WARNING
This chapter deals with disturbing and possibly triggering themes; it contains secondary character death and non-graphic imagery of infant death.
Nature dictates that the strong survive, if they have the will.
Morrigan
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"Where is she?" Elissa demands as they step into Avernus' research chambers. She remembers them very well – the only thing that is different is the lack of fade demons trying to ensnare her this time.
"Ah, so little patience," Avernus replies, rounding his desk and walking up to the bookshelf behind it where he remains standing for far too long, fidgeting with what appears to be a journal, and Elissa can feel her blood rush in her head before he turns around again, meeting her gaze. "I suggest we start from the beginning."
"No." Loghain's disagreement comes without hesitation, without Elissa's consent although she can't pretend to have any protests to offer even if he had given her the opportunity.
"No?"
"We have travelled a long time to find her," Elissa says, impatiently. "There will be no long-winded explanation for anything. Take us to her. Now."
"I cannot do that, exactly." Avernus puts a large volume on his desk, his movements almost painfully lethargic in this situation and Elissa is a breath away from physically attacking him when he gives her a long, lingering glance.
"You said-"
"Where is she?" Loghain urges, one hand resting on the hilt of his sword. Stepping closer to the old man, he looks like he isn't far from the line separating verbal from physical threats either.
"She is dead." Avernus says, finally. "They both are."
"Are we to believe that without other proof than your word?" Elissa eyes him as he reaches for his staff and begins shuffling a chair away from what, she notices now, is a hatch.
A swift movement of his arm later, it has opened and from it a bier-like construction rises, upon which Elissa can see what appears to be human bodies.
And it is.
The bodies that are spread out on in front of them are undoubtedly human. Milk-white and blood-red flashing in the faint candle light and that smell of death that seems oddly hollowed out, as though Avernus has done something to it, to prolong its stay, to keep them useful to him, no doubt. Elissa feels her stomach churn at the thought of his research, feels it recoil and tighten to a hard knot of nausea as she discerns the actual contours of the shapes laid out; the puzzle of limbs and features so disturbingly familiar.
Morrigan. Bent and broken and twisted in a strange, chilling way. But still Morrigan.
Elissa flinches at the pattern of memory unfolding at the sight, the steady stream of words spoken and deeds done and those times when the two of them would share a laugh at Alistair's expense or Morrigan would roll her eyes at Wynne's sermons, sensing Elissa's reluctant amusement. As is runs through her, the merciless tide of remembrance, she's tightening her free hand into a fist behind her back in a quiet preparation to reach out and touch the corpses.
Loghain does it instead; before she has even begun to move he is striding forth and turning over the child-body with the same balanced neutrality he displays on the battlefield, looking for a moment as though he is checking for injuries and remaining pulse. He pauses for a brief moment at something, leans down to observe whatever it is he has seen from a closer angle. Then he shrugs, not wasting another second, before going over the same procedure with Morrigan.
She has never been more grateful for his capacity for utter coldness.
Take them away, Elissa says when he has been examining the corpses for quite some time. Or at least she thinks she says it. But there is nothing rising from her, her entire being is mute, as though silenced; her throat is closed and then when she thinks she's finally saying something it's Loghain who speaks, inching closer towards her with each word. She can feel his body close to her own, and when she looks at him – glad to have a reason to avert her eyes – she notices that his face is stiff like stone.
"This is morbid," he says. "Enough."
Avernus shrugs again, waving his hand to lower the table back into the trapdoor.
"Did you kill her?" Elissa demands, finding her voice.
"Do you think I could?" Avernus shoots her an irritatingly amused glance.
"Answer her question, mage." Loghain's tone is a harsh counterpoint, tearing at the layers of truth and lies and manipulation in this chamber.
"No," Avernus says, not taking his eyes off Elissa. "I did not kill her. Or the child."
"Then how did it happen?"
"Am I allowed to start at the beginning now?" he asks sarcastically.
Elissa inclines her head.
Around them, everything stills, awaiting his answer.
"I believe it began some months ago, as your friend - " he pauses, whether or not it's because he wants the stab of the word to sink in or because he honestly doesn't know if it's the correct term to use, Elissa can't tell, "your friend, Morrigan, came to see me."
He holds out a journal and waits for Elissa to take it. It's a thick volume, reminiscent of the one Elissa had taken from Flemeth's hut many months ago, as a spoil of something that had not been war exactly, and that had left a much bitterer afterglow. With almost reluctant curiosity, Elissa accepts it, letting her fingers turn over a few of the pages only to catch erratic writing, sketches and what appears to be formulas scattered across the sheets of paper.
