The sudden attack on the gates a few days later engages the whole city.
Elissa wakes up to the sounds of it, of a scrambling, frantic mass of people getting ready, all of them only too familiar with the situation and drawing their weapons on cue. Distant at first – cries and shouts, commands being roared and metal clashing against stone – the noise draws nearer until she realises that something is actually happening, just outside her window.
It mirrors many scenes that easily surface in her mind as she jolts out of bed, hissing curses and tripping over her own feet before she suddenly finds herself face to face with a group of servants, carrying weapons and armour.
"Commander," one of the maids breathes, holding out a pair of trousers and Elissa's favourite threadbare tunic to wear under the heavy plate. "There are darkspawn at the city gates."
"Are there soldiers enough to hold them off?"
"W-we... don't know, Commander," another maid adds, looking miserable under the weight of Elissa's breastplate.
"Where are the others?"
"Let me go and see, Commander."
Elissa pulls on the clothes, fumbles with the lacing momentarily; as she is about to get ready to put on the pieces of armour, the knock on the door interrupts her rhythm.
"Elissa!"
"Fergus, I could use a hand!" she yells back, trying not to tackle the short girl who is doing her best to hold up the mail skirt for Elissa to step into while also carrying the vambraces.
"As long as you have clothes on-"
"Andraste's arse, just come in!"
The door swings open and Fergus appears, fully battle-clad with the Highever shield and his longsword on his back and a helmet in one hand. He looks apprehensive and excited, at the same time, raising an eyebrow at the sight of her.
"How did you manage to sleep through that rattle? Loghain and Cauthrien are already on their way – I thought you were with them."
"I'm awake now, aren't I?" Elissa retorts, suddenly a bit self-conscious. It's her job to be alert, after all. She used to leap out of bed at the slightest sound back when they were travelling during the Blight, her mind so set on danger and vigilance that it never truly rested. "Help me buckle this on."
Fergus puts on his helmet to free both his hands, then he expertly assists her in the odd dance of covering a body entirely in metal, all the steps and turns required. Buckling the last piece of armour, he nods at her.
"Ready," he says from within his helmet. His voice sounds hollow.
She nods back and grabs her swords.
With Fergus at her side, they find their way out among the throng of panicked people on the street outside the courtyard, half expecting to see darkspawn there, but it's just people being terrified. People barricading the doors to their houses or abandoning them, remembering how they all burned last time, how very fragile wood is. They remember too much.
This is one of the most heartbreaking truths of war: it doesn't necessarily harden you, or make you callous. War splits you, breaks you apart and creeps into the cracks between; the body-memory of flight, of destruction, of being on the brink of death wherever you turn. It can make you stronger but it can also make you perpetually weakened, constantly fighting the fear.
It should be done with, she thinks, looking at the people they pass. Their faces are masks of grey exhaustion. The battles. The darkspawn. It should be over now. Was that not what she had bargained for?
"Do you know where they came from?" Elissa shouts at her brother across the crowded town square where priests have taken the merchants' places, their chants filling the air. Fergus' knights behind them and weapons drawn, they are practically heaving themselves out, trying to navigate the tightly populated areas through sheer force.
"Anywhere?" Fergus shouts back. "Anywhere in the north, at least."
The truth in that makes her groan.
As they reach the city gates, they are greeted by smoke and fire, the distinct sound of something burning – a small shed, she notices when they get closer – and the sparkling energy that only magic can cause. Elissa rushes forward, spotting Cauthrien's helmet in the chaos and aims at it. She reaches her as the emissary she was fighting crumbles with a hiss, taking a last shot at them with a poorly constructed spell that shatters and vaporises without doing harm.
"Shrieks!" Hedin states, fighting one right in front of Loghain, who is plunging his sword through a hurlock. "A horde of them!"
Elissa stumbles into the battle, receiving a slash across her chest from a poisoned dagger – ruining a perfectly fine piece of smithery but not actually hurting her – and lashing out against the attacking creature with both swords. Beside her she sees Fergus and Hedin handle the oncoming group of enemies together with nearly all of the knights. And then the flow of darkspawn comes to an abrupt halt, the stream apparently running dry.
