The morning dawned bright and clear, and Moira had to admit that her companions' insistence on finding an inn had been a worthy one. She felt more rested than she had in months – though the inn's modest bed certainly could not compare to Arl Eamon's sumptuous accommodations, she was free of many of the tensions that had wracked her of late. The Landsmeet was over, Ferelden was united at last, and she had even managed to reach a tentative peace with Loghain – a peace which was not without its own complications, but a peace nevertheless. The darkspawn had been there, in her dreams – as they ever were – but so had something else; a familiar presence, steadfast and strong, sensed through the taint. She had grown so accustomed to the dreams that they rarely continued to trouble her upon waking, but this morning, she woke not only untroubled, but strangely comforted. It could only have been Loghain, reaching out to her through the taint – that was the only explanation that made sense – but it begged the question of why she had never once felt Alistair's presence, despite all their months of traveling and fighting together. Had he done it consciously? She couldn't imagine so – he would have been asleep as well. She wondered if he had similarly sensed her beside him while he battled monsters in his dreams.
Adjusting the straps of her gauntlet, she descended the stairs, paying the smiling innkeeper a generous bag of sovereigns on her way out the door. Emerging into the warm sunshine, her pleasant mood was chilled at once: standing near the road, engaged in a heated argument with a man in a guard uniform, was Loghain, a silver-gauntleted hand beginning to descend towards his sheathed blade. Swearing violently under her breath, she strode towards the brewing confrontation.
"You killed him, as surely as if you buried your blade in his back yourself!" The guardsman raged. Moira recognized him as the gate guard who had greeted her the day before. "You should have died a traitor's death."
"Your fool of a king was responsible for his own fate. A fate you conveniently did not share, I see. It appears I was not the only man who knew that battle was lost before it began." Loghain kept his anger tightly reined, but his hand had settled threateningly against the pommel of his sword.
"How dare you? I never abandoned his side! I – "
"What in the Void is all this about?" Moira's voice, hard as steel, cut through the exchange and silenced both men.
"Excuse me, Grey Warden." The guard bowed his head respectfully, but his eyes lost none of their blazing ire. "My name is Ser Elric. I was a member of King Cailan's personal guard. I was at his side at Ostagar, where my king – " his voice wavered with restrained emotion – "fell in battle, a victim of General Loghain's treachery! I demand blood vengeance from this traitor for the king's death!"
"If blood is what you want, you shall have it," Loghain said darkly. "But you can be certain that it will not be mine."
"Enough!" Moira snapped, glaring at each man in turn. "There will be no blood shed here, and that is an end to it! Both of you, stand down!"
Loghain clearly chafed at being so blatantly ordered about, but he nevertheless eased his hand away from the hilt of his sword, albeit with considerable reluctance. The guardsman at first seemed ready to defy her, glaring balefully at Loghain, but at last he too relaxed his posture.
"Ser Elric, Loghain is a Grey Warden now, just like me. He and I will fight side by side to stop this Blight. You will show him the same respect you have shown me." She took Elric's measure: he was clearly a proud man, and he carried himself with a military precision beyond what she would have ordinarily expected out of a mere village guardsman. His face twisted into a grimace at her suggestion that he respect Loghain.
"Mistress Warden, I – you ask too much! I cannot and will not respect the man who murdered my king!" he spluttered. Loghain heaved a sigh and rolled his eyes dramatically.
"Ward – Moira, surely we have better things to do than listen to this poltroon's pathetic bleating," he grated. "Let us be gone from this place."
Moira was inclined to agree – and the sooner she could put distance between Loghain and the indignant guard, the better. "Ser Elric, I thank you for your service to Ferelden," she said, hoping a bit of diplomacy would serve to soothe rankled nerves. "But my fellow Warden – " she made sure to subtly emphasize Loghain's title – "is indeed correct that we are on pressing business. I am afraid we cannot tarry here any longer."