"What is that?" Loghain asks, as he steps closer to the desk, obviously wanting to observe Avernus' doings.
"That would be Morrigan's journal."
Loghain looks at Elissa who nods, eventually, as the shape of the letters begins to look somewhat familiar to her eyes, even if most of what she has seen in Morrigan's handwriting before today have been brief notes and old recipes. The ghost of Morrigan is in here, certainly, the phrases and words her own, her acerbic irreverence present even in something as banal as a journal entry.
"It appears to be, yes." She straightens up, looking at the mage instead. "So Morrigan came to see you voluntarily? Do you want me to believe that?"
Avernus shrugs. "Why not? If she had any questions, where did you think she would go? The Tower?"
The question spreads itself in the room, waiting for an answer Elissa can't give. Morrgian had never seemed to belong in the world at all. Her lack of bonds had always appeared perfectly natural since she was apart, regardless of surroundings she was something else and as such she could have no one - it seems like a silly idea now that Elissa confronts it again.
"Let me rephrase that then." Her voice sounds much more secure than she feels. "Why did she come to see you?"
Avernus paces the short length between his desk and the bookshelf, turning on his heel to look at them again.
"Well, she was in a precarious situation," he says, arching an eyebrow as he looks over at Loghain who nods grimly. "She sought my guidance."
"She thought you could help her?" Elissa snorts.
Avernus smiles. "Firstly, allow me to say that I am highly impressed with your decision, Commander."
"Is that so?"
"Indeed."
He is honestly impressed, Elissa can tell by his way of looking at her. It is a realisation that creeps under her skin, prickles it with doubt and touch of dread as she recalls her last visit.
"There were three of us left," she says, in that secure tone, the one that sounds like steel. "She offered an increased chance of survival in the battle against the Archdemon."
"Yes, and why not?" Avernus agrees. "It kept you both alive, did it not? You can rebuild the order and the lad got the throne."
"Heart-warming as it is to have your approval, mage," Loghain cuts in, folding his arms over his chest. "We would prefer if you got to the point."
Avernus gives Loghain a scrutinizing glance, looks at him for a long time and Elissa cannot quite say what passes between them.
"I assume you were the other participant? Unless that kingly lad has hidden depths?"
Elissa feels the half-statement sink in. It has a taste of guilt and bile, of unwanted answers to her own questions - sometimes she has asked herself this, of course, but never allowed her own thoughts to complete, to finish themselves around a conclusion.
Would she have asked this of Alistair? Could she have?
"Does it matter?" Loghain replies, as though he is answering her question, too.
"No," Avernus makes a dismissive gesture. "I was merely curious."
"Go on," Elissa says, sharply.
"I would almost envy you," Avernus says, ignoring Elissa; Loghain clenches his jaw, visibly struggling to keep himself composed. Elissa feels a flood of sympathy for him; if she was closer she would put a hand on his arm if he let her. Now she searches in vain for his gaze that he keeps firmly on the other man as though the only alternative to strangling him is staring at him. "But I know, of course, the nature of such rituals."
"Get to the point," Loghain snaps.
Elissa has been thumbing through the journal while talking, not paying attention to its contents but now her gaze falls upon the open pages.
If power comes not with freedom, but with ultimate slavery not only for me but for everyone else, is it worth it? There's a blotch of ink around the question-mark, a figure of something unfinished in the margin. Then Morrigan's hand-writing again: What would these chains be forged from, I wonder? I do not wish to know.
"What did Morrigan want from you?" she asks, still looking at the page with the unanswered questions. "What assistance did you offer her?"
Avernus sits down behind his desk, at the very edge of the chair as though he is only resting for a second or is afraid to be attacked and therefore ready for flight. Perhaps that last thought is just her flattering herself, she realises, remembering that this man has held a tear in the Veil for countless years.
"She wanted to learn about the child she was carrying," he says, finally. "When she first arrived, she expressed some doubts about its nature. I believe neither her own experiences nor my research could erase that doubt."
Loghain and Elissa exchange a glance, standing on opposite sides of the desk now, like guards.
"It wasn't an Old God?" Elissa is the first of them to speak.
"I do not know yet."
"Then what is it?" Loghain steps closer to Avernus, something darkly threatening in his posture.
