. You'll always be his mother, even a thousand miles away. Nobody can take that away from you but you."

She nodded, willing numbness to overtake her but failing. The baby tilted his chin up ever so slightly and met her teary gaze, his eyes far darker than his father's.

"Alistair isn't a terrible name," one hand shot up to wipe at her cheeks.

"Right?" Duncan pulled away to stand, leaving to allow her time to spend alone with her son. "Are you still going to let Maric name him?"

Fiona ran her finger along the babe's brow line; he let out a contented sigh and she smiled wistfully in response.

"Yes," she held the baby tighter; she could feel his warmth seeping through the layers of fabric between them. "But if he's half as bad at it as you, then I'll be forced to intervene."

But Duncan was gone. It was just her and the baby...mother and son.

Fiona and Alistair.


She never actually believed that she'd convince Maric to go along with it. (She also had never thought herself capable of feeling simultaneously heartbroken and hopeful, disappointed yet relieved.)

He was seeing them off now, before day could catch the elf and her more respectable but occasionally still sticky-fingered friend roaming the halls of the palace. Before they had parted, but after one brief kiss, Maric had thought to ask it.

"What's his name?"

Fiona, her need to leave the only thing keeping her from staying forever, turned back in surprise.

"I thought you could name him," she touched the baby's brow, remembering how Alistair had clicked so perfectly for her the day before. Still, she was leaving and Maric would only have this brief time with their son to leave a lasting mark besides his face.

"You want me to…?" Maric stared at the child as though it might explode if he didn't come up with something right away. "I can't do this."

"I told you it was hard," Duncan looked entirely too vindicated.

"No family names or anything?" Fiona felt a prick of remorse that her gesture was causing Maric such visible consternation.

"Well, maybe before you asked," Maric bounced the infant in his arms a few times, a tiny motion similar to how Duncan had seemed to weigh him before. "My grandfather's name was Brandel? Maybe…ooh, no. One of our teryn's just called his daughter that."

"He named his daughter Brandel?" Duncan was somewhere between amused and disgusted.

"Well, Brandelyn," Maric glanced up, his lips twisting into a conspiratorial grin. "I know, I know. It's the worst name. Why do you think I remembered it?"

For several moments they were all quiet while they stared at the child between them as he slept on, ignorant of the seismic shift his life was undergoing. Fiona would not be able to do this much longer, to see Maric holding their son, to see him smiling and good.

"Duncan has been calling him Alistair," in that second she'd decided the child's existence was going to change enough once he was sent away to be raised as a lie. "I rather like it."

Maric placed one large hand to the baby's chest and offered his grin to Fiona.

"Why didn't you just tell me that in the first place?"

Why didn't I just tell you everything in the first place?

"I wanted you to have a say," she swallowed hard on the ache in her throat. "On this, at least."

Leaning forward, she brushed her fingers along Alistair's impossibly soft cheek, drawn to his sweet face like a honeybee to a bloom. If you don't go now, you'll never be able to. With a spike of pure will, she spun around to leave.

From behind, Maric called her name but she soldiered on, every overemphatic heel strike on the stone floor jarring pain up her legs in an attempt to take attention away from the black spill of anguish that spread beneath her breast.

As if anything could distract her from that.


Time was the enemy.

Her original focus had been to just survive a day at a time. That first day was too difficult. Even Duncan was gone, staying with Maric until the baby was safely transferred to Maric's brother-in-law. She rode back to Jader with Riordan, a perfectly nice Warden who wasn't nearly as sympathetic or as companionable as Duncan.

If she thought about at the end of the day, her breath would catch and the impossibility of lasting that long, a day suddenly seeming like infinity, would overwhelm her. So it became hour to hour, then minute to minute and, finally, heartbeat to heartbeat.

She made it to Jader in one piece and mind intact, leaving Orlais to sail over the Waking Sea to Cumberland and eventually back to Weisshaupt.

Weisshaupt. Where everything was exactly the same as she'd left it: desolate and cold and lonely.

There was nothing for Fiona here, except being a Warden.