"Wait," Elric said, reaching into a leather pouch at his waist. Loghain was immediately on guard, reaching down for his sword, but Moira placed a gentle, restraining hand on his arm, urging him to calm. Even through their heavy armor, she could feel him react to her touch, his muscles tensing at the contact. A sudden urge to squeeze his arm, to lightly run her gauntleted fingers across the gleaming silverite plate, arose within her without warning and took her by utter surprise; she quashed it at once, but the lingering tremors remained, as unexpected as they were perplexing. She forcefully dismissed the strange impulse from her mind, and refocused her attention on Elric, who had pulled a key from his pouch.
"I am loath to entrust anything so precious to the betrayer himself, but I do trust the Grey Wardens, and I cannot return, and… well, it is not right that our king lies there still, without a proper burial," he said.
"You wish us to return to Ostagar?" Not only was it a significant detour from Redcliffe, it was deep in the heart of darkspawn-held territory, and would no doubt be infested with the monsters. Moira began to imagine that perhaps the poor guard had been addled by his experiences at that ill-fated battle. "Ser, Ostagar is deep in darkspawn territory. While I share your regret for the king's fate – " she heard Loghain stifle a snort beneath his breath – "we cannot spare the time to return to the battlefield. I am sorry – "
"That is not the only reason you must go there," Elric insisted. "This is the key to a chest in His Majesty's tent. It holds all of his personal correspondence. I do not know what is contained in those documents, but they could be of vital importance to the nation! They should not fall into darkspawn hands, if it can be helped. Please, Warden. The king had the greatest respect for your order – he would want the Grey Wardens to have what was his."
Moira frowned, considering Elric's words. Cailan's personal documents? She could not imagine of what immediate use they could be, now that the horde was on the march, but… Elric was right enough that they might contain the sort of sensitive information that should be recovered. She noticed that Loghain's attention had piqued at the mention of Cailan's correspondence as well.
"Such vital documents, and you with the only key." Loghain narrowed his eyes in suspicion. "And here you are, freely offering it to us. Why have you not returned before now to secure your king's possessions and tend to his body, if it matters so desperately to you?"
"I am not offering it to you, traitor," Elric said pointedly. "I offer it to your Warden companion, who valiantly fought beside the king and did not desert him in his hour of need! I could not possibly venture so near the darkspawn horde on my own, but a Grey Warden could! Their skills against the darkspawn are legendary, their prowess unmatched!" Moira could only stare at poor Ser Elric, who had most certainly misplaced a few marbles on the field at Ostagar. She refrained from pointing out that if she traveled to Ostagar to secure Cailan's belongings, then Loghain was certain to see them as well.
"Bah!" Loghain snorted. "You've listened to too many of Cailan's bedtime stories. It was exactly these sorts of fantastical delusions that led him to ruin."
"Right," Moira said quickly, taking the key from Elric's hand before he could change his mind. "We will secure the king's belongings and ensure they end up where they belong. And should we encounter his body, we will send him to the Maker as befits a king of Ferelden."
Elric bowed his head to her, apparently having decided that Loghain was no longer worthy of his attention. "Then that is all I can ask. I thank you, Warden." Moira nodded, and, taking Loghain gently by the elbow before he could further antagonize the unstable guard, led him away towards where the rest of the party had gathered near the village gates, obviously brimming with curiosity about the confrontation that had transpired.
"Well, you certainly know how to make friends wherever you go," she quipped.
He cast her a sidelong glance. "That idiot accosted me. You cannot expect me to meekly submit to such provocation."
"I can't imagine you've ever meekly submitted to anything, no." Loghain might be many things, but 'meek' was assuredly not one of them.
"Exactly so." As they continued on towards the village gate, he reached out and gently touched her arm, motioning for her to pause. She turned to regard him curiously – it was rare for the taciturn man to initiate conversation, and her interest was piqued.
"Moira, I… only wished to thank you, before we rejoin the others." The halting awkwardness of his words made it plain that he was not a man used to expressing unsolicited gratitude. "You were under no obligation to defend me, and I neither expected nor, perhaps, deserved it. But it was kind of you to do so, and I appreciate it nonetheless."
