Dragon Age:

Origins

(Book 1 of 7)

Chapter Seven.

With a heavy yawn Princess Sereda Aeducan awoke in her bed and brought up her hands to rub at her eyes, she knew that she should've gone to bed earlier but she had been so absorbed in her reading that she had not wanted to put her book down until she had actually fell asleep reading.

She looked over the edge of her bed and let out a sigh of relief when she saw the thick tomb on the floor, it must've slipped out of her hands when she fell asleep. She didn't want to think about what the royal archivist would've done to her if she had lost this book, it was one of only five in the entire world and this was only the second one in Orzammer, the other was in the memories.

Stone, she was terrified of what her father would do to her.

Sereda may have been her father's favourite but King Endrin Aeducan, while he was a good king and a great man, did not suffer fools gladly and he was extremely focused on preserving Dwarven history. He was always concerned that what happened to the elves would happen to them. He hated the destruction of knowledge in all it's forms and he despised ignorance.

Sereda threw off her covers and stepped out of bed and took off her night dress and let it fall to the ground before walking across her room to where the large chest which held all of her clothes was waiting for her, she opened it and was about to take out a dress that was a lovely jade colour when she remembered that she wasn't wearing a dress today, today was the day.

She shut her chest and walked back over to her bed, to the side of which stood a large closet which had the symbol of House Aeducan carved in to it's front. She was certainly not blind as to what it represented and why her ancestors were so proud of what they had made, but by The Ancestors did they go overboard. The mark was even on her chamber pot, was she supposed to think of the glory and great triumphs of the royal house of Orzammar even when she was taking a shit?

She pulled open the cupboard and smiled at the ancient armour that hung within it, it was utterly beautiful, milk white plate with golden chainmail with the house symbol etched into the breastplate, this was the armour that all the commander of Orzammar's forces wore. It had been modified over the centuries to make sure that it would always fit the current commander.

And that was her.

Well, it wasn't her yet. There were hours of endless ceremonies where she would have to accept the lords and ladies of Orzammar's endless blessings and she would have to be blessed by the Stone but it would be over by the end of the day and she would stand as Commander.

She couldn't wait.

She only hoped that she wouldn't have to listen to too much of Trian's endless complaining, ever since it was announced that she would become commander he would not shut up about it, not matter what she said or he did he would always say that she wasn't prepared for it, she would've retorted with that he wasn't ready to be the king but she knew the sort of pain that would land her in so she had managed to refrain from doing so thus far.

Didn't make it less true however.

Trian would be a terrible king and everyone knew that, he was short-tempered and impulsive and had few friends and was having trouble gaining the votes from the Assembly and no one would sit the throne of Orzammar without the support of the lords of the Assembly.

It never made sense to her how the humans would simply let the child of the King or Queen rule after they died simply because they were the child, it was true that as the King's eldest son then Trian was expected to take over for their father but it wasn't a certainty. If the lords cast their vote for someone else then he or she would be the new ruler of Orzammar.

It would be extremely unusual if that actually happened but it wasn't unheard off, whoever was elected the ruler would need a clear majority of votes, if they only won by a slim minority of votes then there would be a great deal of unrest. There had been cases of a slim majority of votes actually causing there to be a recount, and at the moment it looked like that was what was going to happen with Trian.

It didn't help that there were rumors that her father didn't want Trian to succeed him, most of the rumors suggested that her father actually favoured Lord Pyral Harrowmont and if the rumors turned out to be true then she would certainly be happy with that choice.

It would mean of course that House Aeducan would no longer be the royal house of Orzammar but it hardly meant they would have to go down the mines, Trian didn't see it like that of course, he saw it as someone trying to steal something that was rightfully his and it enraged him.

But it didn't enrage him half as much as the rumors that she was being considered to be the next ruler, it didn't surprise her much to be honest. She was well known by all the lords of the assembly and it was the worst kept secret in Orzammar that she was her father's favourite and that she was very young to be appointed commander of their force and being the commander would give her a great deal of renown with the lords.

It was just a rumour of course, and in truth she did not want to be the queen. She didn't think that she would have the stomach for it, that didn't stop Trian from glaring daggers at her back and more than likely he would try and stick a real dagger into her back. Kinslaying was a grievous crime in all of Thedas but Orzammar had a very dire punishment for it.

