Standard disclaimers still apply.

HARSH HOPE AGAINST TIME

--

She doesn't go back to sleep.

When dawn breaks, the light crests through the window and catches on the bevy of blades she has spread out across her desk, each painstakingly cleaned and sharpened to a keen edge. Her brindled leather battle armor, hanging neatly on its stand, shows the faint sheen of a recent oiling, and, in perhaps the most telling sign of her state of mind, she has sorted the numerous documents, letters, and notes once scattered haphazardly about the study and moved them into neat stacks and piles on her shelves.

Out of menial tasks and swiftly running out of time, she stands at the small window and broods like a champion. The distraction method of coping is clearly not working.

This is absurd.

She is the commander of the Fereldan Grey Wardens, infamous in the order, deadly with a blade, deft with her fingers, a terror when angered, cool on the battlefield, and a born leader. But this? This is as alien to her as holding another man's blade in her hand, as unknowable as the Fade. What is she supposed to do with this?

She has spent years honing her thoughts and retraining her emotions, carefully chiseling away at the anger and hurt, until the edges of the jagged hole he'd left in her were smoothed over, blending seamlessly with the others (labeled 'Father,' 'Mother,' 'Fergus,' 'Wynne'...) unless you looked too closely.

That's quite enough, you morose fool, she thinks viciously.

Suddenly furious –although with herself or with him or with the Maker-forsaken circumstances, she cannot say– she stalks from her quarters and makes her way to the kitchens. Tea, she tells herself. Whiskey this early in the day will lead to nothing good. A small cluster of the newest initiates are gathered about one of the tables, harassing Cook, and Simeon is emerging from one of the storage closets, clutching the bag of tea leaves that had been Elissa's objective. He looks like a child caught with his hand in a cookie jar, and she is struck by how young he still is, though it was only a handful of years ago when it might have been her caught red-handed in this very kitchen.

"There are easier ways to kill me than poisoning my tea, you know," she informs him wryly.

"Oh – I don't know. Far away from your blades this way, you see?" He beams winningly and she sighs.

"What are you doing? You hate tea." The initiates at the table are watching them in amusement, more younger brothers than subordinates in moments like these, and she can feel the irritation seeping away from her unwillfully.

"Well I thought I'd – try – to see what, ah, what you see in this stuff?" He shakes the bag at her questioningly. "And if I found I still didn't like it, of course, well, the leftovers could... erm. Well." Simeon looks decidedly sheepish, and she finds herself wondering what, precisely, he has been up to since she left him.

It doesn't take much guessing.

Stupid, stupid. She should have anticipated this. He is just a boy yet, and fascinated with the tales of the vastly more remarkable times that came before his recruitment. Of course he would be intrigued by their midnight 'visitor.' And what was there to be done about it? If it's his intention to stay, she can hardly expect to keep him isolated from the rest of the Wardens forever.

If it's his intention to stay? her thoughts screech at her, incredulous. Would you really allow that? Do you give a damn what he intends?

"Simeon," she says wearily, plucking the bag from his fingers and turning to take a mug from the large shelves of earthenware on the wall. "If he wants tea, you can take him some sodding tea. I don't care."

The kettle over one of the large fires is still almost full with steaming water, and she inhales the vapors deeply as she pours it over the leaves.

Simeon turns a mug over and over in his hands, watching her with his bottom lip caught between his teeth. When she sets down the kettle he doesn't pick it up, but instead takes a step closer to her and drops his voice below the growing din from the tables behind him. "Is it true, what they're saying?" he asked. "That he was with you at the battle of Ostagar – that he deserted when you pardoned Loghain?"

She counts to ten before answering. "It was hardly a pardon. The situation was desperate and so were we. You know how deadly the Joining can be – that alone might have killed him. But we were so few, and better he die battling the demon than uselessly on the floor of the courts."

"So tragic," Simeon murmurs. "An old hero gone so wrong – and then redeeming himself and saving the nation after all."

Elissa can think of a few other words for it, but she doesn't feel the pressing urge to share. "Don't romanticize it," she says sharply. "He was a traitor, and it was due largely to his desertion of us at Ostagar that the Blight was not wiped out then. We could have been spared months of destruction and Maker-knows how many thousands of lives if he had simply stood with us when it mattered."

"Yes, of course," he assents, subdued for just a moment before eagerly returning to his original line of questioning, "But this man, this Alistair? He left because you recruited Loghain, is that true? They say that he was the old king's bastard son, and that you and he were—"

"Enough of this," she snaps, snatching the cup from Simeon's startled hands and preparing the tea herself. "It is a story for your history lessons with Riell, not the breakfast table." She stirs the drink with a bit more force than necessary, welcoming the hot bite on her fingers as some of the liquid sloshes over the brim.

"But it was just a few years ago – and you were there," he protests futilely to her retreating back.

Elissa shakes her head and leaves the kitchen silently, taking both cups of tea with her.

She does not actively think about it, nor does she really consider the path her feet take until she is standing in front of the heavy door where Erik still remains. "Good morning, ma'am," he says. "All's quiet in there."

Erik was a foot soldier in Loghain's army, she recalls, who approached her in the days following the final battle and begged to join the Wardens. He, like so many others, had lost all the family he had to the ravages of the darkspawn, but where others had let it break them, his loss instilled steel in his resolve. This could not be allowed to happen again, he had told her, and when she answered wearily that the chances of another Blight in their lifetimes was more than slim, he informed her stoically that it didn't matter. "The Wardens must be restored to their old status if we're going to prevent the future generations from being as ill-prepared as we were this time," he had said. "All I ask is to be a building block in that foundation."

The small band of Orlesian Wardens sent to aid in rebuilding Ferelden's own force, led by veteran Warden Edgard, arrived in Denerim some weeks later. When Elissa took command and guided them to the old home that was to become their stronghold, Erik traveled with them, her first recruit. She is blessed, she thinks briefly, to be surrounded by so many intrinsically good men.

Elissa nods an acknowledgement with a smile and jerks her head back in the direction from which she came. "Thank you. It's close enough to the shift change – go on to the kitchen and get something to eat. I'll take it from here."

"Of course." To his credit, he doesn't question her, but he does cast a curious glance behind him as he departs. She knows very well that this is moving swiftly past odd, and that the rumors are already flying is not an encouraging thought. But what is there to be done about it? she thinks for a second time, and pushes open the door.

--

Yes, we will see Alistair next chapter, I promise. I expect it to go up some time this evening.