Moira was rendered momentarily dumb by Loghain's gracious, if clumsy, words. She truly hadn't thought twice about defending him to Ser Elric. Perhaps she was so used to arguing with her companions about him that it had become second nature, or perhaps she had finally begun to believe her own words, and no longer had to justify them to herself.
"You're welcome," she managed at last, hoping he would not notice the blush spreading across her cheeks. "You're my – " Her what? She'd almost said 'friend,' but surely she could not call him her friend, not yet, despite the strangely electric tingling in her belly when she sometimes spoke to him, as she now felt. "My companion, and as such you have my support. We're in this together now."
"Indeed." He gave her a laconic half-smile, and she was left to wonder at what had passed between them, both spoken and unspoken, as they reached her comrades at the village gates.
When she explained her reasoning for the detour to Ostagar, most of them accepted it at face value, whether because they trusted implicitly in her leadership or because they were motivated by the simple desire to prove themselves in combat and earn some coin along the way. Morrigan had a shrewd look, but Morrigan always had a shrewd look, and, as usual, she declined to elaborate upon her thoughts. Wynne, however, was positively incensed.
"You are bringing him to Ostagar?" The mage had cornered her later that evening, as they prepared to set up camp for the night. "I can think of nothing more disrespectful to our honored dead than to allow their murderer free rein to trample upon their bones."
Moira gritted her teeth, resisting the urge to comment upon Wynne's flair for melodrama.
"You have made your displeasure at Loghain's presence quite plain," she said, making no attempt to coat her words with any pretense of diplomacy. "I suggest that you get used to it, one way or another. He is a Grey Warden now, Wynne, and that means he is my companion, and yours. If you cannot tolerate that, then I suggest you return to the Circle."
Wynne sucked in an angry breath. "I do not appreciate your tone, young lady! I am not so fickle as to abandon the greater cause – unlike Loghain, my loyalty runs deeper than my personal ambitions."
"Perhaps you mean 'unlike Alistair'?" Moira shot back. "He is the man who 'abandoned the greater cause' out of personal pride, not Loghain."
"How dare you? Alistair was driven away by your – "
"By my what?" The dam holding back Moira's anger finally burst. "By my refusal to slaughter a man in a summary execution? By my consideration of the greater needs of the war against the darkspawn? By my decision to choose a living ally over a dead enemy? If that is so, then good riddance to him!" Wynne gaped at her, but Moira was not finished. "Alistair drove himself away, and that is the truth. He chose to desert rather than fight beside a man he didn't like, and that is exactly what it was – his choice. You may make the same one if you wish, but I am through explaining myself."
She noticed, after winding down her tirade, that the old woman's eyes brimmed with tears, and, despite herself, she felt a pang of sympathy. She had forgotten that Wynne had seen herself as something of a surrogate grandmother to Alistair, and that some of her resentment of Loghain must be an outlet for her grief for Alistair.
She heaved a heavy sigh. "Wynne, I – "
"No, Moira, you are right." Wynne's voice was so quiet Moira had to strain to hear her over the sound of the busy campsite. "Alistair made his own decision, though it grieves me. I know you did not want him to leave, and I am sorry for placing the burden of his guilt on your shoulders." She pursed her lips into a thin, narrow line. "But I cannot and will not apologize for my words about Loghain. I know you have decided, for reasons I cannot begin to fathom, to befriend him, but I will never be able to forgive him his black deeds."
At Moira's incredulous expression, the mage raised a hand, forestalling the younger woman's objection. "Oh, do not bother denying it – do you not think I have seen you, spending hours at length speaking with him? That no one else notices when you disappear into the trees together, or wile away the nights in front of the campfire together or over a tankard of ale at the inn? I do not know if you feel drawn to him because of your Grey Warden connection, or if you truly enjoy his company," Wynne said, her tone making it perfectly clear exactly how improbable she thought the latter to be, "but all I ask is that you watch yourself. Do not forget who he is or what he has done. And do not expect me to remain silent if he gloats over the destruction he wrought at Ostagar." With a final, admonishing glare, Wynne drifted away, leaving Moira with a jumbled confusion of thoughts.
