She was using his father's office.

Of course she is...Nathaniel grit his teeth as he stood outside the all too familiar door, forcing back the indignant anger, the illogical idea that it was somehow an insult aimed at him.

The obvious reason for using the room was its size, its central location and the easy access from it to the throne room, it was the reason his father had made the room his office, and no doubt the reason for Lynn doing the same. It was logical, the room had been made with that function in mind. Yet...Nathaniel took a deep breath, glaring at the wooden door, all too familiar with the pattern in its grains.

He had awoken four hours ago, nearly jumping out of the bed he'd been dropped into, the sheets clinging to his sweaty body, his body still shaking with a terror he hadn't known even during his first battle...something beyond the real, something gripping his innermost being.

It had taken him two hours just to stop the shaking, unable to think about anything else he had just sat there, shivering...thinking back to the dream, trying to comprehend it. There hadn't been much to comprehend though, he had understood it perfectly, and the idea of all those people, endless in numbers...to just fall into darkness, body and souls ripped asunder, never to know peace...and him unable to do anything about it...it spoke volumes.

Of course, he could do something, he knew he could...and that realisation had been what he had struggled with...the knowledge that there was a path to stop such a horrible atrocity to continue, that the source of it could be killed, culled, keeping all those sightless people safe. He knew the path, knew the way to stop it, the only solution, the only way for him to be able to look himself in the mirror after having experienced such a dream, as Lynn had known he would...

It's a bitter thing...knowledge.

Nathaniel sighed, shoulders dropping as he looked down at his chest, his worn leather armour fitting him like a glove by now. He hadn't seen it, nor the other things, arrayed on the table next to him...not for the two hours he had just sat there, thinking, coming to a decision. If the Commander had intended them as a bribe she had failed, he had come to his decision on his own...not influenced by the gifts awaiting him.

Of course she didn't intend them as such. Nathaniel grimaced, the bitterness within him swelling. She had already known...so why give them to me? She doesn't seem to be one desiring friendship...He snorted at the idea, as much as the idea of the ice queen being a friend to anyone as the idea of him actually being her friend. He wasn't going to kill her, his family name deserved better then that...but he wasn't going to forget either. Father...

It had all lay there, on a table, waiting for him when he came to. His leather armour, neatly folded and with the dust and grime from his travels cleaned off. His grandfather's bow was also there, still marked with the Howe seal, a thing Nathaniel was sure had been destroyed by his father, a man not caring much for Nathaniel's hero and his warden business. Nathaniel had spent an hour lovingly cleaning it, re-stringing it, ensuring its integrity...despite the bitterness of his recent decision it had made him smile.

Then he had turned his attention on what was left on the table.

The vase that had been the favourite of his long since dead mother, his brother's old whetstone...they had lain there, in front of him...and Nathaniel had found himself swallowing as old memories had resurfaced. Then he had found a pile of old letters, his sister's letters...and he had read them...every single word...page by page...there had been so many it had taken an hour to read them. Some were confiding, some sad, some happy, that of a young woman...happy and living a life full with the normal troubles and enjoyments of life...and Nathaniel had cried.

Cried for his sister, for his brother, for his father, even the long dead mother that had nothing to do with the recent pains. It had all poured out of him when confronted with all those tangible things and memories...it had been right in front of him, real, something he could touch, something he could feel...and it had hurt.

But such things always came to an end, pain was transitory after all...and Nathaniel had finally put them aside, let his grief retreat, unable to express it any further for the day...worn down.

His decision hadn't changed, if anything it had only strengthened his resolve. How could he run away? Leave for some royal power that would keep him as a tool to use against fellow nobles when he knew what awaited in the darkness? How could he work to deprive others of family members when he by all right should keep more people from suffering the same fate he had? He could not stand by and do nothing as more were sacrificed to the darkness waiting in the distance...

So what choice did he have? Leave and despise himself forever? Constantly hounded by dreams that would remind him of his weakness and inability do help? Or would he do something? Would he fight?

The answer was painfully obvious. Nathaniel had never surrendered, his time in the Free Marches had taught him that not fighting for yourself meant you condemned yourself to poverty and sickness, in more then the material sense. No...he would fight, and there was only one power he knew of that stood against the darkspawn...

I hate her. Nathaniel growled as he raised a hand to knock on the door. But then again I've worked for many that I've despised, I can do it again...but I will never forget, or forgive.

He knocked.

Instantly a far too familiar voice called out from behind the door: "Come in."

The room wasn't as he remembered it, yet it was...Nathaniel frowned in confusion even as he looked over to the Commander. The room was large and rectangular in shape, Nathaniel having entered in the middle of the long end had to look far to the left to locate Lynn.

