Someone was shaking me awake again. This time I was not warm in my bed but on the cold wooden floor of... somewhere. I could hear concerned voices and people shooing others away. What had happened? The shaking was still occurring, so I forced my eyes open. My vision was very blurry, but I could make out the red hair of my cousin, Soris and his concerned voice trying to coax me to consciousness. Anything farther than him was just a bunch of colored shapes. Did I fall from the rooftops again?

"Darrian, can you hear me?" Soris asked, my hearing returning to me slowly. I nodded slowly and tried to sit up. He moved to my side and put his arm across my back, helping me up right. Not a good idea, I found out, as my head started to ache more than it did. I put my hands to my temples, massaging them. When the pain subsided I started to look around. I was on the grandstand, the Elder assisting a Chantry sister down the stairs. My father was sending a crowd away, along with a man from Rivain.

Rivain...

I suddenly remembered the wedding, Bann Vaughan, Shianni... Shianni! I suddenly pushed myself to my feet, only to start toppling over. Soris grabbed me and helped to steady me. "We need to save Shianni..." I told him

"We can't go after them, Darrian," Soris explained. "There's no way he'd allow us into the Arles house. Not after what you did to him."

"But we can't let him hurt her."

"He didn't just take her." I froze for a moment and looked at Soris, questioningly. "They took our fiancés and the other bridesmaid."

This was serious. I was not a fan of marrying a woman I didn't know, but I was even less of a man of having her stolen away from me to be a sadistic man's toy. I was now furious. That bastard was going to pay. I pulled myself away from Soris, and bent down to pick up the dagger that I had dropped and started walking towards the entrance of the Alienage, Soris hot on my tail.

"Darrian, I know what you're thinking, but think of the consequences!"

"I don't care about the damn consequences!" I yelled. "If you want to let them be raped and killed by those bastards, be my guest. But I'm going after them, whether it costs me my life or not." I pushed past him. I could feel his gaze following me. I knew he'd eventually follow me, he always did.

Suddenly, there was another hand that reached out and stopped me. I turned to see the Rivaini man looking at me with concern on his face, the same kindness in his eyes. "I know how angry you are, my young friend, but you need to stay calm and think this through. You could end up in prison, or worse, dead, if you do this."

I gazed into his eyes, and could see he was trying to help. "I know what is right, Messare, and saving them, whether it kills me or not is that." I pushed past him as well and continued on my way. I could see Soris coming to walk beside me now, and the short sword strapped to his belt. I knew I could count on him. Before we reached the gate, separating the Alienage from the rest of Denerim, the Elder blocked our path, along with my father.
"Darrian, please don't do this," my father pleaded with me. He knew he wouldn't change my mind, for I was just as stubborn as mother was. But I gave him credit for trying.

"I must do this."

My father sighed and the Elder waved a hand to someone else, who stepped forward. "This is _, He works in the Arl's house. He can get you two in."

I was surprised the Elder was assisting us in this small way, but I would not turn his help aside. I nodded my thanks to the Elder, and started for the Arl's house, with Soris and _.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

_ took us through the servants entrance and had us change into servants clothes. Soris and I hid our weapons under our clothes as we entered. _ explained to us that not all the elven servants would help us but probably would get through without much notice, as long as we kept our weapons concealed. He let us through the door and closed it behind us. Soris and I walked through the corridor to the main servants quarters, where a sleeping guard sat on a crate, with a bottle cradled in his arm. He smelled like a really bad wine cask.

We crept by him, as quietly as we could, but Soris kicked an empty bottle that was hidden in the shadow. The clink of the bottle stirred the guard awake, but before he could raise any sort of alarm, I took my dagger and brought the pummel to his head knocking him unconscious. Soris looked at me with surprise but neither of us said anything. I hid my dagger again and reached for the door. We walked through and closed the door behind us into the kitchen. There were servants all over the place, bustling here and there and preparing for the next meal. No one seemed to notice two extra elves, so we were able to get through without notice.

The next door we went through must have been the guards dinning hall. There were about 5 100 foot tables with benches to match the length, lined up parallel with each other. There were four guards sitting about, playing cards and had empty tankards in their hands. One of them looked up and noticed us and waved us over. We walked over to them and bowed slightly, faking the roll of servants. "Get us some more wine, knife-ears!" the off-duty guard commanded us. "And make it snappy!"

Soris and I ran back to the kitchen and spotted two bottles of red wine on the counter and grabbed them. I was about to turn back when I noticed another bottle on the shelf. Rat Poison! I looked around to see if anyone was watching and grabbed the bottle, pouring some into the wine bottles and swirled them around to mix it in well. "What are you doing?" Soris exclaimed.

