Disclaimer: Bioware owns all, except what I most humbly create. While, at times, I will take verbatim from the game, I mostly use the events of the Dragon Age games, expansions and universe as a loose structure around which to construct my re-imagined tale. If you are looking for a strict canon piece, I have no desire to offend, and so I warn you upfront!

When reading this tale, I hope you can easily imagine it being told by the very best of storytellers in Varric (from DA:2). In my version of events, Varric meets "The Hero" (my Elissa Cousland) in Kirkwall during the time period of DA:2. I mention this only so that readers can understand his connection along the way, and so I don't have to mention and rehash it again and again as I make my way through the tale.

A/N: As if Elissa needed any more complications in her life.

Antivan Translation: Red Cocoon

Muse Music: Cocoon by Assemblage 23 and Can't Breathe by Leona Lewis

Thanks to my readers, followers and reviewers, and to my wonderful betas artemiskat and Snarkoleptic.

Happy Reading!

-Frayed One

Chapter Twenty-Nine: The Most Derisive Voice

Elissa's mind was racing; the men who watched her could see it. As she dismounted and handed her reins over to one of the stable boys, she was formulating plans and pacing trial runs of conversations, none of which seemed to meet with her approval if the look in her eyes was any indication.

Fergus Cousland was an unknown quantity to almost everyone. Few of them had even met the man and Elissa rarely ever spoke of him. His name, his face, his very existence was too closely tied to the trauma of her past. So, as thankful as she was to have discovered him alive in the wake of the Blight, she was content to keep him at arms' length where she didn't have to think too hard about what she saw every time she looked at his face. But none of these things explained why everyone else seemed so anxious to return and find him in attendance with The King.

"You need to go." Elissa stopped Nathaniel just inside the stable doors. "You used to scale these walls as a child, I'm sure you're more than capable of doing that now."

"I'm not sending you out there to face this alone. You and I both know…"

"This isn't a social call, Nathaniel. Whatever he and Alistair have planned won't end well for anyone involved." Elissa shook off his assertion and begged him to go again. "Please, for your own good, I am asking you to stay out of sight until I can get a read on them."

He nodded, sharing one more gaze with her before jogging off into the trees at the right of the Keep's outer wall.

"Did you know about this?" There was a threat in Elissa's eyes as she spun on The Assassin, though no gesture was made to enforce it.

"The Wolf did make me aware of the increase in communications between The King and The Teyrn, but I did not know they had planned a visit."

Elissa watched him for a few moments longer until she was satisfied he was telling the truth and then turned herself back toward the main gates.

"This could just be a visit, right? I mean, we don't know why he's come." Anders could see the stage being set for disaster but found that he was powerless to stop it.

"No… If I know my brother - and I do - he's come for one thing and one thing only… Nathaniel." Elissa drew in another long breath, trying to settle her nerves and shove anything she might have been feeling down beneath the mask of the Warden-Commander.

The smile on Elissa's face was almost convincing as she swept into the lower courtyard with Anders and Zevran in tow. She stopped and hugged her brother, brushing a quick kiss across his cheek and fighting to conceal the glare she knew she'd leveled in Alistair's direction before he caught sight of it.

"Fergus! What a… wonderful… surprise. I wish you'd told me you were coming. I'd have prepared a proper welcome." Elissa fought to keep her smile in place as Fergus' eyes passed over Zevran and then Anders; clearly annoyed not to find the one face he'd been looking for.

"Dear Sister, if you'd read any one of the missives I've sent over the past few weeks you'd have known this visit was long in the works. Someone has to come and make sure you're kept in line, and as you seem reluctant to allow your king to do it, who better than one who shares your blood?" Fergus threw the falsehood of her smile back in her face, but only for a moment before the look he gave her wiped both of them away. "Now stop stalling and cough him up."

"I don't know who you're…"

"Nathaniel Howe! Where is he?" Fergus leaned forward and yelled in her face, his temper coloring his pale cheeks like wildfire.