She and Loghain were not friends. Were they? Their mutual animosity had certainly abated, but that was quite a low bar to set for friendship. They had reached a common understanding, and perhaps a shared solidarity – but again, that was hardly a standard for friendship. And yet hadn't she almost called him her friend earlier today?
Well, Wynne was hardly an impartial observer when it came to Loghain. She made no secret of how deeply she despised him, and she clearly viewed Moira's cordial relationship with him as tantamount to an intimate friendship. Moira sighed irritably. The last thing she needed to worry about was managing her companions' squabbles and disagreements, but she had a very uneasy feeling about this trip to Ostagar, and what Loghain's presence would bring out in Wynne and the others.
She saw Zevran, Leliana, and Oghren gathered around the campfire, Zevran deep into the telling of some hair-raising adventure or other, by the looks of things. Deciding she needed to do anything but dwell on her complicated thoughts about Loghain, she sat down by the fire next to Leliana, whose enraptured gaze was focused entirely on the Antivan assassin.
"Well, as you can imagine, the prince was less than thrilled to discover me in his wife's bed," Zevran chuckled. "But what could I do? It was she, after all, who had sent me a rather seductive missive instructing me to proceed to the mansion, all the while assuring me that the prince would be away on business in Rialto for another two days. I should have been more concerned when she appeared surprised to see me, but – alas! – I was young, and she was very kinky, that one. So I believed it to be just another of her games."
"Oh, no!" Leliana squealed. "So she betrayed you?"
"Ah, not precisely," Zevran said. "It was plain that she was just as surprised to see him as I was! As it turned out… the prince's spies had discovered that his wife had been unfaithful. And so he forged a letter, in his wife's handwriting, ensuring that I would be at the mansion at the specified time. Then, he would arrive, discover his wife in flagrante with another man, and slay us both in a fit of passion. It was a brilliant plan, really – what better way to kill your cheating wife than to catch her in the act? No one would ever question his motives."
"But you did not die," Leliana added, somewhat obviously.
"Indeed not, my perceptive friend! His plan might have worked, had I not been a trained assassin. A fact of which the prince was unaware, sadly for him." Zevran, despite his words, did not sound as though he felt all that much sympathy for the cuckolded prince. "But, fortunately for me, I make a point never to leave home without my, ah, tools of the trade. And the prince, however clever he might have imagined himself to be, was a sloppy assassin. It was not difficult to subdue him."
"So you killed him, then?" Leliana's eyes were wide with anticipation for Zevran's narrow escape.
Zevran laughed. "Of course not! As soon as he kicked down the door, I knew my simple dalliance with a beautiful woman had become something far more complicated, and – well, ever since the incident with the mage – I have always had a policy never to mix business and pleasure. And so I simply applied a bit of paralytic poison to the end of my dagger, just enough to render the prince helpless, and made my escape." He shrugged. "I had not received a contract for him, after all, and I am not a murderer! Besides, the prince had many enemies in Antiva, and it was not beyond imagining that another Crow had been paid to dispatch him. It is rude to poach another assassin's kill, you know."
"And the prince's wife?" Leliana asked.
Zevran tossed his shoulders in another careless shrug. "I never saw her again. I do imagine she must have had her way with her murderous husband while he was in thrall to the poison. She did not kill him, at least – I heard rumors many months later that he had fallen into ruin and was forced to sell off pieces of his merchant empire to his rivals. Perhaps she found a more sublime revenge than the taking of blood, yes?"