"So," Elissa asks, hands on her knees as she bends forward to catch her breath, finally. "Tell me what happened."
It's been long – too long, much too long – since she fought. She can feel the battle, the iron-wrought core of how to do it, how to breathe it, running out of her. It seems as difficult to get hold of as it is to overlook the battlefield through the grey smoke around them.
"Darkspawn," Hedin says, rather needlessly. "They have been attacking this side of the city gates for a few hours, but not made any progress."
"What about other places? Have they tried to breach through the Alienage?"
"We sent a few knights there," Cauthrien interjects.
"And?" Elissa feels a little stab of irritation at the blatant ignorance of a weak spot in the city's defences.
"We have been preoccupied here." Loghain's voice is dry, but his eyes meet her own and she sees an understanding there – he will not protest if she divides the forces here and send a large party to the other part of town. He will, in fact, encourage it.
"Any losses?"
"Four men," Loghain replies, quickly. "A few others are injured."
"Are there any unusual circumstances?" she ask, aware that the question is suspicious, strange to toss out in the open, but she is feeling too stressed to think of a less conspicuous way of phrasing it.
Thankfully nobody seems to pay much attention to her choice of words and as Loghain shakes his head Elissa straightens up again, calming, her breaths coming slower now.
"You there, what's your name?" Elissa points her sword at a tall man in front of a whole group of knights who seem to look to him for some kind of guidance.
"Ser Gilbert, Commander." The man bows.
Elissa nods. "Ser Gilbert, take as many men as you need and run to the Alienage and make absolutely certain it is secured. I want guards there permanently until we know for certain how much of threat these darkspawn are."
"Understood."
She shakes off the feeling of frustration this field gives her, walking around to get an impression of it to connect with the dreary ones she made while they were running towards it. It's less horrible in reality. The number of deaths is reasonable, she tells herself, and the damage is limited to this area, as far as they know. It could be worse. Rounding a pile of darkspawn bodies she sees a fallen ogre and two of the dead knights, in a large puddle of blood beside it. The new Wardens are forming a small, fairly pitiful line in the outskirts of the battlefield – unscathed, at least. Always something, she supposes.
Elissa sighs, brushing a strand of hair out of her face and stops short; she can feel something is wrong with this very spot, something grazing the outskirts of her knowledge and leaving dark whispers in her blood. It feels like being near those darkspawn in Highever.
"Commander," Loghain calls, rather sharply.
She turns around, about to ask what he wants but catches herself; there is that tone, she knows that tone. It's over thirty years of experience calling out to her, pushing her right back in place when she seems to have momentarily misplaced herself.
Elissa squares her shoulders, looks up and takes a deep breath.
"I believe we have a few things to report to the King," she says, noticing that Fergus has offered Cauthrien a piece of cloth to wipe her face and that Cauthrien holds it against a wound on her forehead. "Loghain, I want you with me. Hedin, of course. Cauthrien, Fergus, you two as well. The rest of you," she looks at the Wardens, "remain here, guard the gates and report back to us."
"Yes, Commander," Adrianna nods her understanding of the situation.
.
.
.
.
Elissa truly does not like the inside of the Palace.
It's a pompous place full of gold and treasures and of strange air that falls into her lungs like reminders of all the previous times she has been here. Those have not been particularly happy times, leaving no joyous memories in her body.
It seems petty to blame a building, of course, but she isn't a very generous woman. And – she corrects herself, biting down on a sour comment forming inside her mouth – it isn't a mere building. It's a constricting, overwhelming mass of a building that seems to breathe around them, and they are standing in it, awaiting its next move.
Elissa folds her arms awkwardly across her chest, which is an uncomfortable thing to do in full armour – both Fergus and Cauthrien have removed their gauntlets and she is pondering if she should do the same thing - when the chamberlain she remembers from the last time she was here arrives, gesturing for them to move inside the throne room.
She walks in front of their little group, leading them through the opened doors inside, until they stand at an appropriate distance from the rulers of the nation, rulers who are looking remarkably alike in their gilded seats. They both appear to be carved out of a block of the finest marble, shaped and sculpted to resemble the perfect monarchs in a fairy tale kingdom. Elissa swallows a lump of something acrid-tasting and harsh at the back of her tongue, before making the proper formal greeting.