On the surface, from what she had heard the punishment was to have your head cut off but in Orzammar the punishment was far worse, the criminal was armed and armoured and sent into the deep roads, to be truthful there was the slightest chance that it was not in fact a death sentence and you could in fact find a way out and fight your way up to the surface but that was near impossible.

The deep roads were centuries old and were colossal, they once connected all the great dwarven thaigs to one another and it was how they travelled between them, but that was history. That was before the Darkspawn had come.

Even the mere thought of them caused her to tremble, they were terrible things of corruption and rot. The first time she had seen one still caused her to have nightmares, what ever Trian thought her father did not just give her the position and she had to work for it, she had been sent with a squad of soldiers down into the Deep Roads, armed no differently than another solider.

"If you do not understand what they go through, how can you expect to command them?" Her father had asked her, and like in most things he was right but it hadn't felt like that at the time to be certain. In those damp tunnels she had been dressed in chainmail, finely made to be certain but nothing truly special about it and armed with a circular wooden shield and a sword made of black iron.

Their orders had been to go to one of the smaller thaigs and try to find anything of use, it had been a disquieting sight, to say the very least. The thaig had been quite close to Orzammar and it had only fallen to the darkspawn about one hundred years ago so a great deal of the buildings had look familiar even as they were covered with a centuries worth of dust.

Still, despite all that they had not seen anything worse than a giant spider which they had easily dealt with, they had approached the small thaig's shaperet, the sum of all their knowledge and that was when she saw it.

She had seen a human before, many had come from the surface to pay tribute to her father and she had been amazed by how very tall that they were, she had even met the King of the surface and his son once. The creature in front of her had the shape of a human but it was...wrong.

It's skin was a dark brown and wrinkled, like it had been left to dry over a fire for too long. It's eyes were too pale white orbs and it's mouth was filled with sharp and pointed teeth that somehow priced it's own lips and caused it's jaw to be misshaped, a fat and long black tongue sneaked past his teeth and from the corners of his mouth she was certain what could only be spittle was flowing from it's terrible may but it was not clear, it was as black as rotten blood. Tainted.

It had been dressed in armour that was mismatched, clearly scavenged from dead bodies and was armed with a cruel looking sword, the iron was black and rusted in places with what could only be dried blood staining the blade, it's grip was barbed and stain with black blood but the creature did not seem to care.

When it turned it's dead gaze to them, it opened it's mouth and let out a sound that had haunted her thoughts for weeks, at first she thought it had been screaming but then she realised it had been laughing at her.

There had been only one of them and that had made her think it would be easy prey, she hadn't expected it to be so vicious, her sword had sliced halfway through it's arm and it hadn't gone any further and it simply barked out that cruel laughter once again and swung it's blade towards her head. If it hadn't been for the commander pulling her back then she wouldn't be standing here thinking on it.

They had to hack and slash and cut and bash and even when it lay still on the ground, it's head a few inches away from it's body, the Commander had simply kept his eyes on the creature. "You can never be too sure with these things, sometimes they grow back what you cut off." He had growled out before he had spat on the foul creature.

His words had caused her to shuddered and she remembered thinking how she didn't think it was possible for anyone to withstand an entire army of these things if they were all as hard to kill, and then she had remembered that an entire army could. The entire might of all of the dwarven kingdoms hadn't been enough to withstand them.

Her father had always been worried about the upkeep of their military, had always muttered about how the Darkspawn were always there, always waiting for them to weaken so they could push through. She had always thought that he was paranoid, she knew a lot better now. He was right to be paranoid. All but one other Thaig had fallen to them and that was half a world away, it could be falling to the Darkspawn right now and they wouldn't know of it and it wasn't as if they could send them any aid.

At the time she had thought that was the worst of what she would see, she had been wrong. On the other missions she had been on, she'd seen things that seemed like they had crawled out of things the humans and elves called nightmares and not for the first time she had been glad that dwarves did not dream, to be honest the concept of a nightmare sounded awful. She was sure that if they didn't need it then they wouldn't even bother going to sleep.

It was almost interesting how many different forms the corruption that the darkspawn sprung from could take, she had seen ones with narrow limbs and pointed ears like the elves that could scatter up walls and across the celling like a spider and let out a shriek that made her ears feel like they were going to burst, others were massive behemoths with crooked horns that had a roar that seemed to make the walls of the roads shake.