There things was as he remembered them, the office his father had worked in to the long hours of the night. Lynn was sitting behind a large oaken desk, the ends of it covered in neat piles of scrolls and its centre covered by a large map held in place by a glass inkwell and three smooth white stones. Covering the wall behind her and halfway down the long walls on each side of the office there was bookshelves, a dozen in numbers, scrolls laying in neat rows in each of them, many atop one another. More scrolls than my father had, guess it's Amaranthine papers plus grey warden papers I suppose...

That part of the room breathed business like the office had done before, a near copy of his father's room. Even the scene before him, with a tunic-clad Lynn standing bent over the map, flanked by the grey-haired Seneschal and an even older woman dressed in a simple dress and with a tight-lipped expression on her face was like that of a memory. Replace the small elf with his father and it had been virtually the same as before...

Even as he watched Lynn raised a hand to tell him to wait, oddly reminiscent of how his father had gestured him to silence when talking to his knights, he too hadn't even looked at Nathaniel as he finished his work... "I don't care for one missing warden, if he can get back he will. What bothers me is the lack of troops. We need more men."

"The lords can supply more men, and we can recruit more, there are some farmers we can recruit I'm sure." The seneschal suggested, grimacing. "But the lord will only do this after they have sworn their allegiance to you, and even then it will be troublesome for some."

Lynn shot the seneschal a glance. "Why?"

"Because there is no money." The woman who so far had been silent said, scowling at the seneschal. "The trade is disrupted, the lords are earning nothing from their tolls, and we ourselves can train more farmers but not equip them due to our own funds being minimal."

The sceneschal cleared his throat and scowled back at the woman, clearly disagreeing on some part of her argument. "True, but the fact is that even with money to pay for men many lords won't send you men without some sort of exchange, the oath of vassalage goes both ways and we have precious little to offer."

"Because of the-"

"Because not only do we have bad economy..." The seneschal shot the old woman a glare, stopping her explanation as he continued: "...but also due to a distrust of wardens in general, a change of lordship..." He shot Nathaniel a uncomfortable look that the Howe pointedly ignored. "...is difficult even without it being to an organisation that instantly sends Orlesians into the land...not to mention that you yourself are...well that is...ah..." The man cleaered his throat, shifting where he stood as he got worried about saying the obvious.

"An elf." Lynn filled in, as cold as uncaring as ever, even in the face of such racism endangering her work. "When can the lords assemble?"

Shaking his head Howe let the seneschal's answer become nothing more then a distant buzz as he focused on the other end of the room, on the strangest thing he'd ever seen in something that was supposed to be an office...

Furthest in the corner there was a cot, barely large enough for even someone of Lynn's stature to sleep in, far removed from the bed a lord was supposed to have, heck, worse then the beds the servants slept in! Was that really her bed? Or just a cot she used after the odd night of working late? The armour stand at the foot of the cot, now covered in the golden armour the woman usually wore, spoke of the former, as did the small dresser next to it, one of the shelves slightly open, revealing a few sets of tunics.

It was just a corner of the room, small and insignificant...and it was where she slept. I nearly had better living quarters back in camp in the Free Marches...

The rest of the right side of the room was not part of her office, nor her space really...it made Nathaniel shudder for some reason.

Closest to the cot there was a small pedestal of grey stone, a single red rose in a waterless crystal glass resting atop the pedestal. Yet despite the lack of water...the rose nearly glowed red, its colour full and lush.

Next to the pedestal there was another stand for a suit of armour, yet that one was hardly anything Lynn would wear. It was massive in size, made for a man that would dwarf not only Lynn but even Nathaniel, it shone in the dim light of the lamp hanging from the ceiling, the plates polished to a silver finish. The arms of it were reaching out ever so slightly, resting atop the pommel of a slightly curved blade covered in runes...the tip resting on the floor, as if the armour was really a guard ready to fight at a moment's notice. Most of the blade was hidden though, hidden behind a large shield of steel whose front was emblazoned with the redcliffe heraldry.

It's...his armour. Nathaniel found himself swallowing. Despite not really buying the tales sung by the bards of the heroics of the wardens, all that propaganda...he was not so foolish to think that they had made up the tale of how the new king had sacrificed himself to kill the archdemon. Though until now he had imagined the tale of the towering silver king was exaggerated...but the massive suit of armour before him told another tale. Why is she keeping it? Just for display? It doesn't seem...like her.