"I'm here." Nathaniel's voice was completely calm as he made his presence known.

Elissa's eyes pressed shut at the sound of The Archer's voice and she wished again that for once, just once, he'd taken a bloody order. It was painful for all of them to see nothing but betrayal or hatred in the eyes of those who had once been the very closest of friends.

"I should have crossed the Waking Sea years ago and ended you for breaking my sister the first time." Fergus hissed, stalking closer to his former friend. "But I'll be damned to the Void before I let you poison her again."

"None of that was real, Fergus. It was all part of the plan orchestrated by his father." Elissa insisted, maneuvering herself closer to the pair of them slowly so she wouldn't draw suspicion. "Nathaniel had nothing to do with this. It was all Rendon. Nathaniel didn't even come back from the-"

"Nathaniel has been in Ferelden all along, Elissa." Alistair's voice chimed in, drawing out the full force of Elissa's glare. "Neither of you have ever come out and said so directly, but there's enough you didn't gloss over to paint a pretty clear picture. Turns out I'm not nearly so thick as you've allowed yourself to believe."

The look Elissa gave him in response to those words was toxic, and he had to fight to keep his composure. He'd pay for this later; there was no way out of it now.

"Regardless, he had nothing to do with what happened in Highever. Nathaniel is not his father, Fergus. You know that, you just have to remember-"

"Will you ever stop defending him?" Fergus' laughter was bitter as he turned his eyes from the man once more brother than friend back onto his sister. "Will you ever stop putting aside your own life in your quest to bind yourself to someone who does not deserve you?"

"Bind..?" Her eyes flicked over to Alistair again and she suddenly understood just how dangerous this situation had become.

"I know what you've been doing little sister, and I can't let it continue. I'll not let you taint the Cousland bloodline with this filth. You'll marry Alistair and do your duty to your country and your king." Fergus mimicked his father's authoritative voice as far as he could, hoping that would be enough to sway his stubborn sister. "It's time to bury this obsession with Nathaniel Howe, and if it takes me putting the man physically in the ground to have you do it, I am prepared to make that sacrifice."

"If the Cousland bloodline is to continue, Fergus, it will have to be through you." Elissa was laughing, but unamused. "I can see that Alistair did not tell you the full truth of things, which is unsurprising."

Alistair had pulled no punches in bringing Fergus down on her, and that stung more than she had ever believed possible. Her nerves already raw from their previous battle, Elissa found it impossible to soften her blows even slightly in response. If it was cruelty he expected from her, then she would certainly deliver.

"What are you saying?" Her brother narrowed his eyes in her direction.

"Whether with Alistair or Nathaniel, no Cousland heirs will come from this body." Elissa continued, her lips curving into a bitter smile. "I'm barren."

"Is this true?" Fergus spun on Alistair, fury continuing to climb.

"Oh it's true." Elissa assured him, folding her arms across her chest. "If you've come here to see to the purity of our bloodline and plant a nice little Cousland heir on the throne, then I'm afraid your trip's been wasted."

Elissa wasn't even trying to hide her bitter laughter now, simply allowing it to rumble through her body. She realized almost too late this had prodded her brother to take further action.

"Then I'll have to settle for justice." Fergus' sword was out and leveled at Nathaniel so fast almost no one saw it coming. But Elissa used her knowledge of the famed Cousland temper to anticipate his response and move faster.

The lyrium infused steel of her blade flickered to life with her temper and the sound of her brother's blocked blow echoed across the courtyard. "This is not justice, Fergus. It's something far, far more bitter. Trust me. I know."

"Step aside, Elissa. If you will not do so for your brother then I shall order you as your teyrn."

"Oh, Alistair." Elissa shook her head, sliding loose her other sword when it became clear that Fergus would not concede. "Why have you allowed my brother to come in here so woefully unprepared?"

"Back down, Arlessa." Fergus hissed, pressing his sword against hers one last time before pacing to the side to gain momentum.