Still, she had faced them all and she had overcame them all. And now, the time had come. She was going to be made commander.

When the door to her room opened and her second came in, she very nearly jumped. Still, she managed to stop herself from doing and turned to glare at Gorim. Her second had that same cocky smirk on his face as usual and she got the urge to smash his face in. "I could've been naked you know, did your mother never teach you how to knock?"

"Oh, she did but the chance of seeing you naked? Too good to pass up." Gorim mocked and Sereda shook her head and remembered that if a servant saw her bashing in the face of her second then it would be all over the city before it was time for dinner. In all seriousness, as Seconds when then she truly could not have done better than Gorim, she had known him since they were children. A second was a noble's companion in all things, war and life and politics. Some even took their seconds to bed though it could never be for more than mindless pleasure, if a female noble bore a child from their second then their status would be ruined if they bore a child that was a male.

Sereda had to admit, while she knew that preserving their history was important, that was certainly one tradition she would be more than happy to away with. Thankfully, it wasn't as much of a problem anymore thanks to certain herbs that stopped a child from being conceived. Still, it was sometimes looked down upon by the other nobles that some would need to use the herbs at all. It was seen as more acceptable for a man to take his second to bed than for a woman to do so.

Which was oh so very fair.

She didn't try to spend too much time thinking on social pressures and expectations, today was going to be a good day and she wasn't going to let anything spoil it. She pulled of her nightshift and she didn't have too look to know that Gorim had turned around, he could be a prick at times but he wasn't a bad guy. She turned back to her trunk and pulled out a shirt made of fine silk and brown trousers which she quickly pulled on before walking back over to where the armour hung and began to put that over her clothes.

"Did you find the dagger by the way?" Sereda asked as she pulled on one of the greaves, you would never be able to tell that it wasn't made for her, it fit perfectly. The first commander who wore this armour used a fine sword and dagger, the sword had been kept in the Aeducan vaults for the past nine generations but the dagger had gone missing.

"Nope, I had half the palace helping me look but I'm afraid you're going to have to face it. That thing is long gone by now." Gorim said and Neria heard him moving across the room and then a moment later heard the rustling of pages, he had picked up the book which she had forgotten to put back on the shelf. "The life and many victories of Commander Cerena Aeducan." Gorim's voice almost sounded amused. "What are you reading this for?"

"Oh, I don't know? It's not as if I am about to take on a job that only nine people have ever done before." Sereda asked as pulled out the helm from the closest and turned it around in her hands, she didn't like the helm. The slit was too narrow for her, she knew why it was done of course, to make certain that no arrows would be able to hit her face but she didn't like how much her vision would be restricted.

"Only nine Aeducans, dozens have taken it up before. So, why Cerena out of all them? What's so special about her?" Gorim asked as he placed the book back on the bed and sat down next to it.

"She's one of the most famous, she took on the post on her eighteenth name day and held the position for seventy-seven years, she was still commanding from her death bed." Sereda said as she finished putting on the rest of the armour, rolling both her arms to make sure that she could move them both comfortably, nothing was a quicker way to death than a lack of movement. "I wanted some advice, didn't do much good to be honest. It was just a list of battles and how she waged them and where."

"What were you expecting?" Gorim asked as he stood from the bed and stepped over to his lady, ready to adjust any piece of armour as she saw fit.

"I was expecting some insight, that's what I wanted. I wanted to know what she felt, how she dealt with...well, with everything. How she coped with having the responsibility of making sure that Orzammar was always safe, always protected. How she dealt with having all those lives on her shoulders." Sereda heaved a sigh as her shoulders slumped, suddenly the ancient armour felt a great deal heavier and she wondered how Cerena, how any of them had managed to wear it? "The dead are silent, and we must wait until we join them in the stone."

"It is far too early in the morning for this sort of heavy thinking, I should never have agreed to be your second. There was a time when all I used to think of was where the next fight would be or where I could get my next drink." Her friend's levity lightened her dour mood and she could not stop the smile from spreading across her face, she didn't even want to try to.

"Or where to next stick your prick." Sereda muttered with a smirk and when she heard Gorim let out a baleful of laughter her smile grew with each laugh.

