A/N: Writing itch refusing to abate. I'm scratching in any way I know how.

XXX

Vigil In Peace? Sure. Peace in Vigil? Not Likely.

Making it through the morning without the Warden-Commander popping a vein, hers or someone else's, one agonizing minute at a time. The new Arlessa has the social grace of a rabid mabari and Senechal Varel is thinking maybe the mabari would have been a better choice after all. Even a rabid one.

XXX

"What, in the name of the Maker's foul breath, do you need me for?!"

Varel took a deep breath and prepared himself to explain things yet again. He was a patient man, and composed, but dealing with the new Arlessa was wearing both those attributes thin. Point her at something she could hit, cut or even bite and she'll jump to it as eager as you please. Fail to do so, however, and she'll go out picking her own fights, with anything and anyone, walls included. But try to make her deal with anything she couldn't lash out at and you had a problem on your hands, as Varel was quick to learn.

He still retained some sympathy for her, hard as that had been on occasion. No one could be expected to be in the best of moods if woken up way too early in the morning after having spent several days on the road non-stop only to have a long day of pending trials dumped into their lap.

Still…

"You are the Arlessa, Commander," he said, placing both hands on the table between him and the elf. "As such, you have… duties to attend to." He braced himself inwardly for the reacion he knew was coming.

On cue, the elf bristled up, eyes flashing hot coals. "Arlessa, Commander, Hero… I'm gathering titles like dog gathers flees," she spat. Thank you so much, Anora, for dumping this into my hands.

Varel waited. The elf leaned back in her chair with a grumble. "You're the Senechal. So go senechal, Varel. You said it yourself it's what senechal is for."

Varel shook his head. "I cannot, Commander-"

"I tought I was the Arlessa today," she cut in.

Snap, hiss, snarl, et cetera…

"Not alone, not the first time," Varel continued, unbaited. She liked him, actually. He knew that. She was actually sitting in her chair, not storming out, as she had done to Mistress Woolsey some while back.

"You need to make an apperance," he raised his hand to stave off an incoming hiss. "because the people must see their new Arlessa. Who is also a Warden-Commander. That, I believe, is the main reason why the Queen, long may be her reign, gave Amaranthine to the Order to begin with."

That, and she royally hates my bloody guts. And she does 'royal' well. Damn.

Varel paused to give the elf a break to digest his words and get whatever barking retort she might have out of her system. She can see reason. Sometimes. But like with boiling cattle, one must let her pop a lid and blow the steam the moment the steam builds up. The trick was to time the actual conversation in between two pops, when her brain could actually focus on what was being said. That gave him roughly about ten seconds to two minutes to be productive, so he learned to time his information in short, focused bursts.

"Varel!" She growled and leaned across the table, half-rising. "I am not a bloody Arlessa! I am a little Alienage rat. What I know of laws can fit in a thimble!"

She bolted up, shoving the chair behind roughly. Pacing like a caged beast. Exactly the way she felt right now.

Varel waited yet again.

"I know, Commander. I know. I will be there, you know…"

"I..." She stopped and shot both her hands up. "I… Know. All right?" she deflated a bit, even squeezing her eyes shot for a moment. Her way of awkwardly showing she wasn't pissed at Varel, merely pissed in general. "I just…"

…don't want to do it? No. No, she didn't, but suddenly feeling like a little puddle of shit over it? That just made her pissed.

She abruptly found Varel's office to be too hot. With a snarl, she jerked the doors open and hissed sharply in frustration.

… inadvertently startling a shadow making its way alongside the opposite wall of the wide hallway out front.

In an instant her eyes lit up; feverishly hungry, always hungry for a way out.

"Hey!" She cried out in a voice of someone who just discovered a gold-pissing nug. "Why not let him handle it?!"

Varel couldn't see the hallway from where he was sitting, obscured as it were by the elf's back. However, all became clear to him a moment later when he heard her shout out:

"Howe! Come here!"

XXX

Nathaniel was just trying to get some breakfast.

He woke up early, stomach rumbling - another 'perk' of being a Grey Warden, he learned, something he'll have to learn to put up with for a while, alongside the nightmares, sensing darkspawn, being sensed by darkspawn and, Maker help him, putting up with all other Wardens on top. Not for the first time he pondered slipping out in the dead of the night and not stopping until he's in Free Marches again. Some days, even Tevinter didn't seem far enough.

But he didn't run. Yet, anyhow. Every time the urge came over him, about twice an hour to be precice, the familiar walls of the Vigil, of his home, held him back. Except that it was home no longer. But felt like one regardless. Or was it just nostalgia for the days past that his conflicted mind painted way brighter than they truly were?

The cynic within him knew that to be true. But little Nate Howe somehow trumped the cynic Nathaniel Howe every Maker-damned time.

