Risa's eyes snapped open, her stomach roiling, and she rolled to her left, desperately trying to get clear of the bedding before she fouled it. As her feet hit the ground she saw the chamberpot and she fell to her knees beside it, retching violently.

Good going, she thought as she knelt there waiting for the next spasm to hit. The last time you felt this bad was after the Joining.

She finished emptying her stomach, then rinsed her mouth from the water jug on her side table. With a groan, she covered the pot and took it to be dumped.

The world was horribly loud and bright, and her head seemed fit to burst. She couldn't complain though… wouldn't complain. This, she'd brought upon herself.

She had just dumped the contents of the chamberpot when Anders appeared in the bailey, whistling cheerfully. The sound made Risa want to kill either him or herself – at this point, she didn't care which.

Anders froze, looking at her, and Risa looked away, starting to head grimly back into the Keep. Whatever that look was – shock, pity, or worse still, concern, she wasn't going to be able to handle it on this stomach.

"Commander…"

Risa winced. "Can it wait, Anders?" she asked, continuing up the steps. "Not in the mood."


Oghren came by her office later and looked in. He blessedly said nothing – simply dropped a large skin of something on her desk before walking out.

"Drink that," he said, "you'll thank me for it later."

When the pain in her head and her nausea became too annoying to bear, she uncapped the skin and drank.

It was water. But Ancestors, it tasted good.


Later, from her high backed seat in the main hall, she had listened to her Wardens' reports on their patrols, Garahel's on her guardsmen's being spread dangerously thin, and Varel's on the running of the keep. Her head had threatened to split in two, but she's stood there stoically, made her recommendations, and dismissed them. She didn't miss Nathaniel's speculative look, or Sigrun's shrug. She wondered at Loghain's absence, however.

Anders lingered, and approached her in a brisk, businesslike way. "All right, Commander, have a seat."

"Anders, not now," she said warningly.

"No, right now." He shook his head. "There is absolutely no reason you should be soldiering on when you're sick as a dog. Now sit, and let me heal you."

"Anders." It was an irritated growl.

"Sit," he insisted. "You're in charge of this merry band of misfits, and if the darkspawn come boiling up out of the basement again I'd feel a lot more confident if you were at your belligerent and deadly best."

She rolled her eyes, but let him put his hands on her. Wave after wave of blue white light gently washed over her, and she looked up at Anders warily. For once the healer's face was not set in its teasing and suggestive grin – he looked as if he were concentrating mightily.

"Maker's arse," he chided when he finally broke away from her, "there are easier ways to kill yourself than to drive your liver to armed rebellion."

The relief from her pounding head and roiling stomach were welcome indeed. "Noted," she said gruffly.


Risa was beginning to curse her open door policy when Sigrun came by. "Hey, Commander, got a minute?"

Risa sighed and pushed her paperwork aside. "Come in, Sigrun."

Sigrun came in and sat on a low bench. "So… Commander... how you doing?"

Risa sighed. "Sigrun…."

"Because honestly, this morning you looked like shit, and you still have a puss like a bronto's back end."

"Is there a point to all this?" Risa asked impatiently.

Sigrun leaned forward, "Well, yeah," she said in a cheeky tone that seemed to imply she thought Risa was being a spectacularly backward child. "You're always checking to see how we're doing – don't try to lie, I know you sat up with me after the joining – but I get the feeling no one much looks after you."

"I'm…"

"Not suffering the hangover of all hangovers anymore, yeah, I noticed. That Anders is pretty handy to have around, isn't he?" Sigrun grinned. "And pretty easy on the eyes, even for a cloud-head…"

Risa snorted.

"Well how about that Nathaniel. Man's a world-class brooder, it's true, but wow, those eyes and you don't generally see humans with that kind of upper body strength and toning…"

Risa scoffed. "Sigrun…"

"Well… if you want to stick to the familiar, I SUPPOSE there's Oghren…" Even Sigrun looked a little hesitant about that suggestion.

"Why are you trying to pair me off with my Wardens?" Risa asked impatiently.

"Well, come on, Commander… who else is gonna understand you better than a fellow warden, and…"

"No."

Sigrun kept right on going, "…maybe if you spent some time talking with them, you know, socializing…."

"No."

"…maybe you wouldn't be getting drunk off your ass in town and worrying the hell out of the rest of us."

Risa stood. "And maybe," she said quietly, "if I had been able to get some sleep last night rather than having to listen to some tall, blond tomcat yowling his release loud enough to shake the keep foundations to parapet, and then had my brandy taken from me by the sole survivor of House Kondrat, maybe I wouldn't have gone to town to get drunk off my ass."

Sigrun went red and very quiet for a moment. "Oh," she said faintly, and Risa suddenly got a fairly good idea of who Anders had been with the previous night.

Oops, Risa thought.

"But still, Commander…"

Risa shook her head. "I've had enough of letting men get close enough to… of being distracted from my duty by irrelevancies." She got up and started to pace.

Sigrun shrugged. "So… you don't like men…."

"I like them just fine. At arm's length."

"That's not what it looked like last night…."

Risa whirled, glaring at the Legionnaire. "Excuse me."

"When you returned to the Keep with…."

Risa's cheeks burned – she wasn't sure if it were anger or humiliation, or... "Warden Loghain accompanied me back from Amaranthine – no more, no less. He, he's my second in command and quite frankly, went out of his way to see me back safely…."

Sigrun sighed. "So you don't trust him either."

Risa came nearly nose to nose with Sigrun. "As my second: with my life, like all of you. Sigrun - you've lived in Orzammar - when politics or position or getting more coin is involved, betrayal's bred to the bone! How can you stand there and ask me about trust!" She pulled herself away, going to stare into the flames.

"You hafta trust someone, Commander…."

"I do," Risa said bitterly. "Myself." She glanced at Sigrun. "Maybe you… once we know each other."

"Comm… Risa. It can't be that bad. Unless…." Sigrun looked at her speculatively. "Unless you, ah, prefer girls?"

Risa shook her head sharply. "No. No, my tastes don't lie in that direction." She looked at Sigrun. "Maybe it's different outside of the Diamond Quarter, " she said, politely not mentioning that Sigrun had grown up not even in the Commons but in Dusttown. "Men… it's not a matter of if they'll betray you..."

Sigrun looked at her. "You don't really mean that."

Risa snorted. "You mean to say you expect Anders won't chase the next pretty tail he sees?"

Sigrun laughed. "You mean to say you expect *I* won't?"

Risa looked back into the fire. "My older brother suspected me of angling to usurp his position. My middle brother murdered him and placed the blame on me. My father turned his back and exiled me without so much as having a hearing to establish my guilt." She turned back to Sigrun. "My first love told me how to escape, and swore that he'd wait for me in Denerim – and married first chance he got. And my last…." She sighed.

Sigrun stole over to Risa's side. "So the way you see it, there's two kinds of men in the world – those who've already betrayed you… and those who will."

Risa shrugged. "My skull's thick, and I'm stubborn as the Void… but some lessons even *I* can learn."

Sigrun shook her head, then squeezed Risa's hand comfortingly as a rather large shadow eased away from the doorway.