It will never not be strange, bowing before a man who once asked her to show him how to make love to a woman. Which is definitely not the thing to be pondering at the moment, she decides, drawing yet another clear line in her mind that separates then from now, reaffirming it with the memory of last time she met Alistair and he made her the bloody Arlessa of bloody Amaranthine. Suddenly she feels detached enough without even trying, thanking the Maker for small mercies.
Glancing at Loghain who bows beside her, Elissa wonders if he is used to these shifting roles and bending lines. He would be used to serving under his daughter, of course. Not that he seemed awfully submissive during the Blight. Not that she has any idea what went on in all those moments in between what she had been permitted to see. They had lived in a whole different nation for that year, making their truths up as they went, every decision and every step a patch-work of what they managed to put together of the scraps they were given. Afterwards, with Loghain by the campfire and at her back, Elissa realised they had barely known anything. They were hunting an Archdemon while the rest of Ferelden tried to survive a war.
"Commander," Alistair says, nodding.
"Your Majesty."
A part of her protests at the title, even now.
"Is the situation in the city under control?" he asks immediately, concerned.
"That seems to be the case, yes." She stands again, her voice becoming fuller and more composed as she straightens up. Alistair meets her gaze. A few nights ago when she had been here and he had surprised her by wanting to see her alone in his office, he had seemed apologetic and grim at the same time, which she had found oddly endearing until she learned the reason. But even then, as she cursed him under her breath and accepted the title he handed her without asking, they had been speaking as former companions, if not friends or lovers. Today he is King of Ferelden and her stomach plummets at the idea because the impression that she has condemned him never quite goes away.
"What happened?"
Elissa offers a brief report of the battle, with Cauthrien filling in the blank spaces and too-long pauses with her own words. When they are done, a silence falls in the room.
Anora is the first to break it. "Tell me, Wardens, can we expect more of these attacks?"
"A Blight is usually followed by a period of waning darkspawn activity, Your Majesty," Hedin says, glancing up at the Queen who wears a polite expression that is impossible to read – but Elissa has no doubt that it has been noted how the elf doesn't answer her question.
"Yes, we know." Alistair, more impatient, leans forward. "But these can't have been here since the Blight, can they? It's almost been a year."
When Hedin inhales, Elissa cuts in, breaking inside the conversation again as though she will lose her bearings in this room unless she ties herself to something tangible and important.
"They haven't been here since the Blight," she confirms. "We think they are fairly recent."
"Recent?" Anora folds her hands in her lap, one thumb rubbing the back of her right hand, absent-mindedly.
"There have been darkspawn rising from the ground for the past year," Elissa elaborates, trying to find ways to speak of this while leaving out a great deal of the Warden business because Alistair is a king now, not a brother. "And they must come from somewhere. We are trying to find out where."
"You mean which ways they use?" Alistair frowns slightly. "Ways from the Deep Roads?"
"Yes."
Elissa wonders if that is what they are doing. Wonders if she even knows. Lately the missions and the duties and the unexpected trials with Morrigan seem to have upset all form of rational logic of her planning; what once was a clear-cut mission - to end the Blight – morphed into several, more blurry ones that in turn transformed entirely into new titles and political wounds not easily mended. To this, they have added a very private agony, that possibly is causing the overall darkspawn problems. If it is, which she has begun to hope, they will find a way to deal with it. If it isn't, then they have two rather alarming, not to mention separate, issues to handle.
And as that thought abates she realises how very tired she is.
"With the Archdemon dead, the hordes should retreat underground. That's what Riordan told us once, right?"
Elissa nods.
"So why aren't they retreating?" There's a slight shift in his voice at this question, something that likely passes unnoticed for everyone else, but Elissa knows it's held-back anger surfacing, irritation at feeling left in the dark, at being uninformed. She feels a surge of empathy.
That doesn't give him an answer though, she thinks, still silent. And the King of Ferelden is looking down at her from his throne, waiting; Elissa tugs at her bottom lip, waiting in turn for a good explanation to find its way back into her head.