Once that it was clear he won't be making a dash for it today, Nathaniel settled for at least finding some breakfast - inner conflicts unresolved, but grumbling stomach, at least, he could take care of - and now he ended up cursing both himself, his stomach, and whatever else was handy for distracting him well enough to slip his usual guard and walk instead of stalk down the hallway.

As if raised voices from Senechal's office weren't clue enough…

XXX

"Yes, Commander?" Nathaniel marched into the office, lips a thin line of annoyance.

The elf already had her back to him and talking to the senechal as if he weren't even there. "There, Varel. He knows this stuff, not I."

Varel looked at Nathaniel's carefully blank features and correctly surmised that the young man was probably already seething. In under a minute, no less. The Commander had people skills to admire, and with sensitivity to match. If your point of reference was a berserk ogre, that is.

He started to speak up but the elf didn't let him wedge a word in sideways.

"He's a Warden. This is about Wardens. He can do it. Better than me. So I don't have to."

Varel didn't even know where to begin explaining in how many ways that wouldn't work. Nathaniel, meanwhile, didn't even know what in Andraste's name was even going on.

The two man exchanged glances over the triumphant Warden-Commander's head, one now equal parts irked and confused, the other a mixture of sympathy and helplesness, and both contemplating the possible beneficial effects of a minor head trauma on one's health. Not hers - theirs.

"Commander..." Varel began.

"Is he not high enough in rank for this? Fine, he's now a General!"

Nathaniel blinked. Varel too.

"No, wait," the elf shook her head sharply, "that's higher than 'commander'. Or is it lower?"

Again, Varel tried to speak up but got cut short.

"Liutenant? Captain? Look, Varel, whatever it is, he's now it! Second in command, deputy, whatever! You sort it out. And I'm out of here!"

Nathaniel finaly had enough. "No, Commander. You're not." he quickly slammed the doors shut before the elf could bolt out. "Not until you tell me what in Andraste's name is going on!"

At once the elf's head snapped up, shooting Nathaniel a glare, daring him into full blown confrontation with instantly sparked glee. Picking fights was her soul food like posessing mages was demons'. Some day, Varel tought helplessly, she will be found dead in a ditch with her murderer claiming she was "asking for it". And, Maker help him, he'll believe them.

In the end, it was plain old hunger that prevented bloodshed. Stuck between outright stabbing the insufferable Commander and finally filling his, by now roaring, belly, Nathaniel's stomach decided his actions for him. The Commander will still be here, infuriating as ever, even after breakfast. Nathaniel was ravenous and he just wasn't having any of this on an empty stomach.

"What. Is. Going. On. Commander?" he growled out slowly in a remarkable feat of self-control. "Moreover, what is so important short of another Blight that cannot wait until after breakfast?"

The elf clenched her fists in annoyance. Whether at Nathaniel not rising up to her challenge or at being reminded of her own empty belly, Varel couldn't tell. She grit her jaw and flared her lips in an ugly, wolf-like grin.

"Better fill up real good. You're presiding over the trials today. …Captain." she hissed.

"No. I'm not." Nathaniel said flatly.

"Yes you are. I just promoted you!"

Still with that grin, and a slight hint of triumph.

"I am…" Nathaniel verbally stumbled for a second. Promoted? Stuck?

…trials?

Pariah he may be, but noble he was born and raised. Varel could almost hear it when things finally clicked into place in Nathaniel's head as it dawned on him what this whole mess was about.

He rubbed at his temples with one hand - the other, however, remained firmly pressed on the door - and exhaled deeply.

"You…." he shook his head as he fished for words, "You… either really don't understand a thing or you are flat-out refusing to," he breathed out at last.

The elf took a step back, clenching and unclenching her fists rapidly several times in an attempt to compose herself a bit. It made sense, Varel supposed - If she hand't learned how to occasionally rein in some of that anger, she'd long have exploded worse than any Dworkin bomb.

What triggered the rage spikes was easy: everything. Whatever nudged her to sometimes bottle them up though, was a random mystery.

"Probably and definitelly," she said at length. "Whereas you do and don't. Which is why I want-" she backtracked, quickly, though not without effort, "need you to handle this instead of me."

She looked at Varel. "How did you ever imagine me passing bloody sentences around anyway? Why, I-"

She kicked at the wall sharply.

"Dammit, Varel!" she snapped. "I'm good at getting people out of jails! Not putting them in them!"

Nathaniel couldn't help a short chuckle despite himself. "That… you are, Commander."

He… wasn't getting out of this, at least not easily, was he?

"Senechal," he turned to the older man, resigned, yet determined. "Can we please have three large breakfasts sent here? We have a lot to cover, not much time to do it, I am starving to near-death yet finding the Warden-Commander here entirly unappetizing."

In that case, neither was she.