Chapter 5

Felwithe Kingdom, Greater Faydark, Norrath, Year - Unknown, Month 8 - Warmstill, Season of Harvest.

When Deedo returned to her native land, once again heavy-hearted, she settled in the Human city of Qeynos with her son, and cousin. Along the way, she met and befriended many people from her world. Some of whom are still very much a part of her life. With her young son, she and her cousin devoted themselves to traverse between worlds. Xellexes Silvercloud, who took to the Wizarding sect of Felwithe.

When his cousin, lost for years without a word nor clue, decided that home no longer yielded answers to her whereabouts, studying abroad, he began pouring himself further into many books to find anything, seeking everything he could on what happened with her.

On the day of her return, they confined Deedo to her quarters of their family home; it gave him ample time to study more and try to strengthen his magic to aid her if Deedo ever wished to go back to Thedas one day. He vowed to keep to her side from that day on.

An urgent missive had to return them to the great wood of Faydark. Summoned with news of two of her dearest friends' deaths. They left behind identical twin daughters Ruroni and Tenkou She raised them as her own from a swaddling age, as their parents had wished. - Norrath, Year - Unknown, 9:06 of the Dragon Age.

The eldest daughter Lili'Enyel was just four when Lady Swiftleaf met her. They had bullied the young girl for her mixed heritage—several serious scuffles with older children daily because she was a half-elf.

Her father, an elven blacksmith, knowing not what to do with his young daughter, inquired of the young mother as she shopped for throwing knives for herself and Xellexes. Hearing the man's plea, Deedo was certain it may be a ruse. She first took the young girl for a walk around Qeynos, and in just one afternoon, Lili'Enyel clung to the older woman placed in both the High Elves' care. - Norrath, Year - Unknown, 9:07 of the Dragon Age.

Kingdom of Qeynos, Antonica, Season of Harvest - Month 7 - Scorchedsky, 9:08 Month 10 - Harvestmere, of the Dragon Age.

Deedo had been suffering from a headache throughout her day, everything went array at her touch. Her cousin looked up from his studies.

"Are you well?" His sapphire eyes peered over the book in his hand.

Deedo pinched the bridge of her nose. Her eyes popped open with the answer, "Portal, Denerim." she snapped.

Xellexes eyebrows rose: "The children?"

The sound of rummaging as Deedo gathered her youngest twins and eldest children, ready to depart.

In a matter of minutes, Deedo and Xellexes met Loghain outside the somber palace with a giggling twin, each held in a tender grip, a boy with raven hair and stunning eyes the color of clearest ice, followed by a curious, wide-eyed elf.

Loghain's face was unreadable: his passing gaze between both Deedo and the male child. His eyes told a different story. Passing the children off to her cousin and a nursemaid quietly, they headed to the King's bedchamber. Once the door closed behind them, they saw a man who shadowed the man they once knew.

Food picked over and uneaten papers, untouched, scattered about the floor. His unkempt appearance alarmed them both.

Silence greeted them as they entered "Maric?" Loghain called. Still nothing. Shush on the floor covering as Loghain approaches, questionably looking over to the Lady in the room with them. Even when she takes in everything wrong about the room. Her eyes then settled on the King, when his name called again.

"Maric, you need to stop sulking and gather yourself." Loghain hissed. Maric did not move. He sat in front of the fireplace staring, its flames responding, unbothered with crackles as it continued eating its wooden meal.

"She has been absent for a few months, but you have a kingdom to run and a son who needs you." He hissed his plea.

Deedo looked at Loghain, her eyes full of question, she stepped forward, his hand raised, stilling her, the Teyrn turned away, Deedo needed to hear this: "You cannot blame yourself for this, I will not let you, Lady Deedo would never let you, and for damn certain Rowan would string you up by your bootstraps!"

Loghain approached tentatively, shielding Deedo from view.

Barely above a whisper, "Yet you are here." His voice carried sorrow, guilt laced with heavy regret: "Rowan is dead because of me."

Deedo covered her mouth, taking hurried steps, to be stilled once more. The Enchantress held tight to his extended hand, squeezing as if doing would bring about the answer to how.

Loghain cleared his throat: "What would Lady Deedo say if she saw you now?"

