Anora, Erlina, and her entourage spent a week at Vigil's Keep before returning to Denerim, and each evening, there was a formal dinner planned with the Queen and her handmaiden, and Loghain and Risa at the head table in the dining hall. The rest of the Wardens, guardsmen, and soldiers were seated according to their ranks – Wardens at the next closest table with Seneschal Varel, Mistress Woolsey and Captain Garahel, then the Guardsmen and Soldiers further away at their own tables.
Loghain Mac Tir was nothing if not observant, and he noted that Anora and Risa were not merely polite with each other for the sake of politeness – the two seemed to have come to some sort of understanding. He wasn't sure when that had happened, but it seemed the two could manage small talk without the whole Keep tensing up for an incipient catfight. It was a pleasant, if baffling, development. He decided not to inquire about it, however. Should either lady care to speak with him about it, he would listen.
It wasn't until the night before her departure that Anora came to see him in his rooms.
Loghain had never been one for placing much emphasis on things, and his rooms reflected that. The only purely personal items in evidence, other than his armor neatly stacked on its stand, were a few maps, rolled up, on the corner of his desk and a beautifully framed and painstakingly painted map of Ferelden on the wall that Anora had never seen in his possession. "This is beautiful, Father. Where did you get it?"
Loghain looked up at the map as if just noticing its presence, the crows' feet at the corners of his eyes deepening into what Anora recognized as pleasure. "That was a gift from the Warden-Commander not long after she conscripted me," he rumbled.
"It's a remarkable piece," Anora agreed, turning from it to face her father. "You say she gave it to you right after the Joining? Why?"
"Apparently, it is a quirk of hers – a rather pleasant one, actually. Because she did not often have money with which to compensate her companions for their service or to defray their expenses, she used her keen observational skills and relentlessly cheerful attempts at conversation to locate small, and as you see, sometimes not so small meaningful gifts to show her respect and appreciation." He considered. "Now that I think on it, I doubt anyone ever gave her a gift in return… odd that none of us ever considered it."
"That map has to be worth a small fortune," Anora observed.
"She does not stint when she has the coin, daughter. Most of what you and Alistair granted her as a reward for her service she immediately disbursed to her companions to defray the costs of gear they had had to bear while accompanying her."
Anora nodded, looking back up at the map. "Father… do you regret becoming a Grey Warden?"
"Anora," he said gruffly, "it's the same thing I've done my adult life – standing between Ferelden and the darkness."
"It is not what you would have chosen." She turned to look him in the eye.
He nodded. "Anora… you know very well that life often brings us things which we would not have chosen." He reached over and cupped her cheek gently. "We make the best of it, and sometimes we're lucky enough to find it suits us after all."
"And are you making the best of this?" she asked.
Loghain smiled briefly. "Consider the other outcomes, daughter. Darkspawn spreading unchecked while the civil war raged – Orlesian chevaliers storming into the country to quell the blight and deciding to take up where they left off thirty years ago… or my execution before the Landsmeet… before you.
"No, being a Grey Warden suits me very well. I have a clearly defined line that I can defend – as I always have wished. My skills are appreciated here and I do useful work. In time, perhaps there will be no more whispers about Loghain the Traitor and merely stories of Loghain of the Grey. What more could I ask?"
Anora pulled away reluctantly, using the excuse of neatening the lay of his shirt. "The Commander seems… an able leader."
"She is."
"She thinks well of you." Anora fussed with a loose thread, and Loghain let her, hearing all that Anora didn't say.
"A source of wonder for me as well, I assure you."
"Father…"
"Anora." He turned away brusquely. "Now, you've told that husband of yours already, surely…."
Anora raised an eyebrow. "Do you imagine I would have been allowed to leave the capital had that become known?" She smiled. "Does not my father deserve to hear the news from my own lips? Directly I return, he will know. I am certain the good news will spread across Ferelden like wildfire." Her smile became colder. "I can just imagine that will sit well with Eamon."
"I can hardly imagine," Loghain said dryly.
Anora hugged him properly. "Goodbye, Father. We shall be on the road before the Keep wakes,"she said, then pulled away and went off to her rooms.
Loghain knew as well as she that he would be up long before the dawn himself, but Anora preferred not to have an emotional leave-taking on the morrow. Still, he saw no harm in seeing her off from the battlements, at least.