So, heartbeat by heartbeat, she studied records and put together a narrative on the Architect about the things he told them and what he did to Warden-Commander Genevieve and Genevieve's brother. It was an exercise in unraveling madness and discovering kernels of rational thought, but rational thought so completely devoid of humanity it doubled back to madness. It wasn't healthy, but she lost herself in research until she could withstand the thought of at the end of the day without pausing to sob over how she'd last the hour.

Duncan sent letters and sometimes she even read them. Usually, though, she opened the envelope and tucked the correspondences into the back of her journal. The plan was to read one every time she stumbled over it, but she'd more often than not just set them aside, using them as place markers or extra space to scratch notes.

It wasn't that she didn't want to know, she just couldn't bear the thought of bad news. What if he was being mistreated? What if he was unhappy? What if he was unloved?

A year had passed when the First called her into his office to tell her about another Warden who was expecting. He wanted Fiona to monitor the entire pregnancy, to keep track of every detail and change. She balked at this responsibility, this knife to her heart.

But he was the First, and helping deliver healthy babies was, he reminded her, better than being back in the Orlesian Circle of Magi.

So she helped the poor woman, a fellow elf by the name of Lariel who was as disconnected from the new life pressing beneath her skin as Fiona had been. When the time came for the babe to be born, Fiona stood away from the bed and took notes on everything from how long the labor took, to how alert Lariel was at any given point in the birthing process, to how times the young woman begged Andraste to fucking end this already.

(It was thirty-seven times.)

After Lariel, it was Moren. After Moren, Bianca. Then Hilde and Patrice and Rin, and they all had the same dead eyes by the end of it, even those who were leaving the order to start their new family.

They'd never have a normal life with their children, their Callings would always hang over their heads like an invisible executioner's blade.

Eventually, she stopped watching and started taking an active role in the deliveries. It helped to keep her mind off the hopelessness of it all, and it buried the sting of familiarity and the reminder of her own painful miracle hundreds of miles away and never knowing he had a mother who thought of him minute to minute most days, but heartbeat to heartbeat when confronted with others who were going through it, too.

Ten years down, and Duncan arrived far from the mostly man but still a little bit boy she'd left behind. He was full-fledged, now. The shadow of taint was visible in his eyes which were almost always grave with duty and consequence. He kept his inky black hair long and skinned back from an intense face and his formerly dashing beard was now an intimidating wall between him and others who might distract him from his path.

The news he bore was unpleasant, to put it mildly.

It had never occurred to her that they might send him away again, this time to the Chantry.

"The idea is for him to become a templar," Duncan's face wore veneer of compassion, his voice even quivering with the injustice of the words he spoke. "He'll get an excellent education, and it will make him completely incapable of claiming the throne."

"Because he'll be addicted to lyrium," Fiona could barely choke this out, her rage a solid thing in her throat. "How could...how could Maric let this happen? A templar of all things?"

There were no easy answers, and Fiona had to let the anger die largely unacknowledged. Maric was there, she wasn't. Maric had his kingdom to worry about, she had nothing but a small room with a narrow bed and piles and piles of journals about talking darkspawn and tainted women and the children they found and lost beneath her distant gaze that hid unfathomable amounts of sympathy.

Duncan left softer than he'd arrived, her own harsh presence somehow wearing at his sharp edges.

Five years later, Maric…

It started with a letter bearing the seal of the King of Ferelden stating his intentions to visit Weisshaupt and tour the fortress. But mostly, it said, he wanted to see her.

And even though she bore the anger of a million heartbeats spent thinking about her son the templar, she found herself excited and hopeful. Maric would at least bring vibrancy to this lifeless place, where she believed happiness came to die.

One night she awoke to him at the foot of her narrow bed, and there were no words, only him sliding in beside her, their awkward limbs as they pulled away nightclothes and velvet-lined breeches and the storm that started as he entered her for one last night together.

It lashed at the window high above her bed, lightning flashing in and thunder growing simultaneously louder yet more distant. The storm lasted for hours, and so did they, her thighs slipping from his waist as sweat ran in rivulets over their skin to pool in and spill from the hollows of their intertwined bodies. They were desperately pouring their loneliness out and into each other as the rain eroded the very walls around them until it was just Fiona and Maric.