A more sublime revenge than the taking of blood. Moira had wondered, at times, if the fate she had inflicted on Loghain was worse than execution. She hadn't thought so, at the time – Alistair had been baying so loudly for Loghain's blood that Riordan's convenient eleventh-hour suggestion of an alternate fate had seemed a necessary lifeline, one she had eagerly seized. Moira stared into the guttering flames of the campfire, letting the continued conversation of the others wash over her unheard. She had never truly admitted to herself that she had spared Loghain for any purpose beyond the ruthlessly practical, but she realized now that she could not have gone through with his execution, even if Riordan had not offered the reprieve of the Joining. But why? After everything he'd done – what had stayed her hand that day? And why did her thoughts return to him even now, even when she was determined to push him from her mind?
With a frustrated sigh, she rose from her seat by the fire, ignoring the concerned looks of her friends, and made her way towards the tree line. They had camped not far from a stream, and perhaps a moment of solitude beneath the stars on the banks of the softly burbling brook would help set her mind at ease. She wended through the dense undergrowth, the muted rustling of the ferns and leaves against her legs accompanying the hoots of owls and the buzzing of insects in a gentle symphony. The forest was primeval and untamed in the deepening twilight, and as she emerged onto the stream's narrow bank, she had already begun to relax.
She sat at the stream's edge, easing off her boots and socks and dipping her toes into the cool water. There had been a stream on the grounds of Highever, a curving, twisty stream flanked on both sides by mossy, droopy trees. She and Fergus had taken every opportunity to escape their minders, to run down to the stream and lose themselves in a world without etiquette lessons or Chantry historians or the finer points of noble politics, to scale those small, sad-looking trees with branches that seemed made for children to climb.
Fergus. To her shame, she realized she hadn't thought about him in a while. She recalled her frantic need to search for him, to make sure he was safe, and how Duncan and Alistair and Morrigan and everyone had told her there was nothing she could do, that there would be time enough to search for her brother later, as if he were a minor footnote of little importance next to her grand mission. Did he live? If so, where could he possibly be? She took comfort in the fact that Howe had not bragged about his death, but with the darkspawn roaming about, and knowing she hadn't heard from him for months, she felt little ultimate reassurance.
"Are you all right?"
The soft, accented voice could only belong to Leliana. Moira sighed, ready to be irritated at the interruption of her solitude, but realized as soon as the thought formed that she was grateful for the company, for the chance to take her mind off of her litany of personal tragedies.
"I don't know." The answer was as honest as it was unexpected. "It seems that the harder I try to hold everything together, the more it all comes apart. I'm tired of trying, Leliana."
Leliana sat down next to Moira, slipping off her own shoes to dip her toes in the stream. "I know it seems like the Maker has placed a great burden on your shoulders. I suppose He has. But He wouldn't have chosen you if He hadn't known that you were the right person for the task."
"Do you really believe that?" Moira glanced askance at the Orlesian woman. "I don't think the Maker orchestrated the slaughter of my family and my abduction by the Grey Wardens just because He thought I was the best person to stop the Blight. At least, I hope not."
"Of course not! What happened to your family was an act of evil, driven by a cruel and jealous heart. But look at everything you have accomplished since then – who else could have united the land as you have, brought every race and every faction in Ferelden together against the darkspawn?"
"I'm not special, Leliana! I don't have greater power or wisdom or foresight than anyone else! I don't even know if the decisions I've made have been the right ones. I'm just… making it all up as I go along!"
"And you think Andraste Herself was so different?" Leliana challenged. "She was just a mortal woman, too. And yet She heard the voice of the Maker, and it inspired Her to great deeds."
"Well, if the Maker is speaking to me, He needs to be a bit louder, then, because I can't hear Him." Moira stared sullenly into the darkening night, her fingers idly picking at blades of grass. She had always been a believer – in the Maker, in Andraste, in the Chant of Light, in the Chantry's teachings – but she had never had the kind of easy, trusting faith that Leliana had. It was difficult for her to believe that anything that had happened in the past year had been a part of the Maker's plan.