"True, damn you woman. You've gone and made me respectable. I will never forgive you for that." The large grin that was so very much Gorim never failed to cheer her, while it was true that in the back of her mind Sereda could still feel the shades of doubt plaguing her but they at the moment at least seemed to have quieted down some what.

"Anyway, your father wanted me to bring you to the main hall. The lords and ladies of the assembly are coming for a feast and your father wants you to meet with them." It had struck her at that moment that Gorim was dressed for more elegantly than usual, most times he only wore a suit of boiled leather and a steel half helm, the only thing that would ever mark him as a second to a princess of House Aeducan was the pin that he would ware on his front.

Now however he was wearing a suit of plate that had the symbol of House Saelac on the breastplate and was wearing a helm that was shaped like a mountain lion, they roamed the frostbacks that Orzammar was built under. Sometimes parties of guards would head up to the surface to hunt for further food when supply carts couldn't make it through due to harsh weather, she had the vaguest memories of her mother having a cloak made out of a mountain lion's coat, it had been as white as snow and so large that it almost threatened to swallow her whole.

Even the thought of her mother had turned her mood sour once again, it had been so long since she had thought of her, it was a lot easier not to. She had died not long after giving birth to her younger brother Bhelen, she had lingered on for awhile after but she was simply too weak after to keep going on. Their father had never held what happened to her against him but Trian had never been the forgiving sort and he never forgot what he saw as an injustice.

For a long time Bhelen was left out, their father had never allowed Trian be cruel to Bhelen when he was there but he couldn't be there all of the time and he couldn't force him to include him either, she was the only one that the poor kid could turn to most days, and it wasn't just a family matter to be sure, Bhelen was the youngest child, he wasn't in line to be king and he wasn't as popular with the lords as she was, he had no chance to become king and there was very little he could do to gain any fame or honour.

"Well, better get to it then." Sereda said as she glanced down at herself and wondered if she should actually change out of her armour and into a dress for the feast, she was only meant to be wearing the armour for the ceremony where she would be assigned her duty after all, she decided against it. Let them see her as the commander of Orzammar.

Maybe if they saw her as such, then she could convince herself that she was such.

Gorim nodded but said nothing else as the two of them left the room and began to make their was to the throne room where all large gatherings would be held, two wooden doors with the Aeducan symbol etched into them, the two guards at the door bowed their heads in respect and greeted her before they both pulled the doors open.

The great hall was colossal, both in height and in width, it was almost silly how big it was considering what a small people they were. There were those who believed that they might have been a lot taller once but that was not a commonly held belief and there was no actual evidence to support it regardless, the palace itself was only around four centuries old, the old one had collapsed and they were hardly likely to have shrunk in just over four centuries.

The room was filled with twenty long tables and dozens of people were sitting at each table, they were dressed in velvets and silks, it was a colourful sight and it was a strong contrast to the grey stone walls. The tables were overflowing with food and while the room was a din of noise she was certain that she could hear the wood of the table creaking.

The sight of the food itself made her mouth water, there were three large mountain lions which had been skinned and roasted on a spit and covered spices and were dripping with fat, on several large silver plates were large stakes of Bronto meat, large chunks of Nug meat were skewered and for the more adventurous sort there were bowls of deep mushroom soup, too many bowls could kill a man.

There were ales, meads and wines and if Sereda knew her father then she knew that the drink would flow like a river.

As Sereda and Gorim walked into the great hall the music stopped and the chattering all around them faded away and when all was silent a herald introduced them. "Presenting her Royal Highness, Princess Sereda of the House Aeducan and her Second, Gorim of the House Saelac!"

The hall was silent as Sereda and Gorim walked across the hall, right through the middle of it, the eyes of every single noble of Orzammer on them as they approached the large throne which was on a raised dais. Gorim came to a stop a few steps behind her and Sereda knelt in front of the dais. "Most kind and noble father."

"You may rise daughter." King Endrin Aeducan spoke, his voice solemn and echoing across the hall though as always his eyes were kind and full of love. "It is good to see you, it comforts me to know that at least one of my children is aware of proper curtsy. Your brothers would rather see the provings then attended these lords."

"I can't blame them." The provings were great championships to prove who was the greatest fighter in all of Orzammar, the honour of competing in one was said to be almost more great than the honour of winning one.