Then he was gone, but the walls were surrounding her again and…

She was not surprised at the letter that arrived from King Cailan of Ferelden. The new monarch wished to, regretfully, inform the First Warden of his father's untimely death at sea whilst en route to Weisshaupt Fortress.

No, not surprised at all, but back to heartbeat to heartbeat as a matter of survival.


Denerim had seen better days.

She could see scars from the Blight everywhere around her, towers that reached just above the palace walls before cascading back in a pile of rubble, scorched patches of earth and stone, ordered clusters of reclaimed masonry that awaited the funds and time to reassemble it. Even the Market District, which she heard bore a great deal of damage in the battle, was rebuilt far beyond the palace exterior. There must have been a decision made to restore the more active parts of the city first. Fiona was starting to understand why Queen Anora seemed so cranky, living as she did in a prettied up ruin while the rest of her kingdom underwent massive reconstruction.

Or maybe the Queen was always this way, Fiona hadn't even been formally introduced but merely waved into the audience chamber. There, a coolly beautiful woman was having a heated discussion with a brawny man whose handsome face was partially obscured by hair grown shaggy into eyes that glinted with subdued mirth.

"At the very least, you could ask her about the situation with Bann Teagan," the queen was obviously on friendly-ish terms with this man, her annoyed tone not moderated for his benefit. "There are some concerns that the Guerrins are attempting to hold as much as possible."

The man sighed and moved his shoulders back in a small stretch.

"I think this is more a marital issue than a political one, Anora," he lowered his voice, mindful of the company. "He would gladly have her with him. Besides, no worries about the Couslands trying to take over the country? Or have they all forgotten so soon?"

He was smiling now, but the queen had turned her focus to Fiona, sapphire eyes hard as she motioned her forward.

"I assume that you are the Senior Warden from Weisshaupt?" There was a perfunctory amount of respect in the queen's address, far too little considering that the Wardens had saved her father and her country.

"Yes, Your Majesty. I have been sent personally with documents from the First Warden himself," Fiona presented three packets of information to the queen, all of which bore the Grey Warden seal. One was addressed to Queen Anora, one to the Grand Cleric of Ferelden and the third to the Knight-Commander.

She held a fourth beneath her cloak, addressed as it was to Warden-Commander Brand Cousland.

Anora tore her letter open with little patience, reading the contents and responding with a sigh that seemed to relieve more than a small amount of pent up frustration.

"Thank the Maker," she handed the document to the man beside her. "Apparently the Right of Conscription is as ironclad as we were hoping. I can't imagine Her Reverence will be pleased by this decision, but it saves me any more headaches. Unless, of course, your sister plans on harboring every apostate that wanders into her arling?"

The man rolled his eyes skyward.

"Weren't you the one who encouraged her to conscript the mage?"

"That was before I realized they'd go on a templar killing spree together!" The queen shook the letters in his face as if he'd forgotten about their existence. "Although they were absolved of that months ago, I still can't think it a mistake."

"A mistake, maybe. But the moment you allow one conscription to be overturned, you open the door for others," the man stepped down from the dais where the queen held court, his eyes on Fiona. "And were I someone who benefitted from the same directive, I'd probably want to avoid setting any dangerous precedents, Your Highness."

He smirked. The queen glared at the back of his head but held her tongue in what must have been a prodigious show of restraint.

"Fiona, was it?" He offered a polite bow and his elbow, "I am Fergus Cousland, teryn of Highever and your escort to Vigil's Keep." His voice lowered to a bare whisper, "How furious is she?"

Fiona didn't have to check twice.

"Extremely."

His smirk turned into a full-blown grin as she turned to join him out of the audience chamber.

If Fiona wasn't predisposed to despise his sister on principal, she might have looked forward to meeting another one of these Couslands.


An emergency on the road to Amaranthine meant that Fiona arrived at Vigil's Keep escorted only by a slack-jawed knight that she would have been more than happy to release from his duty before they even got on their.

The Vigil was almost grotesquely large and completely unwieldy. It was also in even worse shape than Denerim, bearing as it did the marks of a far more recent darkspawn raid. It had been nearly two months since the large scale attacks on Amaranthine yet, if the wind blew right, she could catch the smell of them still lingering in the air.