Avernus looks down at his desk, then up again, folding his hands in his lap. "It's a child," he says slowly. "It's a child carrying the essence of a non-earthly being in its body. That is all I know. The essence, however, is not simple to trace. It has proven to be... elusive."
The image of Morrigan with a deity – any deity – that she cannot fully control makes Elissa's heart curl itself up in fear. And yet, she reminds herself, this is what they agreed upon in Redcliffe. This is what Elissa condoned.
"She wanted my help to undo it," Avernus says then, to her surprise.
"Undo it?"
"Yes." He nods, to underline his agreement.
Elissa shakes her head, a feeling of being deceived running along her spine. "There is no way Morrigan would give up something that can make her so powerful."
"Tell me then, Commander, what power is?"
"What power is?" Elissa frowns, irritated at the man for conducting this conversation like a bloody tutorial, reminding her of sunny days in Highever when all she wanted was for Aldous to be done with the sermons, let her answer the questions and go out to the tantalizing sound of metal against metal and the scent of warm grass. "Power is power."
"And duty." Loghain says it evenly, simply.
"Power is duty?" Elissa turns to give him a questioning look.
"It hardly exists on its own." Loghain meets her gaze and there is a trace of something weary in him, an answer from a man who has a lifetime's experience of both power and duty.
"Bitter truths," Avernus says, nodding. "Quite correct, of course. Power does not come without personal sacrifice of some kind. Power necessitates actions. It is, in many aspects, the opposite of freedom."
"So you are saying that because power cannot be freedom, Morrigan would do this? Why? She would have an Old God at her disposal."
"It wouldn't necessarily be a God." Averus says. "And it would not necessarily be an asset. For hundreds and hundreds of years, mages and men have attempted to connect with the Old Gods, reach them, drag their essence up into our world. People have given their lives in the search for this. There are Grey Wardens who would sacrifice almost anything to learn about the secrets of the darkspawn and the Gods. A child like hers-"
"-would be sought by everyone, yes." Elissa feels a swirl of frustration. "But Morrigan would scarcely have raised it in public."
"If it was the least bit tainted, darkspawn would be able to find it all the same."
"She would be able to handle that."
"And the presence of an Old God would be felt thorough Thedas," Avernus adds. "Not only by darkspawn."
Elissa shakes her head. "Morrigan still wouldn't let that scare her."
"I agree," Loghain says. "It would be unlike her to fear such a thing."
"You certainly have a lot of faith in the idea of one mage alone against hordes of darkspawn," Avernus points out, dryly.
"I am more inclined to assume you have not been able to keep your mouth shut about this, mage." Loghain asks, coldly. "Isn't that so?"
Avernus looks at Elissa. "He is not terribly polite, your general."
"No." She looks straight into the old man's eyes, trying to mirror his own prying gaze. "Answer him."
"There are things that cannot be kept secret for very long," he says evasively.
"How is that even possible for a man who lives locked up in here?" Elissa asks, already knowing that is a matter for another day. She will not leave until the keep is thoroughly mapped.
"We can discuss that particular matter later," Avernus says after a while, giving her a sardonic smile. Even now she cannot truly tell he if wishes to help them or deceive them; perhaps he wishes to do both - or neither, perhaps it doesn't matter. "The point is that her knowledge of how to properly control this being she was going to give birth to was limited. If it became something beyond her control, it would be her master – or, more likely, her death. And if she could not control it, what would that lead to? What damage would it cause?"
"And you mean to say it was not her plan all along to give birth to this?" Loghain sounds beyond sceptical.
"It was Flemeth's plan," Elissa reminds him.
"Her mother?" Avernus nods. "Yes. Yes, I believe there was a plan. Perhaps even a good one. Flemeth would not have left anything to chance."
Loghain looks like he hasn't followed the last few steps when Elissa meets his gaze.
"I killed Flemeth," she explains hastily.
"Of course you did," Loghain says after a brief moment's pause, and she can't tell if he sounds exasperated or impressed with her ability to end everything in death and wreckage.
"Morrigan had her reasons to want her dead," Elissa says, not intending to reveal those reasons.
"I doubt Morrigan herself knew all there was to this," Avernus points out in Elissa's place. "Flemeth would hardly have shared such powerful knowledge with her."
He looks tired, probably far from used to interacting for this long with anybody. His face is ashen and he sits down, properly this time, resting his back against the back of the chair. Loghain towers beside him, while Elissa leans over the desk, her weapons clashing against each other as she dips her head forward.
"How did she die?" she asks, slowly.