Sereda would like to think that was true considering that it was extremely likely for you to actually die in a proving as well, the objective wasn't to kill anyone to be certain but a proving wasn't like a human tourney, the weapons weren't blunted. A sword used for a proving was the same as one used for battle with the darkspawn, she had once seen a warrior take off another one's head in the proving grounds.

She honestly wouldn't mind going to see the provings, considering they were ones in her honour. To celebrate her appointment as Commander. Still, not being there could be considered a blessing in disguise, considering they were in her honour every single man of the right caste who participated and survived would try and take her hand.

In fact, the champion might offer their hand and if the champion was a man then her father might seriously consider it. She wasn't exactly against getting married but she didn't want to do it just because it might be profitable to her house, thankfully the final decision was up to her and no man, even a king, could compel her to marry.

"If you wish to go to the provings later than you may, but first stay and mingle. A great many of my loyal subjects have come to pay homage to their royal commander and it would be rude to send them away." The king commanded and when the king commanded you obeyed. Sereda nodded and stood to her feet.

What happened next she wasn't entirely sure but she knew that if she didn't sit down soon then it felt as though her feet were going to explode, even her blisters felt as though they had blisters. It struck her that she should've changed into a dress while she had a chance, it wouldn't have been so bad except for the fact that old Lord Torren who was as blind as a bat and as deaf as a post kept stepping on her toes through out their dance.

When her stomach finally stopped doing backflips like an acrobat then she was going to find Gorim and kill him for laughing all through out her humiliation.

She finally managed to stumble to a seat and sit down when once again the music stopped and the herald's booming voice echo all through out the hall. "Presenting Ser Duncan, Warden Commander of the Grey Wardens of Ferelden, accompanying Ser Duncan are his fellow wardens, Ser Joshua, Ser Aneesa, Ser Ian and Ser Westbrook, along with them is their newest recruit Neria Surana, a mage of the circle."

Sereda had seen humans before but she never truly got used to just how big they were, it was almost comical. The warden commander stepped forward, a man with dusky skin and dark brown hair tied into a bun at his back and wearing Warden armour, silver plate with a griffon on it..

At his side was a woman with a similar skin tone dressed in similar armour though hers was much lighter to support a slimmer frame, from both her hips hung two curved daggers and a long sword was hanging from her back, Duncan had a longsword and a similar curved dagger.

The man behind them was even larger than both them and was the largest human that Sereda had ever seen, she wondered maybe he had some giant's blood in him. His silver armour was not as shiny as his comrades and it was marred with scratches, a greatsword that was almost as big as he was hung from his back.

Behind him were two smaller men, one slimmer with a bow and quiver on his back and the other more broad with a battle axe on his and behind them...

It suddenly struck Sereda that she had never actually seen an elf before in her entire life, she had only seen a dozen or so humans before and they had all been royals or of noble blood who had business with her father, elves had no nobles or a king or royalty, they had, so very long ago but then the humans had put them into bondage.

They were free now but apparently while they lived in human cities they didn't live with the humans, she wasn't sure how free that sounded to her.

The elf that stood behind the two men was a shock to her, she was shorter than any of the humans and her ears were pointed. They did resemble dagger blades so Sereda imagined that was why they were sometimes called Knife Ears. She would never call the other woman that to be sure, she knee that it wasn't a pleasant way for an elf to be described.

The elf was dressed differently that her fellows, she wore no armour but instead wore a purple and green robe and instead of a sword or an axe she instead had a long wooden staff on her back. She was a mage.

Mages were something of a spectacle in Orzammar, dwarves mined the lyrium which the mages used to fuel their spells but mining and refining the substance was extremely dangerous. Centuries and centuries of doing it however had granted them a resistance to the poisoning that could occur when dealing with raw lyrium and that in turn also granted them a resistance to magic.

They weren't immune to it, when a fireball was thrown at your face it was best to get out of the damn way but blood magic had little effect on them and magic as a whole wasn't as effective on them. The problem was that being resistant to magic also meant that magic couldn't properly manifest inside of dwarves.

The long and the short of it was, there were no dwarf mages.

Some of them were skilled in manipulating lyrium and they could use that to enchant weapons, causing then to be bathed in flame or have lightning dancing across the blade or made the steel so hard that it wouldn't shatter or make an enchantment that caused no metal to rust. But that wasn't actually magic, though it was the closest that any dwarf would ever get to becoming a mage.

