Authors note: Come on people, don't be coy, I'm happy to hear any well formulated feedback. Criticism is the only way to learn, after all (and it's a good way to keep me motivated to write these things, now that I'm done with the game ;)
My friend, I wish not to bore you, with the idle details of petty politics, as much as those have defined most of my life. This is not what these memoirs are about. I may have devoted years of my life to the useless quarrels among the Kirkwall nobility. Perhaps the better part of it, in more then one sense. The day I wish to speak of, is the second time I met the champion.
Kirkwall did not recover well, from the Qunari assault. True, it would be easy to dismiss the damage done by the battle as a lucky result, all things considered. Almost half a Legion of Qunari, wreaking havoc within the cities heart, without provocation, without warning. And yet – the city suffered nothing more then the death of a few dozen, mostly guardsmen, and a few fires in the slums of Lowtown and around the compound.
The death of Viscount Dumar on the other hand, left a dangerous vacuum. A vacuum, that the knight commander was all too eager to fill. Sure, she had already appointed the last Viscount, but at least there had been a Viscount. Dumar had been able to stand up against the templars rule. He even brought up the backbone to do so, from time to time. The nobility had accepted that. But Maker, we were not willing to let Meredith take the Viscounts chair for herself. For over a year, the city had been governed by a council of noblemen, under straight supervision of the knight commander and the grand cleric. In practice, that meant nothing more, then that we met up every few weeks, and wasted a few hours in debate, while Meredith governed the city. Not that any of us, who participated in this farce, had any doubts about our influence. By the blight, they even brought a selection of hand picked circle mages to these meetings. As advisers they said. Hard to tell, whether to mock us, or the mages themselves. Regardless, the chantries laws, you know, for mages not to hold any political power, were followed. None of them ever contributed anything worth mentioning to the actual politics. But then, neither did any of us nobles.
I only mention this, because such a meeting was the first occasion the Knight commander used, to present Kirkwall it's champion. I dare not say, whether it was cruelty, a clever political ploy, or indeed the standard procedure, as they claimed, to delay this event for over a year. Regardless, it hardly failed to impress. No hero can ever hope to be as large, as the stories told in his absence. And the young Lady Amell was no different. I know what you're about to say, of course she was stripped of her title when she joined the circle. But even after everything that's happened – I knew her as a woman of noble heart, and I refuse to address her by anything less then her proper title.
Ironically, the day I speak of, she was perhaps in the worst state I ever had the misfortune of witnessing. I watched from one of the windows above the stairs, leading up to the Viscounts keep. Quite a few people had gathered to the sides of said stairs, awaiting the circle delegation, no awaiting the woman that had long become the center of tales, full of heroism, full off glory. What they saw, turned out to not be quite what they expected.
In fact, from a less established point of view then my own, she was hard to make out, in the first place. She walked amidst the circle delegation, which itself was flanked to both sides, by templars, tall and vigilant. Not the tallest of women, and dressed in the same plain circle robes as those around her, it was merely her long, ginger hair, that gave her away. What I am about to tell you might just have been illusion, tricks that my old mind is playing me, but in hindsight, it almost feels like I remember her face. Her features frozen, the eyes locked on the gate of the keep, desperately trying to ignore the crowd amassed around her. Because of her.
She managed well, despite her state, far paler then I remembered her, the staff no longer an accessory, but a necessity keeping her from fully collapsing. The delegation had almost reached the final flight of stairs, when movement erupted from inside the crowd. An elven female, with short raven hair, dressed in finer clothes then most elves, broke through the line of guards, that shielded the stairs. Yelling at the delegation at the top of her lunges. For a moment, it almost looked like she was about to hurl herself at the templars, before another elf, tanned and with hair like fresh snow, grabbed her by the shoulders, and yanked her back in the crowd. The whole scene happened too far away, for me to make out any clear words in the yelling, but the tone, the desperation in the elf's voice left little room for interpretation. If there was any, Lady Amells reaction extinguished it. She bent her head sideways, to locate the source of the sudden uproar, like everyone in the delegation did. She couldn't have caught more then a glimpse of the elf, but that was more then enough. Even from my position, I could see her eyes widen. And then... nothing. She simply collapsed on the spot, as if all strength had suddenly faded from her body.
I would very much like to say that I observed how the rest of the scene played out. But truthfully, I averted my eyes, and left my watch post at the window. Do not mistake it for sentimentality, they called us take our places in the conference room. At least, that's what I'd like to believe today. They brought the mages in, a few minutes later. Lady Amell supported by another mage, with light brown hair, and blue markings in her face. The meeting was as meaningless as all those meetings were, but I can't say I even recall what was discussed that day. But even on my deathbed, I will never forget the look on Lady Amells face, her features frozen to stone, her eyes empty, staring past us all, her pale cheeks glistening like morning dew.
-Taken from the memoirs of Friedrich of Reinhardt, 9:46 Dragon