"I believe she goes into great detail in her journal," Avernus nods towards the volume Elissa is still clutching, her cold sweaty fingers against the worn, leather-bound softness. "But once she learned the nature of the Old Gods and the uncertain fate of her child, she made the decision to end it."
"End it?" Elissa feels her entire being protest against that absurdity – Morrigan, the stubborn, infuriatingly defiant apostate she had got to know, was life. She was survival and an almost aggressive desire to live.
Avernus catches her doubt. "Ah, I can understand your hesitation, Commander. But believe me when I say that she was not keen on the idea to end her own life. Neither was I. She would have made a remarkable companion."
"Did you propose that?"
"A companionship?" He nods. "Certainly. She would have been magnificent."
"What a tempting offer that must have been," Loghain says dryly. "If she choose death."
"But why?" Elissa feels like she has lost track of reality, it keeps shifting shape in front of her eyes, the simplest things eluding her grasp while others, strange and oddly deformed half-truths are swallowing the bits of her past that connects her with Morrigan.
"Because she honestly believed that it wouldn't be worth it," Avernus says and he sounds like he is dropping his composure too, suddenly. There's a faint resemblance of a man in him, someone he once must have been before he fell into the cracks of the Warden ranks and got remade by duty and betrayal. "She didn't want to be bound to such a creature and she didn't trust me enough to allow me the power either. In the end, neither of us had the faintest idea of what source of power she would unleash. I would have liked to study it, of course, but she denied. The only thing she allowed me in return for my assistance was her remains. For research."
Again, the images from before flood Elissa's head, pounding at the bones in her chest until she feels out of breath.
"Did she kill the child, too?"
Avernus nods. "I opened the Veil for them. As she died, she used her powers to pull the soul of the child with her across the Fade."
Loghain leans against the wall, observing the mage. "Is that even possible?"
"It is. Normally the Veil is only letting the dying in, of course. But if there is someone to hold the tear of the fabric, it is, under certain circumstances, possible to manipulate the dimensions. At least long enough for a mage of Morrigan's calibre to do her part."
"So they are gone?" Elissa asks stupidly, straightening up so quickly the weapons on her back clash again, the sound of it echoing dully in her ears.
"As you could see for yourself, yes."
Just as Elissa is about to demand further explanations of the actual death, of the old gods and of everything else, she hears muffled voices outside the door. Avernus notices the same thing, raising an eyebrow.
"I believe that is a terrified servant who has been sent here on behalf of the masters of the keep," he says, not able to hide the contempt he holds for said masters.
Elissa has almost forgotten about Levi and his family. She glances at Loghain who nods. They should finish this now, consider it done for the moment being. The journal in her hands feels heavier than before as she finds herself walking towards the exit of the chamber, almost against her will.
Avernus follows them to the door where they entered, not that long ago – although it feels like a year has passed since they stepped inside.
"From what Morrigan told me, are quite the powerful presence, Commander," he says, looking at her. "Like Sophia. She, too, could inspire the bravest and most horrifying deeds in her men."
Elissa stifles a grimace.
"You're so extraordinarily like her," Avernus says again, and there is a shroud of something genuine – a trace of grief, or regret - shining through his words, weighing them down. It's so intense Elissa feels like he is touching her, so she's shying away from his ghost-hands, bumping into Loghain instead.
"I'm not."
"It was not an insult."
"I'm nothing like Sophia Dryden." Elissa says, stressing each word. "And you will do well to remember that I am not leaving the keep yet. Because before I do leave, I will have found out every scrap of information you may have, even if I have to beat it out of you. You live at my mercy, old man."
Avernus chuckles quietly, as though she has just proven him right after all.
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Nothing, Loghain thinks later the same evening, can be a starker contrast to the disturbing bloodmage in his tower than this family of wholesome, unassuming people who are swarming around their guests in the halls, serving food and posing a hundred questions. They are humbled and proud, trying not to seem too eager as their ravenous glances fall on the Hero of Ferelden in their midst.
It is driving him to the brink of utter fury, of course. He has never been a man made for social events that serve no political or strategical purpose. And he finds that it suits him even worse now, when he doesn't have to endure such fawning gatherings because of his title; he silences himself with food and a generous goblet of wine.
Beside him, Elissa is a calm, pleasant contrast to his glumness.