The woman seemed utterly out of place, she was glancing around the great hall and then craned her head back to gaze up at the roof. It only got worse when she realised that people were staring at her.

"Duncan!" Sereda wasn't sure what shocked her more, the sheer volume of her father's voice or the undisguised joy. Her father was not a harsh man to be sure but his emotions had always been held in tight check, especially in front of the lords of the assembly.

But at that moment his smile threatened to split his face in half as he approached, as soon as the grey wardens went down to their knees her father quickly gestured for them to stand back up. "No need for any of that, Stone Duncan...It's so good to see you again."

"It is good to see you as well, old friend." Duncan spoke before he let out a low chuckle. "Forgive me, you are the king now. I had almost forgotten."

"I think that's understandable." Her father said with a laugh. "Things have changed, I certainly never thought I would be any good at this whole king business. The ancestors must've been very sodding drunk when they decided that someone like me should be king."

"I'm certain that I do not need to tell you, of all people, that it is the lords of the assembly who make such a decision. And if you ask me it was a very wise choice indeed." Ducan said with a warm smile as he clapped the king on the back.

"I think we will have to disagree on that, Sereda! Come here would you sweetling?" Knowing that wasn't a request Sereda quickly stood from her seat and made her way over to the dais, as she approached all the grey wardens turned to face her and she suddenly realised that every single pair of eyes in the hall had turned their full attention on to her.

She reminded herself to breath, if she couldn't handle people staring at her then she was going to make a piss poor commander. "Yes father, what would you have of me?"

"Duncan, this is my daughter Sereda and soon to be the commander of all our forces. Sereda, this is Duncan. He's a very old friend of mine." Her father spoke as Duncan crossed his arms over his chest and bowed his head.

"Well met, Princess Aeducan." The grey warden commander spoke pleasantly, his voice reminded her of crackling firewood. "To be the commander of such forces is truly an honour, no one fights darkspawn as well as dwarves. We could use more of you in the Grey Wardens."

"Duncan." Her father spoke but now the warmth had cooled somewhat and there was note of warning in his voice, the king had returned. "I am certain that there is no need to be discussing things like that, I am certain that my daughter would have no interest in joining you. Besides, she will be getting her fill of Darkspawn."

"True enough, pardons my friend. But you can not blame me for trying." Duncan lamented but if the king's change in mood affected him then he did well in not showing it. "However, I hope that I do not need to remind you that you did promise that I could speak to your honoured guests."

"I forget nothing Duncan, I made a promise and that promise I will keep." King Endrin turned and began to ascend the dais and sat on the throne and cleared his throat loudly. "These Grey Wardens are my honoured guests, they will share meat and mead with us and be under my personal protection. The Warden Commander has begged me a favour so that he might addressed you, pay heed to him."

"Thank you, your majesty." Duncan whispered quietly before he turned his attention to the great hall and raising his voice, it was not a shout but no one would have to strain to here him. "My good lords and ladies of Orzammar, I come to beg you for your aid! The rumours are true, their is a new blight!"

There was a low muttering all through out the hall and Sereda noticed that the grey wardens seemed to have been expecting a bigger reaction like that, perhaps screams of terror or fainting spells. Undeterred, Duncan continued. "We've come to beg for aid, the king of Ferelden is mustering a great host of soldiers in the ruins of Ostagar, I do not come to ask you to pledge your armies as I know that would greatly weaken the defences of Orzammar, we only ask for volunteers, those would be willing to become Grey Wardens themselves. Please, the blight is here. I promise you that."

There was only silence when Duncan had finished speaking, Sereda saw the nobles glancing at one another and talking amongst themselves but after a while it was apparent that none of them were going to volunteer for it. Her father sighed heavily and with a wave of his hand commanded that the feast continued on. "I'm sorry Duncan, I told that you were unlikely to be walking away with any new recruits."

"It's alright old friend, I wasn't expecting to come away with much. Perhaps I can gain some recruits from the proving."

"An excellent idea, in fact. Sereda." Sereda jolted to attention when her father spoke to her. "The provings are in your honour, I would like you to escort the Wardens to the proving grounds and while your there, tell Trian that I need to speak with him. He and Bhelen should both be there."

"Of course Father."

"Feel free to spend some time watching the provings, you have nothing else to do until the ceremony later on."