She was greeted in the yard by a man who might have been handsome were he not ravaged by exhaustion. His eyes and hair were matching shades of silvery-grey and he had an air of infinite patience affirmed by the way he stepped carefully over the debris that remained scattered about the yard and politely acknowledged crude shouts from the army of dwarven masons who were working to repair the damaged gatehouse.

"I was told we had a visitor," his voice was rough but warm. "I am Varel, the Seneschal of Vigil's Keep. I apologize for the..."

He trailed off. Mess couldn't even begin to describe the chaos in the yard.

"Fiona, Senior Warden from Weisshaupt Fortress," she held up the envelope she was to hand-deliver to Warden-Commander Brand Cousland.

Varel's eyes caught the name and seal and he let out a small sigh.

"I believe the Commander has been in the infirmary most of this morning," weariness washed over his face and she was almost afraid he might collapse on the spot. "I can have one of my men..." he looked around the suddenly empty yard. "I will be happy to escort you, Ser Mage."

Brand was not what Fiona had expected.

Fiona had expected young, and Brand was young and seemed younger as she sprawled across one of the beds in the infirmary, her eyes fixed on the ceiling and her coltish limbs going in every direction.

She'd been less than receptive to Fiona's diagnosis. At first. Every Warden Fiona had ever given the news was floored by it. Then they would inevitably start running, even if it was just a mental break.

Fiona assumed no less from Brand, but Brand gathered herself, wide green eyes narrowed down in acknowledgement that this is how it is and now I need to figure out how it's going to be handled.

"What can I do?"

There was a pause and so many things were on the tip of Fiona's tongue, but she bit them back to show some modicum of respect to a woman who she felt deserved none at all. Still, it didn't hurt to get on good terms with one's superior officer.

Besides, Fiona was even able to give this one some good news, for a change. The First was determined for this endeavor in Ferelden to be successful, and he needed the Hero of Ferelden more than she needed the Grey Wardens.

It was interesting to note how the commander balked at that title, though. Hero...as if it were a noose around her neck and not the world's way of honoring her.

Her reason for the discomfort was what Fiona expected the least.

Maker, she knows exactly what she did. That realization did nothing to ease the bitterness in Fiona's heart, or sooth the wound that had been opened when word of what was transpiring in Ferelden made its way to Weisshaupt. Her son had been recruited and discarded by then, and this one was being heralded for their accomplishments.

And it was the last thing Brand wanted.

Fiona kept herself to the shadows over the next several months, acclimating herself to these new surroundings that were hectic and overwhelming but unmistakably alive.

At the center of it all, yet still strangely and sadly solitary, was Brand, her hard-edged warrior's physique softening as her stomach expanded and she grew more and more likely to be alone somewhere quiet, humming to herself and speaking in conversational tones to her midsection.

"Does it ever respond?" Fiona remembered her own pregnancy, and how she ignored every kick and stretch after the first one almost broke her resolve.

"Sometimes," Brand smiled up from her place on the floor in the solarium where she was looking through a stack of anatomical portraits. "Sometimes he'll sort of," her long fingers splayed out and wiggled for a few moments. "Is he trying to tickle me? I don't know. It's very weird."

"He?" Fiona knew of women in the alienage who swore that there were all sorts of tricks to tell a baby's gender before the birth, but she'd never had any luck with any of them.

The other woman shrugged and struggled to her feet.

"I just thought about it one day and...it's a boy," she pushed fallen strands of hair away from her face and frowned. "I've been calling him Bryce all this time. That might be awkward if I'm wrong..."

"You've named him already?" Fiona remembered weeks that went by with her baby baby. How different things would have been had I her hope.

"It's my father's name. Was," her eyes darkened at the correction. "And now it will be my son's."

She was so confident of this, but her expression remained shadowed as her fingers trailed delicately across her stomach, her voice catching as she murmured to herself:

"I only hope I don't screw this up, too."

Fiona felt a pang of genuine sympathy, and an urge to comfort this virtual stranger in her moment of self-loathing.