"Your Majesty," Loghain says instead, his voice cool. "If I may speak?"
Alistair looks surprised at being addressed by Loghain at all and hesitates, probably pondering what to call him, how to call him anything without seething, before settling for a curt nod.
"Yes?"
"There are a few known passages to the Deep Roads in Ferelden, all of them believed to be long abandoned. We used them during the rebellion."
"Is it possible there are more of those than we are aware of?" Anora asks, forestalling her husband.
"Very likely." Loghain pauses. "Several years ago I sent an expedition to map them. A copy of the map still exists in the Palace, should you want it."
"It's also likely there could have been some sort of passage made, recently," Elissa says, remembering the experience she had in Highever, when the attacking darkspawn had seemed to have a pursuit other than death, had felt different, the taste of them in her blood shifting the preconceived images of them in her head. "We don't know why they are using the passages but we believe they do. And we should seal them, if possible."
"Right." Alistair looks uncomfortable for a fraction of a second. He is likely not consoled at the thought of his own kingdom being so vulnerable, or at least he should not be, she thinks. It's a stitch of anxiety in Elissa's throat.
Alistair and Anora exchange a long look before Alistair turns his attention to the others in the room.
"Then we must find it."
"Well. Yes," Elissa frowns, and as Fergus pokes her back in a quiet reminder of appropriate behaviour, she adds a stiff: "Your Majesty."
"When I was scouting for darkspawn outside the city mere days ago I could not find anything," Hedin says. "I know a few directions in which we might head, however."
Leaning back in his seat, Alistair moves his gaze from Elissa for a moment as he is scrutinizing the elf. Beside him, Anora clears her throat but Alistair is quicker.
"Can the Wardens lead this expedition?" he asks, looking at Elissa.
"We can." Hedin nods before Elissa has had time to even consider a response.
"Then we would both like to accompany you, Wardens." Anora looks over the room, a half-smile on her lips and a calm gaze that falls over them all. "If this is not a problem for you, Commander?"
Loghain seems to catch himself before he lets slip a protest; he inclines his head an inch and Elissa knows he is grinding his teeth, probably cursing inwardly, before he looks up again, composed as ever.
"Why would you want to accompany us, Your Majesties?" he asks, evenly.
"It is not a strange request, is it?" Anora retorts, pointedly. Her smile grows distant and polite. "With our nation still in danger from the darkspawn threat is it not important that its King and Queen learn more about it?"
Alistair nods, underlining his wife's statement.
"I don't think this will be a time-consuming mission," Elissa points out, uncertain if she wants to encourage this thing or ward it off. Or better yet - just leave this place and go track Morrigan before something worse happens.
"No, there are no great distances I have in mind." Hedin nods.
"We can possibly leave at daybreak and return by nightfall," Loghain agrees, his facial expression an unreadable mask but Elissa can sense his deep-rooted disapproval of this. "It is not far, but it could be dangerous. There is no need for a large party."
There truly isn't. But Elissa knows - and Loghain knows, too, she is certain – that the King and Queen are political beings. And this, for all its necessity and grimness, is a political game. It is a show for the masses, a display of the brave regents travelling with the famous Grey Wardens who ended the Blight itself and drove back the darkspawn underground. Except for all the hordes that still rage in the north. And a marsh witch with a god child. Elissa shakes her head, brushing away the thoughts.
"We shall have enough soldiers at our disposal," Anora says, as though that would be the heart of the matter.
"Wynne will want to come, as well, I imagine." All things considered, Alistair looks inordinately pleased with the whole matter, probably longing for something besides court life by now.
"Very well then," Elissa says, finally resigning.
She is aware Loghain is watching her sideways, but doesn't look back at him.
"So we have reached an understanding," Anora nods, sending Elissa a smile that is both private and genuine and utterly disarming. She has forgotten the Queen has the power to do that, has forgotten, too, her own weak spots.
"We leave the seneschal and the counsellors to take care of the court for tomorrow then," Alistair concludes, summing up the conversation. "I'll make sure we have everything we need."
