A/N Chapter updated May 2015 to reflect changes in official canon regarding Loghain's wife. I swear to the Maker I didn't make her name up. I'm delusional enough to enjoy the idea that her name has something to do with my obnoxious dedication to Loghain anyway.


Loghain watched as Kya laid down on the floor on her belly, propping her head up on her hands to stare into the dying embers in the fireplace. It was very late, and he knew he should send her back to her own room and attempt, no matter how futile it would be, to sleep. But she seemed too content, just laying there in the warmth of the fire.

It was the oddest thing in the world, this.

If someone, if anyone, had told him that he'd feel so comfortable in the company of a Grey Warden, The Warden, he would have thought them completely and utterly insane. But here it was. Kya wasn't the only one who looked content. He imagined he did as well.

Perhaps he understood his own fascination; she had managed to best him at every turn. She'd done what no one else had ever done, and he no longer had to be the one to fix everything. But he honestly had no idea why she would deign to speak with him at all. Stories about some fictional hero were all fine and good, but it must have been clear to her by now that he wasn't the man in those stories. Those were myths; he was far too real.

"So tell me," he said as she turned her head to look at him. "Of all the stories in that library, of which I'm sure there are many, why mine? Or the semblance of my story, at least."

Kya looked baffled. "Why not?"

"I'm sure they put a gloss on the tale, but it is just history," Loghain said.

"Is it?" she asked.

"I see your point," he replied.

"Why do you ask?" she said, rolling over on her side and resting her head in the crook of her arm. Her legs curled up a little.

"I just expect I'm rather . . . disappointing in comparison to those stories," he explained. "Yet here you are. You've hardly let me be since we left Denerim." Kya sat up abruptly. Loghain realized how that must have sounded, and it wasn't what he intended.

Her lips thinned into a sharp line. "I wasn't aware it was a problem," she said sharply. She started to stand.

"Wait," he replied, feeling the fool. "That's not what I meant."

She sat back down and glared at him again.

Loghain sighed, "I just wondered why." He frowned. "I'm certainly not the most personable or tactful in the company you keep."

Kya frowned again. When she did, a little line appeared between her fair eyebrows. Loghain discovered that he found it endearing, and it worried him more than a little.

"I thought we'd been through this bit already," she said. "Or was all my gushing really that unclear?"

Loghain was confused. Gushing?

She seemed to read the puzzlement on his face as clearly as if he had spoke. "You didn't think as a teenage girl I was in awe of your tactical skills, did you?"

"What do you mean?"

"Holy Maker, you need me to come out and say it?" she laughed. "As if it isn't ridiculous enough left unsaid." She was blushing, and Loghain didn't have the slightest idea why.

"Apparently," he replied. "Because I haven't a clue what you are getting at."

"You have a daughter, don't you?" she asked.

"Last I checked," he said gruffly. "Although I don't know what that has to do with this."

"She was a child once, yes?" she said. She paused, but when he said nothing she continued. "And now she's Queen. Don't you remember any of the time between child and woman?"

Loghain snorted. "I remember she was very moody," he said. "And I spent a lot of time trying to prevent her from . . . consummating her budding relationship with Cailan before they were married. I also . . . oh." He stopped short.

Loghain felt like an idiot.

"Oh," he repeated.

Kya grinned. "Yes, that."

"Well," Loghain said, completely unsure how to deal with this admission. "I suppose I should be flattered."

"Don't get too concerned," she said, embarrassed. "That was a long time ago, and like you said, you aren't quite the same man in those tales."

"I suppose not," he said. "And if that's the case, it doesn't explain anything."

"It explains why I spoke to you to begin with, anyway," she said quietly. "And after that, well, you are interesting and sensible. Do I need another reason? Why do you speak with me, after all?"

Loghain wondered at that himself. "You have a point." The room suddenly felt very small, and Loghain felt distinctly lecherous. The idea that she might . . . it was entirely beyond good taste. She was younger than his daughter. The mere thought was just wrong. But she was still looking at him. Her head was tilted to the side a little and it occurred to Loghain that in the emotional state she was in . . . she was so vulnerable right now . . . .

No.

He had never been one to indulge in such things and he wasn't about to start now. He was also more than a little annoyed by the thought of taking another Theirin cast off. He clenched his teeth. He was tired of being the lesser man.

He stood abruptly. Kya frowned again and he prided himself on ignoring it.

"I think it is time we both tried to sleep," he said brusquely. "It is a long way to Redcliffe, and there is little time."

"There is at that," she said, following his lead and coming to her feet. She looked somewhat disappointed, although Loghain assumed that was more his own vanity than anything else.

He walked to the door and opened it, looking back at her pointedly.

"Goodnight Loghain," she said quietly. She stood too close, just for a moment, looking up at him. She was close enough that he could have counted the little flecks of grey in her blue eyes if he'd desired. He could have kissed her, and he had the peculiar impression that she wouldn't have objected. He stepped back.

"Goodnight Warden," he said, more harshly than he'd intended. She frowned at that, hard. With a little sigh, she turned and walked out.

Loghain closed the door behind her and leaned back against it, running a hand through his hair. He stopped, and held forward the length of hair that he'd always braided back to keep it out of his face. That was until she unwound the strands and apparently took rather a large portion of his sanity and resolve with it.

Before he could sleep, there was something he needed to do. Headaches be damned, he thought as he roughly began to braid his hair. He felt the familiar pull against his scalp, and thought he could already feel the beginning of a headache coming on. A headache he was used to.

This other thing he was used to as well, and it was far more painful.


They traveled with haste. A battle awaited and Loghain was glad of it; he wanted nothing more than to find something he knew how to handle. All this sentimental musing was not in his nature. He did whatever he could to avoid it. He was also more than a little angry with himself, and the idea of venting his anger on the darkspawn was very appealing.

