Velanna felt herself breathing shallow, trying to work up the nerve to knock on the Commander's door. It wasn't as though this were something entirely unusual; as much as Oghren was the second-in-command of the Fereldan Wardens, Velanna was the functional aide to the Commander. It was a job she had taken with no small amount of disdain.

There were over fifty Wardens in the Keep at the moment, most of them new recruits culled from the Fereldan military. But Lance kept to himself, and only ever relayed orders and commands through his very close circle of advisors and confidantes.

Although, he didn't even talk to them, really. He was quiet, and brooding, much like Nathaniel only bitterer. Velanna hadn't intended to stay this long, wanting only to go find her sister and take her back from the Darkspawn.

However, Lance needed her, and really all the help he could get, so she stayed on.

The Warden Commander deserved at least that much. She hated the shemlen, with a passion, but her time around the Warden had mellowed her quite a bit. She held no love of humanity, but she saw aspects that were pleasing. Mostly in the Commander himself.

What little she knew of him had been told to her by people that had once known him, mainly Oghren. The Warden Commander spent much of his time alone, in his quarters. He appeared only long enough to eat or train or do some other task. He was present at every Joining, though he never said more than two words.

Velanna assumed that he didn't often speak because of his throat wound. He must not have liked the sound of his voice, especially considering that he had once sounded normal, at least according to Oghren. She had a hard time reconciling Oghren's description of the man with the man himself.

According to the Dwarf, Lance had once been a normal, everyday person. He had laughed and joked, had been quite your average human. He'd been something of an inspiration, had been the one to unite humans and Dwarves and even the Dalish.

Velanna could believe that much; Lance did have a knack for charisma or understanding. Even though he was a quiet and introverted man he did manage to impart a few words of wisdom on Velanna that had made her view humanity in a different light. She had even stopped calling him "shemlen-Commander".

But for as many stories Oghren had of the Warden and the time they spent during the Blight, the living, breathing man was quite a bit different. He didn't laugh or joke, ever. And Velanna had at first appreciated this; humans were grating to the nerves and the fewer words they spoke the better. But now she found herself strangely curious.

He was a powerful man, with a natural combat prowess. He had impressed her, and she often tried to watch him during his sparring sessions with the new recruits. He almost always won. He spent many hours training with Oghren and she was almost positive that the Dwarf had shown him methods of fighting harnessed by his warrior caste.

There was something, though, some sort of unspoken bond between the Commander and Oghren that seemed to extend past their experiences together. Oghren had made mention of his wife in Orzammar, presumably before he met Felsi.

There were other times when Oghren would describe their past adventures over one of his bitter ales that he seemed to touch upon some aspect of the Commander that he refused to elaborate on.

Velanna hadn't paid too much attention, but had gathered that there was something there. The Dwarf would usually mention a mage that traveled with them, and stop suddenly, looking about to see if the Commander was present. And he never was. But Oghren would refuse to continue.

Velanna had worked that, had sat with Oghren for hours until he'd consumed enough ale to part with a few secrets. And from it, all she had learned was that there was a mage, and that the Commander had been close to her.

Of course Velanna could guess at the rest of the story. She presumed that the mage had fallen in battle, and that the Warden had been overcome by grief. It added an air of romance to the man, something that Velanna would normally have shrugged off.

But she was interested in him, perhaps a little more than she would admit. And this level of depth was something she was unused to with humans. She had never entertained the idea that humans cared about much more than destroying their environment. Yet this Commander had made her think differently.

She was embarrassed to admit it, and had on more than one occasion come close to vomiting at the thought of allowing a human to crawl over her. And yet the closer she got to the Warden Commander, the more… alluring the thought of a relationship became. He was exotic, strange. She was unused to extended contact with humans, and so she was amazed to learn such things from him.

To see this Commander in the flesh, to see him living and breathing and to hear the few words he would speak at any given time, was something made her curious about him. It had been a long time since she had ever thought about a man in such a way, and the first time she had ever considered a human.

And perhaps he had considered her.

There were times when he watched her, out of the corner of his eye or when he thought she wasn't looking. He must have been attracted, really, why wouldn't he? She was Dalish, and strange to him. She was attractive, even to humans. And perhaps the way in which she wielded the magic of nature was also attractive to him. Who wouldn't want to touch such raw power?

And there had been one instance where he spoke to her.

They had been alone, and he was again watching her. She knew, and let him.

And then, almost without warning, he'd said, "You should let you hair down."

She had. He must have liked that in a woman, must have enjoyed long hair. Perhaps she enjoyed him enjoying her.

But there were other nights, when he wasn't so nice a human. He had a tendency to drink to excess. Perhaps that was how he and the Dwarf had gotten to know each other, though Oghren insisted that the Commander was not a drinker.

And Velanna had seen to it that Lance was taken to his room to sleep off a night of too many ales, though the man would never stop drinking. She'd known men like him in her clan. Yet he was unlike any man she had known.

So she stood outside his door, anxious. She had an important letter that she had been ordered to deliver straight away, and was nervous about it. It wasn't the contents of the letter itself that scared her; she had no idea what was in it. Rather, she was nervous about having to confront the Commander about it.

It was foolish, she knew. He was just a man, and they were familiar with each other. She could easily have entered the room without knocking and she would not have been refused entry.

But he made her nervous, as much as she liked seeing him. She was scared, at least a bit.

"Stop it," she whispered to herself. She had no time for such girlish games. She had a job to do, and much to get done that day. He would no doubt accept the letter, place it on a stack of papers, and send her on her way.

So she knocked, lightly. And he spoke from within, his voice a coarse whisper from the other side.

"Enter."

She pushed the door open, stepped in. She was surprised to see him up already, dressing. It wasn't uncommon for him to still be in bed this late in the morning.

He was pulling on a shirt, his back to her. She was able to make a number of scars, including a wide one that stretched from shoulder to shoulder – left from an armored Ogre in the city.

"Letter for you, Commander," she said, holding it up. "Delivered by special courier."

He grunted, nodded to his writing desk. It never ceased to amaze her how bare his chambers were. Besides the bed and the writing desk, there was only a bookcase and an armor stand, the only objects of a personal nature he owned.

The stand displayed his dragonscale armor, the armor he didn't often wear despite its rarity. He could claim to be one of the few men to have ever killed a dragon, and had the armor as proof. Yet he left it in the corner to gather dust.

He lived very sparsely, she assumed.

She left the letter on his desk, for him to read later. And she stepped out, closing the door behind her. She thought about perhaps going back inside, perhaps enticing the Warden Commander to stay in bed for a few hours more.

And almost immediately she squashed the thought, tossed it aside. And she went to the Keep's mess hall, where she would eat breakfast and wait for the Warden Commander to join them. And of course he would not.