"Then we see you at daybreak, Your Majesties." Hedin bows, a smile on his lips.
"We will." Alistair smiles, too. "Thank you, Wardens. Thank you, Commander."
Elissa looks at him. He does seem comfortable on his throne - much more comfortable than she would have imagined. And there is, she noticed at the feast and notices now as well, a trail of affinity between the King and Queen of Ferelden: a union, a sense of understanding. She had not expected that.
And she leaves the throne room even more confused then before they arrived, the feeling of not having properly woken up the only thing that is definitely clear in her mind.
.
.
.
.
Outside the Palace, they part ways.
Cauthrien and Fergus volunteer to go to the Alienage to be of aid to the knights, if necessary. Hedin sets out to return to the other Wardens, informing Elissa that he intends to let them take turns in guarding the gates all night, for practice and protection in equal measures.
Elissa and Loghain, after a quick detour to resupply, make for the outer city gates to patrol it as it is a long road framing the city and thus, she deems, a suitable spot for more attacks.
At first, they walk in complete silence. Elissa is mulling over the peculiar development of her morning so far, the path her forenoon has taken and how they will get through tomorrow. Whatever he is thinking about, Loghain does it without as much as a word. Not that this surprises her. Dog strolls in between them, conversing with them about foxes or as they pass something else that catches his interest, but leaving them mostly to their thoughts.
"Why are we doing this?" Loghain asks, finally, as they have left the city noise behind them and the different sounds of the open, spring-clad landscape surround them.
"Patrolling?"
"Making inane trips with the King." He snorts. "His Majesty seems to hope for a glorious day of triumph tomorrow. Perhaps he feels he missed out on the battle last time."
Elissa looks at him. His voice is so thick with sarcasm and repressed irritation that it almost takes her aback at first, the depth of it. She shouldn't be unused to it, but it has been absent for a long time now, replaced by other notes, other ways of speaking, of interacting.
"Do you think so?" she asks, sheathing her swords. So far they haven't run into anything more dangerous than a stray cat.
"Yes, I do."
"I don't."
"Well, there is a surprise." Loghain sighs. They are walking under trees and among bushes of various kinds, all of them in bloom and scenting wonderfully of warmth and spices. These were the roads the troops used to travel when returning with the spoils of war, she recalls from her history tutoring. The fields of glory, where all soon to be crowned kings and queens of the past had been taken, paraded about as they headed for Denerim. She knows there must have been a ceremony of sorts with Maric here, too.
She wants to ask Loghain about it, but decides against it. He wears a frown that seems to run so deep it's part of his bones by now. Fighting the instinct to reach out, place a hand on his arm or casually pat his shoulder or something else truly inane that is not part of their pattern, Elissa merely shakes her head.
"Alistair is not Cailan." She feels an unhealed spot of hurt deep down. Like her own judgement is being questioned, too. "He doesn't do this to prove anything."
Frankly, she isn't fully convinced that this is true. Alistair can be a petulant, insecure child sometimes. But not like Cailan. She is almost certain of that.
Loghain looks unconvinced, walking forcedly along the path, so quickly that even Dog has trouble keeping up with his pace. "We are not puppets. And there is no reason we should not do this alone, as Wardens."
"Alistair isn't exactly an ordinary king. He's a Warden, too."
"Is he?" Loghain crooks an eyebrow, turning to face her.
"Well. You know."
She can't stifle a groan. Her head is heavy and her words are clumsy. Perhaps she is not made for this life, after all. She has been apart from battle for so long her body has made this decision for her. Perhaps she would do better as an arlessa, growing fat and complacent, her worries no more profound than how to manipulate the banns and partake in bland political correspondence, occasionally endangering the quiet life by finding a few unsuitable lovers to shake things up a little.
"Are you going to put us under royal control, pray tell?" Loghain's anger seems to have subsided; he sounds more troubled now. A worry that cuts deeper than this simple expedition, that flows beneath them and tugs at something more fundamental between them. She wishes he was furious instead. "If the King is indeed a Warden, still, then perhaps this is only to be expected."
"No," she answers simply and truthfully. It's an answer so simple and truthful in fact, that it seems to put him a little off guard. "I am not."