Nathaniel looked up at the helmet atop the rest of the armour, the blue plume atop it still, resting atop a shining silver shell, the darkness behind the closed visor seemingly glaring at him. It was...a frightening thing, even when not animated by a wearer...and Nathaniel found himself look away, as if the armour had somehow found him wanting. How can she sleep with that thing nearby...?

On the other side of the armour, closer to Nathaniel, there was another pedestal, this too of grey stone. But instead of a rose there was a figurine of dark wood atop it, looking so lifelike that Nathaniel at first thought it was a living snake resting on the pedestal. But no...it wasn't moving, despite looking like it whenever he moved his head. He shuddered at the sight, there was no mistaking the archdemon, he had heard of it all too well, seen the drawings some painters had already made...and this one was far more terrifying then any of them, it had to be nothing but a complete likeness..

Compared to it the small figure on its knees atop its chest was tiny...yet Nathaniel found his gaze drawn to it...and frowned. It wasn't the massive suit of armour next to the figurine resting atop the chest of the bowled over dragon, it wasn't the hero king, it was Lynn...her armour and body unmistakable. And though the look of serenity on the figure's tiny face didn't fit the woman...it was definitively the Commander that was driving her sword into the chest of the archdemon. She's not so arrogant to think she killed it...is she? No... Nathaniel grimaced, there was no air of arrogance over any of this...only a lingering sadness...making him uneasy.

Then, closest to him, a simple rack for weapons that were usually kept in the armoury. At the bottom a collar a mabari would wear. Then there was a pair of seizable daggers, still glittering with enchantments. Then an elegant-looking bow of dark wood, one end of it stained with old blood that had dried into the wood. And then...a large axe, an axe Nathaniel had seen a few hours ago, seen on a now dead dwarf...

A shrine... Nathaniel swallowed at the realisation, widening eyes taking in the many items laying on display next to the minimal cot Lynn had reserved for herself. Memorials...memories...pains? Nathaniel shuddered and shook his head, memories of crying over his sister's letters all too fresh in his mind. No, I will not understand her, I will not feel sympathy, she deserves whatever pain these things represent. He glanced at the armour again, finding the dark slits of its visor glaring at him...and looked away. She does...

"Then I will go to the Wending Woods and resolve that." All too eager to distract himself Nathaniel tore his gaze away from the minimal living area next to the imposing shrine and focused back on the Commander as she pointed down at the map. "Seneschal Varel, I want the men thoroughly trained and whatever entrance the darkspawn used to enter the castle found, clear?"

"Yes Commander." The seneschal bowed his head with a grimace, apparently having lost whatever argument they had had; the impression all the more clear by the pleased expression of the old woman opposite him.

"Mistress Woolsey." The elf turned to the old woman, ruining the pleased expression by merely looking at the woman. "You will see to that taxes are raised properly and in all areas of the land, is that clear?"

Looking away the woman nodded, grimacing. "It would be hard but...yes...don't come to me if the peasants complain though."

"I will not." Lynn nodded and finally turned her attention to Nathaniel, her eyes boring into him...and he could do nothing but look away. "Yes?"

He licked his lips, suddenly feeling taken off balance despite having prepared himself. Something with the room having...made him uncomfortable. Just say it and get out... "Thank you for finding my things."

It was bitter, to thank his father's murderer, but it had to be said, he was grateful for that little mercy after all... "As you said, worthless baubles to anyone but you, nothing to thank me for." Lynn's voice was cold and harsh, as he had expected, the gifts were neither for his loyalty nor a kindness, just given because he wanted it and she had no use for them.

"Still...thank you." Nathaniel sighed, took a deep breath...and forced himself to meet the Commander's eyes. "I will stay."

The elf's eyes didn't even show a hint of response to the words. Her voice flat and cold: "I know."

She had said he wouldn't leave...and she had been right...it was enough to make Nathaniel gag in disgust. But instead he kept his face carefully neutral, intent on seeing his plan through. "This does not make us friends though, only allies, I will not forget." I promise you...

He saw the slight movement of the Seneschal, the man resting a hand on his sword at the dangerous words even as the old woman took a step away in worry. But Lynn remained impassive, as Nathaniel knew she would. "I know."

"Then we are in agreement." Nathaniel nodded and felt his shoulders stiffen at his words, despite already having made up his mind the rebellious part of him was disgusted with the idea of throwing in his lot with the monster of a woman before him. But what choice did he have?

"Yes." Lynn nodded too, short, simple, eyes boring into his asserting the dominance they both knew she already had.

Nathaniel looked away, shoulders dropping as he felt himself grow...weary, old. "Good."

He turned...and left the room.

888

Thanks to Abydos Jackson for surviving this one.