Sereda nodded and turned to face the group of warriors. "Wardens, it would be my honour to escort you to the proving grounds. If you would please follow me." Sereda turned her head to look for a specific face. "Gorim!" She shouted when she saw her second sitting at a table with a serving girl in his lap. "We're going, come on!"

Gorim let out a heavy groan and with a peak to the girl's cheek he removed her from his lap and came to her side, grumbling under his breath. The small group made their way out of the main hall and made their way to the place gates, they were met their by a small squad of guards who told they were to be escorted to the proving grounds under guard to make sure that no harm would come to any of them.

They walked through the Diamond Quarter, where the elite of Orzammar lived. The quarter was unusually crowded this day, most merchants were only allowed to set up market stalls in the commons normally but in celebration of her appointment several merchants had been allowed to set up stalls to show off their wares.

Fine steel blades and shields dominated one of the stalls, another had dozens of coloured silks and yet another was selling dozens of different types of animals stuffed into cages, some of them were small things that reminded her somewhat of nugs but they had fur and colourful birds were singing beautiful songs.

"I don't get it." The large man with the greatsword strapped to his back said as he tore his gaze away from where a large rack of meat was turning over a spit. "The blight threatens all of us and Dwarves know better than anyone else how dangerous the darkspawn are, they should be volunteering in droves to help us combat it. Why aren't they?"

"Because for us fighting the darkspawn is every day, it's a fact of life. You people on the surface have to deal with darkspawn...what, every few centuries? Didn't most of you think they became extinct after that last blight? We didn't think so. We know what the darkspawn are, what they truly are and what they are capable of. Every few weeks an army of darkspawn attack our lines, trying to take this city. We beat them back as best we can but they never stop and then you come to ask us to join you order, basically asking us to stop fighting darkspawn to protect our to go and protect yours."

"The blight threatens all of us." The pale grey warden with the narrow eyes and ugly scowl spoke out. "All Thedas would be covered by it's taint if we didn't stand in it's way."

"It would happen much sooner if it wasn't for us thinning them out for you, clogging up their endless slaughter with our dead. Living in fear, all us. That one day it won't be enough and this city will fall to them. That these streets will run with blood, I mean none of you any disrespect but you will find few dwarves here will to join you." Sereda said and then spoke no more.

Of course, willingness may have nothing to do with it. The Grey Wardens could conscript people to their cause, they could take anyone they wanted. It wasn't as all powerful as it was, they couldn't conscript large droves of people anymore but one or two individuals they could take though the rite of conscription was seen as a last resort now by most wardens, going by what she had heard.

The rest of the way was silent until they arrived at the proving grounds, a servant met them and escorted them up to a large gallery which oversaw the proving grounds and just as she had been expecting, both of her brothers were here as well as the proving master. Trian's cold iron eyes narrowed as she approached and he stepped forward. "What are you doing here!? Father said you were supposed to be at the feast!"

"Calm down big brother." Bhelen teased, his warm blue eyes practically glowing with mirth. Sometimes she did envy Bhelen, while she knew he sometimes hated being overlooked it must be nice to have no responsibilities to worry about. "You look like you're going to bust your gut."

"Shut up Bhelen." Trian spat before he turned his attention back to Sereda. "I asked what you were doing here."

"Father sent me to escort these guests here, dear big brother. They are Grey Wardens who wished to see the provings, I also bring a message. Father wishes to see you."

Trian frowned heavily, his eyes dancing over all the wardens in turn before he scoffed in disgust. "Fine, Bhelen! Come!" He barked loudly before he stormed over to the door and stormed out, Bhelen followed him, muttering under his breath and catching his sister's eyes as he went.

"Your brother, is an ass." The elf said as the door swung shut behind them and Sereda could not stop a snort of amusement from escaping her.

"And he's going to be the next king, most likely anyway. Just in case your blight wasn't enough of a nightmare for you."

The proving master came over and begged them all sit and soon food was brought to them, wine as well. They had missed the first few matches but the provings were far from over. Sereda made herself comfortable and took a sip of her wine, if nothing else there would be some good entertainment.

End of Chapter Seven.


I know this chapter ended at an odd place but there is a reason for this, next chapter we will be seeing Orzammar from a...different perspective. Please review, favourite and follow if you enjoyed this chapter.