He is so used to thinking of her as a leader, a warrior and a strategist - things she was not born for, not raised to do but masters with a certainty he has seen in few others, if any. He is equally used to thinking of her blunt crudeness, her bloody awful manners and that almost ridiculous unwillingness to partake in social games and unimportant nonsense if she can avoid it. Seeing her here, like this, serves as a reminder that ought to be redundant after all this time together, but Loghain finds that it isn't, that her presence in this room tonight enlightens him of exactly how well she can master this game, too, if necessary.
It's the way she holds up, perfectly composed and equally pleasant to the Drydens as they soar around them, ready to burst with excitement. She is offering tales of the war, tales of the Blight; she is accounting for amusing events in Orlais and she is letting them pamper Dog with food and belly rubs until he is so full and sated he only gasps on the floor, draped over Loghain's feet. As the wine and the food flows, she asks questions of their lives, too, feigning interest and picking up on small details, spinning their mundane stories into something that at least resembles important events.
She is the teyrna tonight, reaching out to her lieges and freemen alike, and it is an impressive performance.
And because he knows the toll, knows perfectly well what this demands of her, he also notices the way her hands shake underneath the table, how her fingers dig into the side of her thigh to keep still.
Later, as they are meant to be sleeping after a long journey, a hot meal and a refreshing bath, Loghain finds her in the corridor outside their bedrooms, the same momentum slowly slipping away from her reach, shedding itself of her like a second skin.
It moves something inside him, seeing her like that.
Here in the corridor he notices that her right hand is bloodied and scraped, a rather bad and brand new graze running across her fingers and over her knuckles. It flashes furiously in the grey-blue light that seeps in from the small widows.
"Did you hit that wall?" he asks needlessly, because even from a distance he can see the trace of blood and crumbled old stone giving way, if only ever so slightly, to a Warden's infuriated strength. This place would have to be used to it, he gathers.
"Yes."
"Did it help?"
"Yes." Elissa purses her lips, glancing over her shoulder, straight at him. She's attempting a smile to wash away her weariness but it is far from successful. Instead she merely looks miserable. "No."
"You ought to get that cleaned up." He looks at her hand that has begun to shake despite her best efforts to hide it.
"Mmm," she answers, in a voice that tells him she is barely present in this world at the moment, that she in fact is only absent-mindedly paying any attention to it at all.
Loghain is irritated with himself because of the flush of sympathy he feels, watching her pitiful state; with a hoarse sigh he steers her, not particularly gently, towards his chambers. Elissa walks with him without speaking and allows him to more or less place her on the sofa in his bedchamber.
He finds it wildly ironic that he ends up in these situations, playing the nurse to princes and lieutenants and warriors, when he doesn't know the first thing about either comfort or healing. Maric had always claimed he was very skilled at it, but Loghain had never believed him. There were things his old friend never got quite right, and Loghain's talents in various areas outside of the battlefields and war rooms were most definitely among those.
Loghain mutters a curse to himself as he rummages through his pack to find a half-empty bottle of brandy that he holds out for her.
"Here."
She accepts it, her hand curves around the neck of the bottle as he lets go, touching his for a moment. Her hands are unusually cold, he thinks, as though he would have a previous notion in his memory of the way her skin feels.
"Thank you," Elissa says, nodding.
After having fished out a small bundle of bandages, Loghain takes a seat beside her on the sofa, watching her drink a large gulp of brandy and exhale slowly. Wiping away a stray drop of liquid from the corner of her mouth, Elissa lets the bottle rest wedged between her legs. Loghain firmly averts his gaze.
A somewhat muggy warmth fills the chamber – a room that appears to have been unused for quite some time. Visitors in the area, and in this dreary old place in particular, ought to be few. In that, as well as in the dreary dampness of the reeking walls here, it reminds him of Gwaren. Cold, windy and inhospitable.
The silence in here is broken only by a flapping sound of moths who are escaping the night outside, drawn to the light as they slip inside his open window and continues their aimless flight up under the ceiling. They sit together for a while; Elissa drinks the brandy, passes it on to him occasionally and after a few rounds of that, the edges of today's discoveries blur around them.
Loghain stretches his legs and leans back, arms folded and eyes closed for a second.
It's not a child. That much he decided beforehand and seeing it has not changed his mind. The small body down there may be a collection of human-looking parts, all carrying Loghain's blood and bones, but it has never been a child. Unlike Anora or even the unborn, unnamed baby Celia miscarried that long winter when Anora was a couple of years old, this is not a part of him. It's an empty thing, a cavity in the world and the price for his – or Elissa's - continued, hard-won existence.