"Sometimes the Maker speaks to us without words. Like the vision He gave me in Lothering." Moira suppressed an urge to sigh in exasperation – she did not disbelieve in Leliana's vision, per se, but she did not, as a rule, believe that the Maker went around implanting mysterious visions in people's dreams. "I know you do not believe in my vision, but perhaps the Maker has been speaking to you in other ways. You spared Teryn Loghain at the Landsmeet, for example, even though everyone wanted him dead. But something stayed your hand. Maybe it is not so farfetched to imagine that He spoke to your thoughts that day."
Moira's heart skipped a beat, and she wondered wildly how Leliana had known that she herself had been musing over that very subject moments before, at the campfire. Well, of course Leliana couldn't actually have known – this was just an uncanny coincidence. It had to be.
"You think the Maker wanted me to spare Loghain?" She disguised her unease with a flippant tone.
"And why should He not? The Maker promises forgiveness for all. Loghain conceded his defeat. Killing him would have served no purpose – it would have been an act of vengeance and cruelty, unbecoming of the Maker's Light. By recruiting him, you avoided a needless death and also gave Loghain a chance to redeem himself and right his wrongs. And I know that very few others would have given him such a chance." Leliana patted Moira on the shoulder. "So you see? Perhaps you should doubt yourself less, and trust yourself more. You have come this far, and I know that the Maker will give you the strength to see this through."
There were times when Leliana's earnest faith wore on Moira's nerves; but there were times when it served to remind her that she was but a small part of something far greater than herself.
"Thank you, Leliana," Moira said with sincerity. "I hope you are right."
"I know I am right." Leliana gave her a shy smile, then rose, drying her toes in the grass before replacing her shoes. "The Maker would not have sent me to you otherwise."
"I admit, I was surprised to hear you praise me for saving Loghain," Moira said hesitantly. "I thought everyone else in the party hated him, and resented me for choosing him over Alistair."
Leliana frowned in startled surprise. "I do not hate Loghain. I hate many of the things he did, but that is not the same as hating the man. He lost his way and allowed his pride to rule him. It is a mistake many have made." From Leliana's suddenly subdued tone, Moira suspected that she was speaking of her personal experiences in Orlais. "He should be given the chance to atone. The Maker's grace is unending, and none are beyond His reach."
Leliana's words continued to echo in Moira's thoughts as she returned to camp, Dane greeting her with an eager woof as she approached her tent. The fire had burned low, the smoldering embers casting the camp into stark, foreboding shadows. Her companions had scattered to their own tents, bedding down for the night in preparation for the long march to Ostagar. Had she had spared Loghain so he could atone for his sins? Or was there some other intangible reason she couldn't yet define?
And now she was about to take them all back to where everything had begun, where Loghain had made the fateful decision that had set them on this path. Her eyes drifted towards his tent, set – whether by chance or by design – apart from the others, and she felt an irrational pang of disappointment that she hadn't spoken to him tonight. He had barely reacted when she had agreed to take Ser Elric's key and return to Ostagar, and if the thought brought him any sorrow, guilt, or anguish, she could not discern it. Maybe it was folly to stir up such old ghosts, or maybe Leliana was right – perhaps absolution waited there, for Loghain and for them all.
A/N: Well, I know I promised a less talky and more actiony chapter this time around, but... every time I try to prod them to go somewhere, Moira, Loghain, and Co. just seem to keep chatting it up! However, I do have some good news: when I originally wrote this chapter, it ended up being an epic behemoth, and so, on the advice of my lovely beta EasternViolet, I have decided to split it into two parts. You have just read part one, and - here's the good news - the second part, which will be chapter six, is already written and betaed! I will go over it in the next day or so one more time, and it will be posted in a couple of days or so - and there IS some real plot in that chapter, I promise!
Another huge round of thank yous to everyone who has read, reviewed, followed, favorited, or otherwise enjoyed this fic so far! Your support means the world to me. Chapter 6 will be posted very soon!
Also, because I keep forgetting to stick this somewhere: I don't own Dragon Age, or Loghain. All belongs to Bioware. If I did own Loghain, you can bet he'd have been a romance option ;)