Maric stayed unmoved: "What can she say? She left after Cailan was born."

He thought for a moment, sighing, "She would say the people need me, there are people here who would be by my side all my life. She would let me be, work her magic, to be off again."

Deedo fought hard to swallow back the tears. Dropping Loghain's hand slipped from his grasp. Wrapping her slender arms about his shoulders, kissed the back of his head. Coming to kneel before Maric reached for Loghain, taking his hand, holding it tight. Tears filled her jewel-like eyes.

"I brought my children and cousin, if you need me, I will be here for…" She searched Loghain for a sign, who shook his head, rubbing a band of metal on his finger, understanding and choosing her next words carefully: "Prince Cailan, I will gladly stay for a time to help watch over him—I am his Godmother, after all."

Maric locked his sky-blue eyes to the brilliant aquamarine gems of the elf before him: "Not for me?" He had given up hope. Rowan's passing left the hole in his heart. The light before him he could only dream she could fill.

Deedo's heart throbbed painfully within her chest, her brow knitted. Her hands to cup his gaunt cheeks, pushing his dirty blond hair back away from his face, locked into his shallowing blue eyes. "Always for you, I am here for you all... Always." Wiping a stray tear from her beloved friend, she took hold of the man beside her, tugged Loghain to the floor, hugged both men tightly.

They sat in the bedchamber for hours, Deedo coaxed him to bathe, eat, as she sat combing and brushing out the tangles of his freshly washed hair. Loghain sat watching, as he had no wish to question who the boy was in front of Maric.

Deedo helped Maric to bed with Loghain's help: "I will tend to Cailan now you sleep." With a wave of her hand, she placed a lulling spell on the King.

Tucking him in, she went to open the window, letting in the cool evening air. Behind her, felt his cool emotion spread at her back when he approached. Loghain dabbed her shoulder, her response instant.

"His name is Ikal'antulien Gareth Aehswin Mac Tir." She felt his grip tighten, turning her to face him; she stood proudly, a soft smile tugged the corners of her mouth. "I call him Kal'an."

"You have given me a son?"

Deedo nodded her answer. Admittedly his surprise tickled her.

Loghain closed his eyes: "A son. How old is he?" His hand balled into a fist. Unsure if he should strangle her or kiss her.

"He is ten this past Spring, a half-elf, clearly."

He reeled missing important moments, first everything, "How could you keep this from me? I wish him, no, he is staying here with me. Maric will put you up…" Loghain stated.

The Illusionist raised her hand, as if she wove some spell, "No, your Lordship, he is Elven, I would have told you sooner... You were not here. Congratulations are in order, albeit late." Pointing to the metal band on his finger.

There was no bite to her words, she was genuinely happy about his marriage? Anger he felt as imagine the sight of her swollen belly, the first cry, "He is my son!" Blurted his ire.

The shout caused Maric to wake, to listen in on his Light and General bicker.

Deedo sighed. She was not keeping them apart purposely. "And Elven! For whom I would have never had, and do not think I love him less for it. If you had just let me go that night." Deedo turned her head. "If you had let me go the month I was returning to Norrath. 9:02 Cloudreach, born two years after I left. If we were on Norrath, he would be your heir."

Loghain was thinking, written on his face, his eyes damning the elf before him, "He is still my heir. I have a right to him!"

Deedo stood taller, her shoulder squared, "The Chantry would not be accepting of my kind… I did not lose the words you once implied." Loghain paled, those words he said. They were true. No elf held authority in their lands.

The Elven woman closed her eyes briefly, taking a deep breath. "I have told him about you in great detail. He wanted to come here, to meet his father. I fear for you both, my friend. If word got out, you have a bastard child who is clearly Elven. I do not wish to trouble you, or Maric." Deedo went to walk past Loghain to see the children.

Maric called for her to stop as he sat up. "You two have a son? When?"

Deedolit's eyes went wide, with Loghain's mirroring hers. Deedo nodded, answering the King, looking him in the eye as she did so, "We do, as of when, in 9:02, would be the year at the time of his conception."

Maric thought for a moment, "Why?" The King held no anger. Wonder-struck. He loved the mage, but it seems she loved another.

"A moment of weakness." Loghain answered.