They proceed in silence for another while, the sun warming their faces but not thawing the irritated chill in the air between them. It has been such a bloody awful day so far, Elissa thinks, feeling like a whiny brat for complaining, given the circumstances. Still. She bites down hard on her own pout, deciding she is entirely too old for it.
"Do you trust me, Loghain?"
Her question echoes dully against the previous conversation, causing a little rift in the space between them. Loghain looks as surprised as she feels, for having asked him this.
When he doesn't answer, Elissa gives a sarcastic laugh, leading them onwards. Judging by the sun's position, they have been making great headway and been at it for about an hour or two. Still no darkspawn. It will make tomorrow a lot simpler if they only have one way to go that seems plausible. Loghain continues to be quiet even as they stop for a quick meal. He takes out a large loaf of bread and an equally large chunk of cheese from his pack and puts it all on a flat stone in between them; Elissa contributes a flask of water from her own pack.
Taking a bite of the bread, Elissa glances at Loghain. He looks preoccupied with his food for a while, but she doesn't look away; after some time he meets her gaze. There's a little surge of something in her chest at that, this unfamiliar sulk leaving her unpleasantly ill at ease.
Apparently it falls under her duty to set things right again.
"I have no other purpose than this," she says, reaching for the flask. "The Wardens. Ferelden. Trust that, at least."
Loghain sighs.
"I do," he says, voice low and dark, as though he is being forced to admit something against his will. It seems to her that no matter how willingly she offers it, he will always accept her friendship only in bits and pieces and only ever reluctantly.
But something passes between them as he speaks the sentence. Something relents.
Elissa turns her gaze back to the cheese in her hand, softened by the sun as she puts a chunk of it in her mouth. She hands Loghain the flask; as he takes it from her, their hands touch for a moment and she feels the low hum of connection between them, an oddly comforting sound far back in her mind, so tiny she would miss it if she didn't know it was there, didn't search for it. So tiny but somehow so tightly woven into the backdrop of her understanding of this life they lead that she has begun to think of it as necessary.
"I do not trust easily," Loghain says, tearing apart a slice of bread. "Nor should you."
"Oh, believe me, I don't."
It's not a lie in the slightest. She has never been quick to trust, not even before she learned the many various reasons for caution and suspicion, along with the reasons for lie and manipulation. It had been one of the traits she had found both endearing and despicable in Alistair – his willingness to open up and the ease with which he had begun to consider her a friend, a close companion. Elissa had wavered, held back, even made fun of him until finally her defences fell down and she let him in. Had it been worth it? She doubts it.
Seasoned by now, she knows better, her true emotions not utterly bared by trust, not so readily exposed or shared. There are nuances of everything.
Loghain puts the flask to his mouth and drinks in deep draughts, then he gives it back to her, exhaling.
"Yet you trust me?" He sounds incredulous, Elissa notices, but with a soft thread of fascination creeping into his voice.
"Yet I trust you." She ventures a brief smile.
When she looks at him, he is almost smiling back.
After having finished their meal, wasting no time on rest, they continue their patrol, reaching the not yet restored stretches of land. Here the landscape looks like a wasteland in parts, made up by overgrown arable land and once magnificent constructions of avenues and unfinished splendour. When the Orlesians ruled, Elissa knows, they had erected statues here, making an avenue of Heroes leading the path into the city. Aldous had taught her all about it: the statues, the people who became the Heroes, the deeds and misdoings.
Not much of it remains now. The Orlesians have been driven out like a poison and new statues have replaced their battered ones, the hated ghosts; these new statues have already had time to become ghosts themselves, Elissa thinks, kneeling down in front of a fallen sculpture. It seems to stare, with dead eyes that pierce through everything.
She can't hide a sneer.
She has seen paintings, has seen the man who inspired it, but never the statue.
It's Loghain. The Hero of River Dane. A stone-trapped version of him, immortal and grey, carrying a sword and a shield and looking up at her with a glum expression in his face. It is larger than life in an almost frightening way and its features carry nothing of the human softness or shifting, growing lines of its living counterpart. Elissa stoops lower, placing a hand on the statue's head and brushes away a few old leaves.