There is nothing to be said about this, he knows, as Elissa glances at him under a heavy air of exhaustion. There is no apology, no blame, nothing but their mutual understanding of what they did as a desperate answer to a desperate situation, leading up to a pragmatic solution.
And now it is definitely, irrevocably done with. Finished. The relief hits him unexpectedly, almost guiltily for a second before he refuses that thread of thought to slither into his mind, shrugging it off.
"I'm relieved," Elissa says then, as so often tuned to the stream of his mind.
Loghain nods. "So am I."
"I doubt I ought to be." Her voice is low and somewhat bitter.
"Do you think I will judge you for it?"
That draws a faint half-smile to her lips, and causes a little shift in her stiff posture. "I suppose not."
He watches her as she leans forward, looking at the empty bottle in her hand and spinning it in the air, like a magical staff or a toy. On her neck, that gentle curve just where the hairline fades into sun-touched skin, she carries a little bruise that spreads a soft darkness under her surface. A bit further down there's an old, nearly faded scar sliding down into the unexposed parts of her back and he looks away, feeling a wrinkle form on his forehead.
"She was your friend," Loghain says, eventually.
He remembers the marsh witch without any pleasantries or false illusions of her exterior hiding a better person. But there had been moments that night in Redcliffe – glimpses, even during that time spent in her bedchamber - when she had looked at him and he thought he could sense a familiar sort of self-contempt in her. Never long enough for him to actually believe in it, however. Nor had he believed in her sultry pretence of desiring him. In the end they did their duties wordlessly and with their eyes closed and walking out of that room, he had known he was not the only one who felt the filth of it on his skin.
There is a rather long pause before he sees Elissa nod, slowly. "Yes."
With a little groan, she puts down the bottle on the floor and reaches for the bandages beside her and begins to fumble with them, using her left hand. Loghain meets her gaze and spots a stubborn kind of edge in it, telling him silently not to bother her. So he doesn't. But when she is done cleaning and wrapping the wound and attempts to fasten the bandage properly and has to resort to using her mouth, he reaches out for her hand.
"I... can... do this," she mumbles through her teeth.
"Don't be ridiculous," he retorts, impatience making him sound harsher than he intends.
His fingers around the ends of the bandage wraps brush over her mouth as he takes over; Elissa frowns a little at the touch before relenting her hold and giving in to him. It feels strangely like a victory although he can't say why or even define what inane battle they have been conducting.
"There," he announces curtly, having made a tight knot.
Elissa looks at him intently for a moment, then she shakes her head a little, looking away again.
"I take it you have not had time to read the journal yet?" Loghain asks, when she hasn't said anything in a long while. The room is growing colder as the night outside wraps itself tighter around them. By all sense and logic they ought to get some sleep.
"Not much, no. I'm saving it for tomorrow."
"It might be a sensible idea," Loghain agrees. "The walls will be better for it."
She sighs suddenly, turning on the sofa so she's facing him, pulling up her legs underneath her. Loghain shifts, resting his hands on his thighs and squaring his shoulders.
"I won't be able to have friends, will I? Not really?" she asks, and the absurdly honest question almost undoes him completely as she looks at him and he notices the little crack in her composure. While she recovers quickly, he can't seem to forget it, that long path leading straight inside her unguarded mind. It leaves her bare and it's nearly too much, he's too tired for it tonight.
"You will." Loghain says, wondering if he believes himself. It was so long since he had one, so long since Maric still looked at him without that perpetually wounded gaze that he has forgotten the unwritten laws.
Elissa smiles again, a faint half-smile. "Right."
He arches an eyebrow, trying to smile back. "As long as you are willing to sacrifice them for the good of Ferelden."
"Thedas," she reminds him, wryly.
Loghain only shrugs at that, not certain if he should count it as a slip of tongue or a confession and decides, too, that it no longer matters.
And then, after what appears to be an inner debate, Elissa puts her bandaged hand over his own, interlacing her fingers with his and squeezing them softly. There's a defiant resistance, hard and uncompromising, to the uncharacteristic gesture; it's a stubborn denial of terms she doesn't agree with but will have to accept – and will accept, he knows – and somehow something relents in him at that. Something is crumbling slightly and he allows it, too sodding tired to put up a resistance.
Elissa gets to her feet, smiling – a proper smile this time- as she nods towards the bottle and the remains of bandages on the sofa.
"Thank you, Loghain."
"Sleep well."
He watches her walk away and then he watches - long after she is gone - the space she has left in the room.