Deedo disagreed, "Not weakness, sought comfort, from the result of me landing in Ferelden and not returning home promptly, hearts hurt, a wound you could not see with the eye." She corrected him.

"I am far from understanding your meaning, please explain it to me." He contemplated her words. He fawned on her, even though she rejected him. She was always by his side. Had he missed something?

"I had fallen, physically, into Ferelden. Then I met a man, who promptly shoved me to the cold muddy earth. He silenced me. Someone was after him and I could not just leave him, like a lost foundling." Deedo stood there, her hands folded neatly together as she recounted her and Maric's first meeting.

"I fell in love a while later, but I knew I could not stay. I could have gone home. My heart would not let me." Maric and Loghain considered her words. Loghain looked to see Maric's reaction while the mage continued.

Deedolit's head was high, something in her changed, Loghain could see it, "There was a night when an elven lass came to his bedside, who my heart needed a warm body. I saw my other friend, ran crying as she turned from the tent, she to hurt the man we love to lie in with another."

She paused for a moment to collect herself, throat threatening to close as she swallowed. All the times she ignored her feelings because she could not live in this world for good, "I could not be the body he needed. I met with Loghain, and we had a talk. I felt he needed a friend, as did I, who understood the pain of seeing the one you love having reject you, or, sleep with another."

As she spoke, the room seemed too slow to a crawl, hearing her, the sadness she was fighting so hard to not let surface, she continued, "I wished to go home, but the man who I fell in love with begged for me and Loghain to stay. I could have left well on my own."

Loghain closed his eyes. He remembers that day. Maric felt his heart tighten. She loved him; she stayed because he asked? But she also has a child. Did she and Loghain mean something to each other? He wanted to ask, but his mouth felt glued shut.

The High elf took a shaky breath, this is what she dreaded to bring up, to either of them, "It was the night my heart killed his lover, he would have made her Queen had she not been lying to him, and he found out."

Deedo closed her eyes. "When Loghain sent the lady he loves to the King after, she suggested I go instead… Tunare help me."

Deedolit's voice was shaky, trembling as tears slipped from under her closed aqua jewel eyes, "Erollisi Marr cursed me, for I loved him too much, but I could not stay."

Tears trailed her down from her cheeks. "Loghain needed someone as well because he had no one when I was feet from returning to my world."

Deedo wiped her tears as she sniffed, "We shared but a kiss, that night. We have a son who from the will of my Goddess and Your Maker given life. I would love my son whether he is yours, or Loghains' with the same response, we cannot stay." Folding her hands neatly once more, linking her fingers together.

Maric sighed, looking around the room, remembering the years long past. It was one question he needed an answer to. Who was she here for? Maric would accept any answer she gave, he knew he would, and before he knew it the words slipped out before he could complete his thought, "You stayed for Loghain?" Maric cringed slightly, he did not mean for it to sound jealous, for he had Katriel, and Rowan, he was nowhere in the position to be jealous.

"Not at first, I stayed as his friend." Deedo shook her head. Loghain nodded slowly in agreement. He did not wish to be alone. Now he had his beloved wife and beautiful daughter, and the greatest gift imaginable, a healthy son.

Maric looked her in the eye hopefully. "You stayed for me?"

Deedo nodded her head, "Yes. I fought with myself, but you had your Queen. I felt my duty was complete. I went to say goodbye to Loghain. Found that when I returned home fifteen years or more had passed, which is nothing to my people. I had a promise to my parents, as well as to report to my King, you all were not a threat."

A soft smile replaced her tears. "I found out a year later I was pregnant, giving birth a year after. I given permission to return, nine years later, by the Norrathian calendar. It was before my godson was born. I never got to tell Loghain we had a son. I love my boy, but I know, they would not completely welcome me or him, he cannot stay." Deedo looked to Loghain, her words pleading before he could voice his concern.

Maric went to stand, nodded when the idea made itself known. "Then I will grant you a title, and we keep his parentage to just you, omitting who his father is. My apologies to you Loghain."

Deedo chuckled, causing both men to look at her questioningly, "Here it matters not, I am still an elf, our home half accepts him, and there he is safe because I am, Lady Deedolit Meleth Swiftleaf Ambassador of Felwithe and Ferelden."