"Giving these guards a piece of my mind," I replied. We headed back to the dinning room and walked up to the guards and poured some wine into each of their tankards. We stood there for a moment as they each took a long gulp each and handed their tankards back for more, which we gladly gave them. After a few minutes of them drinking and playing cards, one of the guards collapsed on the table, making the other three laugh at him, thinking he was drunk.

Then another one fell, and the last two looked at them in shock, realizing that they were not drunk, but dead. They looked to us and reached for their weapons,but before they could unsheathe them, Soris and I already had covered their mouths, our weapons to their throats and slashed them across, splurting blood across the table. They spasmed for a moment before falling limp onto the table. We wiped our blades on their clothes and hid them once more, continuing on our way to the floor above, where we were told Vaughan's room was.

We climbed a stairwell up to the next floor where guards stalked the halls. They didn't take much notice of us, thinking we were servants and let us pass without question. Eventually we could hear the screaming voices of women and we started running down the halls. We came to a large double door where the pleading voices of three women were coming from and the laughs of three men. Wait, why could I only hear three women? This was not good.

I took my dagger and started as fast as I could to pick the lock of the door. It soon clicked and I threw open the door. On the floor I saw Nesiara's bridesmaid lying on the ground, blood soaking through her dress, pooling around her on the floor. Her face was pale and her eyes glazed over. Dead.

I looked up to see Nesiara, Valora, and Shianni huddled together in the corner of the room, cowering in fear. The three men stood over the dead woman, two of them with their arms crossed over their chests, and Vaughan defensively with a short sword. "So nice of you two to join us, the party was just starting to get fun."

The other two men took out their swords, which hung at their belts, and stood in defensive positions and moved away from Vaughan to stand on either side of us. I took my other dagger out, one in each hand now and Soris took his sword out. I took long deep breathes to help me focus on the task at hand. It was now a matter of life and death, and we both knew that.

The man on my right took the first move, which I easily dodged and stabbed him in the back with both daggers at once. As he fell, the man on our left attacked, but was blocked by Soris' sword. Soris pushed him back and attacked right back, but with more grace and precision. I turned my attention to Vaughan who stood their with disbelief written on his face. The two of us started to circle each other, slowly, keeping our eyes fixed on each other, waiting for the other to strike.

I could see Nesiara and Valora holding each other behind Shianni from the corner of my eye, and could tell she was quietly praying to the Maker for our safety. I was quietly praying myself, not for my safety, but for theirs. I prayed that I could deliver them from the evil man who was before me. From the other side, I could see Soris had defeated his opponent and stood by Shianni to protect them if need be.

Suddenly, my attention was brought back to Vaughan as he lunged for me. I just barely dodged his attack, but my jacket was not so fortunate. I turned and crossed my blades just as his came down upon me. He was strong and started pushing his blade down to try and break my grip. But I held my ground. I pushed against him to no avail. He was not going to let up on his attack. I quickly searched the room and noticed the sword of one of his lackeys was still in his dead hand, pointing upwards, right behind Vaughan.

I suddenly felt the adrenaline running through my blood and pushed as hard as I could suddenly over powering him and was able to push him back far enough that I could take my leg and kick his knee cap. There was a loud crack as I broke it and he fell backwards, right onto the sword. There was a shriek heard by the women, and then silence. The only noise in the room was the Bann breathing heavily. He dropped his sword and looked at the one pertruding from his chest. He looked up to me as I knelt down with my one dagger across his neck. He was silently pleading that I spare him, but I would not allow that. "Die, pig!" I exclaimed as I brought the dagger down and beheaded him.

I stood up and turned to see Soris stare at me in horror. I nodded to him, to show that I was alright, and walked over to the large four poster bed to wipe my blades on the thick blankets before putting them away under my shirt. I walked over to Shianni, who ran into my arms and held me tight, sobbing into my shoulder. "I was so scared, Darrian!"

"Shh, it's alright. We're all safe now," I said, calmly. I held her for a few minutes before I noticed the dark bruises on her neck. I pulled back from the embrace and looked at her bruised face. "Did they hurt you, Shianni?"

She looked at me, her eyes full of tears. "They-" she sniffled. "They pinned me down on- on the- the bed" she sniffled again and hiccuped, "and- and pulled my dress u-up and... and..." She burst into tears and hid her face in my shoulder again. I held her tight and rocked her, rubbing my hand across her back. She didn't need to finish. It was obvious what they had done to her.

"It's going to be alright, Shianni. He can't hurt you any more." I could hear Soris speaking to the other two women, calming them down, but not really paying attention to that. All my focus was on Shianni.

Suddenly I remembered about the guards that were wondering about the halls, and pulled Shianni away from me. "Shianni, I know what has happened is terrible, but it's not quite over. We need to get back to the Alienage."

She stared at me for a moment then wiped her eyes with her sleeve and nodded her agreement. I looked to the other two women, who also nodded, as did Soris. "Let's get out of here."