"I had a..." and Fiona almost said son, but a part of her was terrified that Brand might puzzle it out somehow. She had known Alistair and, if Alistair had been told any truth about his parentage, he might have told her. "I had a daughter. Years and years ago."

Brand looked up, hands hastily pushing aside gathering tears and she nodded in encouragement.

She was always encouraging.

"That's it," Fiona tried to smile but didn't do the best job of it. "I...stayed with the Wardens, obviously, and she was raised by friends of her father."

"How old is she?" Brand took a seat on a low sofa. "Have you thought about contacting her?"

But this question killed Fiona's enthusiasm for the subject. After Duncan's letter announcing Alistair's conscription, she had hoped to maybe meet her son. Now she had no idea where he was again or what.

At least she knew that she was no longer alone in being touched by his absence.


Fiona stopped talking, unable to go much further because Brand knew everything that had happened since.

But Brand was staring at Fiona because that's all Brand could really do.

Fiona allowed the staring to continue.

It took a few minutes for other parts of her to start functioning again- her brain, especially, was just going everywhere- but Brand was finally able to stammer this out:

"When you started talking, I thought you were going to tell me you were attracted to Alistair, and I was going to say 'What about Varel? And Alistair is young enough to be your son!' But no, he's actually just...your son. Maker. I am going to shut up now."

But she couldn't shut up because this was an absolute tragedy and Brand had just dealt with tragedy of an Alistair sort. Emotions were churning but she forced them down as her thoughts took another spin around her head to produce more nonsense.

"I mean, Wynne used to flirt with him, so maybe it could be an elder mage thing? Not that you're old or anything," stoptalking stoptalking stoptalking. "And Morrigan used to, you know, care what he thought about her nose so…templar fetish? Andraste's ass, Anders better not get it into his head to…"

Or maybe that wouldn't be so bad.

Now it was Fiona's turn to stare, her mouth slightly agape and her eyes deeply, deeply worried and this is true, this is happening, this is…

"How could you…how did you...How?" And Brand had just been told how, but there was more to it than that. She thought of Bryce. Even when he was inside her futzing around all those months it had been company, it had been the two of them together rather than just her alone. They belonged more to each other than they would to anyone else in the world. Even if she had to give him up he would be hers and there was no way that twenty-five years could pass without him. "How did you stay away? Wasn't there anything else that could have been done?"

Fiona's eyes filled with tears as she focused on the wall behind Brand, unable to respond.

"You told me why before, and I understand the odds but…Fiona," Brand's voice broke. "Fiona, he needed you. If I would have known, I would have told you that. Some children can live the way he did and turn out fine but Alistair needed to belong to someone more than anyone I have ever met."

Fiona appeared to shrink, shame darkening her face as it crumpled under Brand's recrimination and a flash of sympathy urged Brand to close the space between them. Her arms went around Fiona, her chin pressed to her head. Shushing sounds may have been made, but mostly it was just support for what she'd done. How impossible it would be to admit something like that.

Fiona is Alistair's mother. All this time I had this part of him here and never knew it.

Brand was then struck by another realization, one that made her snort.

"Do you know about Goldanna?"

Fiona's head shook beneath Brand's chin.

"She was the daughter of the serving girl in Redcliffe, the woman they told Alistair was his mother. He tracked Goldanna down when he was a Warden and we went to visit her right before the Landsmeet."

"What happened?" Fiona's voice was raw from talking and emotion. "Did she even know?"

"She'd been told about the baby, yes, and that it was the king's," Brand's lips turned down. Despite the vindication of knowing Alistair wasn't related to that horrible woman, the story would be sad for Fiona to hear. Now that she was actually remembering, it was hard for Brand to keep thinking about it. She concluded lamely, "She was horrible, and it's a relief to know they aren't related."

Brand pulled away from Fiona and the mage wiped at her cheeks, embarrassment clear on her face. There were so many things Brand wanted to ask her- about Maric, about Duncan as a young man, about how, but her brain kept circling back to one thing.

"You knew what I did to him," this was not a question. "Why don't you hate me?"