He hadn't expected he'd get his wish quite so soon.

Redcliffe was overrun, but there certainly were not enough darkspawn to account for the entire hoard. There were not nearly the numbers here to even compare to Ostagar. He knew the darkspawn had not been laying about; they'd been building their numbers in the last year. Something was deadly wrong.

Nonetheless, the fighting was satisfying. It had been too long since he been able to fight. Not skulk and plot behind closed doors. He was splattered with blood and gore, he was bruised and battered from a blow he'd taken from an ogre. He was exhausted and irritable and filthy. He finally felt like himself again, for the first time in a very, very long time.

And Kya. Well, he had further proof that she'd held back when she fought him at the Landsmeet. He wasn't sure if he should be impressed or offended. She did things with her magic that he hadn't even realized were possible. The sheer level of gore was staggering.

She also seemed as adept with the sword strapped to her back as with her spells. Which was more than a little impressive. No affectation; the heavy plate and shield both emblazoned with the Grey Warden griffon. He realized he'd never seen her wear that particular armor before, but the shield he recognized. The bastard prince had it strapped to his back when he'd marched into the Landsmeet.

Apparently, when Alistair said he was leaving the Wardens, he was more serious than Loghain expected. Despite the fact that he thought it rather childish, it did prove that the boy had something of a backbone after all.

It was a nice idea; Loghain only hoped that Alistair might have as much of a spine when dealing with the Banns.

Loghain looked around the courtyard of the castle. It was strewn with darkspawn bodies and shed blood. Kya was talking animatedly with a haggard looking guard. She too was spattered, from head to foot. He watched as the blood drained from her face making the spots of red on her pale skin all the more pronounced.

"Come," she said loudly, her companions snapping to attention. Loghain snapped as well, which only surprised him after he'd already done it. "Riordan is here, and has news."

Loghain felt his blood heat again at the sound of the name. The Orlesian Grey Warden. Wonderful.

Swallowing his distaste, he followed Kya inside and held his tongue. There was no strategy that would be effective here. The hoard was marching on Denerim and the only answer was to strike at them with everything they had, hopeless though it might be. It was going to be the sort of battle Cailan would have loved. Loghain felt the tiniest pang of regret at that. The first he'd felt since the deed was done.

He looked over at Kya with indignation. What was this Maker damned woman doing to him?


Loghain was alone, finally. The room was hardly more than a closet, but it was warm enough and quiet. Despite the huge throng of men outside, it was almost too quiet. The calm before the storm, as it were.

He should have been asleep, but it alluded him. He polished the blood from his armor until it glowed. Then he took to pacing like a caged animal. If he kept it up, by the time the march came, he'd be useless. He sat down on the bed and stared blankly at the wall.

He closed his eyes. And opened them again quickly.

What he wouldn't have given for a pleasurable nightmare about darkspawn. He sighed, vexed with himself. But still, even after chastising himself a dozen times over, every time he closed his eyes, she was there.

He thought he would be beyond such nonsense. Not that he hadn't the same experience with Rowan. But if loving Rowan had taught him anything, it was that sentiment and duty did not belong in the same man. There was no living with yourself when you tried to have both.

It was foolishness. And it didn't matter.

Riordan had told them in no uncertain terms that the three of them would not all survive the archdemon. That didn't bother him. If he was given the choice, he'd end the foul thing himself, and all of this could finally end. How much could one man survive? How much pain and betrayal and rejection could be held inside of one heart before it just . . . stopped?

Loghain was tired. And it wasn't the exhaustion of body that tugged at him. He was weary in his very soul. He'd had enough. He'd seen enough. There was nothing in the world left for him but more pain. His own stupidity had seen to that.

He wished he could have loved Maeve properly. His wife had been everything a man could have wanted. She was beautiful and kind, she was dedicated to Gwaren and to him, far more than he ever deserved. She ran Gwaren for him, when he couldn't be spared from Maric's side; she gave him a daughter and fought with him as a strong as any dragon. She grew roses in the garden just like she was; soft and gentle but hard and sharp as a thorn when she needed to be. She closed her eyes and prayed to the Maker when he made the time to bed her.

But Loghain failed spectacularly as a husband. He spent so much time away, so much time dwelling on how he could not have Rowan that he was never the husband Maeve deserved. He wanted more than a proper woman, a wife and a mother and all the wonderful things that Maeve had been. He desired a woman who was...he never knew what he wanted, except that it appeared to be more to his liking when he couldn't have it. Maeve was strong, intelligent and temperamental. But she was also his. He sometimes wondered if her wanting him made him distrust her motives. And then she was gone, dead and buried in the earth with Rowan, both lost forever. He'd lost them both to his own bitterness, his stubborn heart.

What he did know was that he had always been drawn to women who were passionate, but practical. Someone who knew the cost of freedom and was still willing to pay the price.

A woman like Kya. Another woman he shouldn't have.

These two women, Rowan and Kya, who had caught his eye and seemed to worm their way behind his carefully guarded gates without even trying. Two women who were very different, but still much the same. One, of noble blood who could have become a flower behind a stone wall who instead became a fearsome warrior and a ruler of renown. The other raised in a stone cage, but when the time came, she had not shirked her duty and fought tirelessly to end this Blight. Even when it meant she had to fight him at every turn. Instead of cowering or compromising, she defeated him. And he knew she would see this to the end, even if it meant her own destruction.

Two women with hearts of steel and resolve of stone. Two women that were his equal, and worthy of more respect than he could offer them. The two women in all of Thedas that he could never have.

There, in the flickering light of the candles, alone as he'd always been, Loghain prayed for death.