Loghain snorts coldly behind her. "These damned old statues should be rotting below ground."
"I assumed this stood in Gwaren?" Elissa asks without lifting her gaze. The stone-man looks like he would have a cold voice, too, rolling up from ground like thunder.
"They moved it here. After Ostagar."
There's an unpleasant sting of bitterness in the words and it hits an equally unpleasant note within Elissa's memory. A stench of corpses and fire, ashes and blood and being on the run, forever.
"Interesting what people give priority to in a crisis," she mutters so low she doesn't expect – or intend – Loghain to hear it.
"It was hardly my suggestion," he says, rather sharply. His hearing has definitely not suffered from thirty years of being a general. Elissa's father used to say he never got the cries of the battlefield out of his ears, not even as he returned to the quiet of Highever. When she was a child she pictured it like a sea shell, carrying the ocean within its body, singing the songs of war if you put it close enough and listened. Now she knows it's the war that never leaves your body that makes that kind of sound.
"It's very..." her voice trails off; she doesn't find a word that fits.
"Indeed."
"You look rather... ferocious." She gets to her feet, supporting herself with her hands on her knees.
"Then you should have seen the sketches they made." Loghain raises an eyebrow as he meets her gaze, the tiniest hint of amusement in the grim tone.
Elissa gives the sculpted stone one last look. It's such an odd thing, being immortalised as a statue. A cold thing to do, freezing your motions and actions, leaving them in that exact, measured position as though that is the way you must remain forever. Your essence captured. She shivers, despite the heat, imagining her own face as carved out from a large block of stone; imagining the cruelty of unchangeable stone.
"That's not you," she says, stupidly.
"No, that is a statue." Loghain gives her a dry smile but the sound of his voice tells her he understands what she means. That he is possibly even a little thankful for her verdict.
A bit further away is the famous statue of King Maric riding into Denerim on a horse and as they reach it, Loghain shakes his head, scoffing.
"Maric liked this one, for certain."
Elissa can't see why – it's as weirdly sized and as distorted as the one of Loghain, nothing but another heroic pose trapped in time and a face perpetually stuck in a grimace – and she has to lean over the statue to observe it more closely. It has fallen or been knocked over as well, the horse's tail and the tip of Maric's sword are both missing, leaving two uneven edges to the silhouette's smooth lines.
"Because he always wanted to look like a Fade demon?" she asks, frowning at this version of the King she cannot recall from any gathering in her youth. Maric was handsome like Alistair is handsome - all clear, simple lines. This is not the statue of that man.
Loghain gives a short laugh. "No, because he is riding. Maric was the worst rider I had ever met back when he started his rebellion. He could barely stay in the saddle without falling off."
"You taught him?"
"He taught himself," Loghain says. "It was only a matter of time, given how many horses we had. Maric always strived to learn."
She wonders if he knows how his face changes when he speaks of Maric. Almost invisibly, it's still a change to someone like Loghain and it's very sympathetic. Elissa smiles at him.
"There were no statues of Rowan?"
"Not of her alone. They made one of Maric and Rowan, as you know."
Elissa nods. She does. It's in the Palace courtyard, surrounded by an abundance of flowers and bushes. A beautiful spot for Ferelden's most treasured monarchs, long after their earthly bodies are gone.
"And one of you," she adds.
His expression is grim again, unamused. "Yes."
Elissa knows very little of Queen Rowan. Everyone knows very little of Queen Rowan. She was an imposing presence and a strong regent, no doubt about it, but where everyone could tell a few tall tales of the King and his adventures, nobody had anything out of the ordinary to say of his Queen.
This, she knows, is not common.
The nobility gossips. It is, some would argue, one of their most important duties.
There are gossip mongers and malicious rumours that still swirl up in her mind from time to time; words and phrases, names and faces. People said so many things, of course, most of it sheer rubbish. But growing up in a teyrn's home, she overheard a lot. Banns, Elissa knows, love to speak ill of their betters when they think nobody can hear them.
Even so there was, remarkably, no gossip about Rowan.