"I did," it came out so effortlessly that Brand knew it to be true. "I hated you on sight and for months. But from our first conversation you made it clear you were haunted by what had happened, and it wasn't artifice. I knew from the beginning that you cared enough to let the loss of him ruin your life. And I also knew that he was partially at fault."

Brand made a derisive noise. "How do you figure that?"

"He didn't have to leave," Fiona shook her head. "He may have been heart-broken and felt betrayed, but it was ultimately his decision to leave the Wardens and Ferelden." She put her hand up before Brand could interrupt. "You knew that he depended on you, but he shouldn't have put so much pressure on you alone. And it's my fault for him being that way. If I would have intervened when he was sent to the Chantry, or at least let him know, or let his father tell him…"

"Did Maric want him to know?" Brand had never thought much of former king after hearing about Alistair's childhood. "Wouldn't he be a threat to Cailan or some such nonsense."

Fiona shrugged.

"I really don't know how those things work but…yes. Maric wanted to do anything but what we did. I couldn't do it though, I would always be afraid I was dooming Alistair with my elven blood and my magic," tears caught in her eyelashes, suspended and glittering like cut glass. "I used to imagine what it would be like to come back, to be his mother. And all I could ever think about was going to the market and the way everyone would assume I was his elven nan, or his father's whore. I would have no status and who would believe we were related, anyway? Would you?"

Brand looked at her friend's dark eyes and they had been familiar, even from the beginning, but there was nothing else of Alistair there.

"I was afraid he wouldn't believe me. That he would be expecting a human mother, and he'd call me a liar, or worse..." she stared at her hands, fisted in her lap. "And once he was an adult...that he'd be bitter, or dismissive."

"He wouldn't have, Fiona. He was desperate for family, it's all he ever wanted," Brand gently touched Fiona's knee. "And with Eamon and Teagan dead, he doesn't have anyone. I think...I think you should tell him."

"No," the word was emphatic, loud and clear. Brand jerked, taken aback at the way Fiona's face had gone hard. "I...can't tell him. Not now."

"Oh, sod it all, Fiona. You've been waiting all this time and he's in the next room. And, in case you didn't notice, we're being chased by assassins. I hate to say it, but anyone of us could go at any second," Fiona's jaw twitched. "You might not get another chance."

"I actually...I want you to tell him," she pushed her hand through her hair. "It might soften the blow."

Brand blinked, "The blow? Since when is 'Hey, you do have a mother. And she's alive and pretty awesome!' a blow? It might be a shock, but..."

Fiona's eyes said everything. Her heart wouldn't let her even risk it.

"Maker help me, all right. But I promised Anders I would get some sleep tonight...and it is very late."

She nodded, relief flooding her face as her posture visibly relaxed.

"Take your time. I'd rather it be right than rushed," she stood and Brand stood with her, returning to her own bed and pulling back the coverlet.

"When did you know?"

"The day the stairs fell, and Anders got stabbed. You called him Alistair and it clicked," she looked wistful. "I spent all night and all of the next day thinking. I was always afraid that we would be introduced and he'd never believe I was his mother. Then we actually did meet and I didn't want to acknowledge him as my son. Even when Varel told me what he had done for Anders...that bitter man who'd hurt you was so far from the goofy little babe I left with Maric."

Brand's eyes stung with tears she was afraid to shed.

"I took that from him, Fiona," Brand drew a ragged breath. "I'm sorry for making it so you had to wait even longer to be with your son, and I'm sorry that I helped turn him into a bitter man. You need to know that he's good, beneath it all. I see it more and more every day."

"I figured as much. Brand Cousland doesn't risk her life for just anyone."

"I do, actually," she settled back against the impossibly soft pillows and let out a blissful noise. "Did Maric and Duncan really make fun of my name?"

Fiona, who was wrapped in her own covers, chuckled.

"They did," she looked at Brand and tried to suppress a mocking laugh. "It really is the worst name."

"I know. Alistair isn't, though. Duncan did a good job there."

"Yes, he actually managed to get quite a lot of things right."

That was Fiona's way of saying thank you, I accept your apology, and thank you, again.

It was exactly what Brand had expected, despite it ending a conversation that had been the furthest thing from expectable.