About Loghain, however, there was a never never-ceasing flow of speculation, stories and rumours, malicious and otherwise. He was ever the mystery, the commoner made teyrn. She can see now in retrospect the stir he caused among the nobles, the way his mere existence both upset and confirmed their positions and obligations. There was always an air of danger to him, manifested in the way he was being spoken of. Teyrn Mac Tir was a man of strong passions and even stronger contradictions: he was disrespectful and servile, aggressive and polite, ambitious and willing to follow orders all at once and because he was not easily sorted out, Elissa knows now, he was not someone you could ever ignore.
So they talked about him, behind his back.
They wondered why he was not in Gwaren. They talked about his wife. Who they knew next to nothing about, and therefore could attach to any intriguing piece of rumour they found. They talked about Anora, and the possibility of her not being his. They speculated and insinuated and suggested and Elissa tries to follow the trail of all those words back in her mind now, to find a source, give them a context. Perhaps they had none. None other than Loghain, in all his strangeness.
They said Maric was the only man the sour teyrn would ever bend over for, she remembers when she looks far back in her recollection. Kneeling before his precious king, she had heard drunk men exclaim, once or twice, raising guffaws from other drunk nobles. Back then she had no idea what they were alluding to, of course, and now that she understands it, her cheeks flush just thinking about it. So she does not. She definitely does not.
Averting her eyes from the statue and from Loghain, she clears her throat and does not think of that.
"Rowan must have been an amazing woman," Elissa says instead, feeling observed. As though Loghain would be able to read her mind. "My parents always said it was such a great loss she died so young."
"It was," Loghain says, his voice quiet. "She was born to be Queen."
Elissa grew up being jealous of Rowan, but she doesn't say that. That particular confession seems redundant. Queen Rowan – or rather the image of her, the memory her ghost left behind - was kind and well-loved and the strongest sword fighter in all of Ferelden; she was beautiful and full of grace and all those other things a clumsy, average-looking little girl in Highever dreamed of being. She wonders, as a grown woman and the Hero of Ferelden, how many of those things that were pure make-believe.
"Maric and Rowan were promised to each other since they were children, right?"
"They were."
Loghain still looks at the statue, as though he's trying to figure something out.
Watching him doing that, there is that suspicion again, lurking in the corners of Elissa's mind, a gathering of details making up something finally resembling a full picture. A phrase her mother taught her once, about arranged marriages. The way Loghain had spoken to her many months ago, about putting Alistair on the throne. The expression on his face now, as he is unaware that she is looking at him, its faraway look of having lost something so long ago it has become almost unreal to him. A fairy tale.
And the silence surrounding the Queen. As though they were all helping her forget what they didn't even know existed in the first place. There is a bitter sense of logic to it.
Suddenly she knows how it happened. It unfolds in her head, overlaying every other possible scenario. Loghain confirms it without speaking, because she knows he has learned how her mind works by now, its paths and markings at least somewhat familiar to him.
"I used to want to be her," she says, making her voice very soft. "She was so brave and she had so much. Well. At least it seemed that way. But the more I learn about her, I think she had to give up a lot, too."
Loghain is looking at her now, his expression caught between a sneer and a disbelieving frown.
"You think so, do you?" he asks in a wry tone.
"I do," she replies, truthfully.
He doesn't respond to that. When he doubts something, Elissa knows - because he is Loghain and he rarely trusts anything - he gets a particular line on his forehead; it's a sharp, angry little wrinkle that seems to curve around his thoughts and she is sometimes struck by the urge to place a gentle finger there and smooth it out. She never does, of course, because he is Loghain and would probably bite her head off. But she has come to like that wrinkle; it reminds her of the man behind the inscrutable mask.
"Shall we proceed?" Loghain gives her a long look that tells her she must have been staring at him for a while.
"Oh." Elissa nods, adjusting her swords and making certain Dog is within sight. "Yes. We should."
As they continue and she walks by his side, throwing glances at him from time to time, she thinks of the stone faces and of flesh and blood and when Loghain meets her gaze, she knows she is a little bit closer to him now than she was before.
A/N: CJK rocks, as always. And so do all of you: thank you for your reviews and PMs and encouragement!