"Your rank is meaningless here, my teyrn. Even the king cannot force me into line here in Vigil's Keep. You're in my world now. I am Warden-Commander of Ferelden and here within these walls, my word is law. You have no power over me. Nor does your king."

It was the last straw, the last button she could push, and with those words Fergus was lost to his fury. Elissa shoved Nathaniel back hard, meeting Zevran's eyes long enough to make it clear he was to keep everyone out of the way before turning to block the next swing of her brother's sword.

Fergus had always been a talented swordsman, but he was angry and unfocused and that gave Elissa the advantage. She used the heft of his swings to manipulate his motion, corralling him further and further away from anyone else who could inadvertently come to harm.

"Don't do this, Fergus. Don't let hatred eat you away inside. You are better than this." Elissa insisted, darting out of range again and infuriating him all the more.

"There you go running away again." Fergus spat back, pushing forward after her. "Stand and fight, Elissa. If you are so certain you're in the right here, then fight for it!"

"I don't want to hurt you." Two more glancing blows sent her dancing around him again, darting beyond two more pillars into an open area between several of the outbuildings.

"You already have, Sister… you already have…" Fergus was swinging harder now, pulling no punches, seeking to draw her blood.

"Is that what you think? That I've intentionally sought to do you harm?" Elissa was even more furious now, that he could even think her capable of such disregard. "Everything I've done has been for your protection, Fergus. You're all I have left! You're-"

"My protection! You expect me to believe you've hidden your lover away for my bloody protection?" Her fading focus allowed Fergus to wrench away her control, the brutal strength of his last blow rattling one of her blades loose and out of reach. She couldn't block his next swing in time to keep him from cutting into her leg.

The pain made her drop the other blade, simply holding Fergus' eyes and allowing him to fully appreciate the gravity of this place they'd come to. "Claim my head then, Fergus. Spill more of my blood if you think that will make you feel better – but do not be surprised when the aftermath of this action leaves you even emptier inside. Vengeance cannot heal you; it can only make you more the monster. Look at me, Fergus! Look at what I've become! Is this who you want to be?"

He stood for a moment longer with his sister pinned beneath his blade; shaking with fury and looking more lost than he ever had before. For a moment Elissa feared he really would end her, if only to save himself from the look of accusation reflected in her eyes. She saw it when he broke, allowing his sword arm to fall limp as he turned and walked away.

She watched the crowd gathered at the archway leading back into the lower courtyard part to allow his passage, and turned away from their concern to limp inside in search of something to numb the pain – a pain which had nothing at all to do with the newest scar carved into her body.

The bottles of alcohol in her room wouldn't be enough, not to erase this, but it was a start. She uncorked one and took a long pull, sitting it down only long enough to pull out and finish off what remained in the rust-colored vial from her sleeve. She was long past caring who knew or if she survived consuming that much of it.

"I can heal that." Anders had followed her into the master suite, which meant the others weren't likely to be far behind.

"If it makes you feel better." She took another long pull from the bottle in her hand, refusing to sit or alter her posture in any way, thus making Anders work twice as hard to heal her.

Beyond his shoulder, Alistair, Zevran and Nathaniel had made their way into her space making it even harder for her to breathe.

"So, Alistair… did this all work out according to what I'm sure was your brilliant plan?" Elissa drank again, forcing her face to sketch out the imitation of a smile.

"I just thought maybe Fergus could reason with you. I didn't think it would come to blows," Alistair insisted, making his way over to her side and noting the gash in her armor, though Anders had mended the skin and the muscle beneath.

"You brought my brother here thinking to lay claim to one of my Wardens and you didn't think it would come to blows?" Elissa sneered, glaring at him. "For someone who claims not to be thick, you certainly make the most asinine decisions."

"I know you're angry, Elissa… but I think that we-"

"I think that we are done, Alistair. I think that you should go and collect my brother and your knights and get the fuck out of my Keep. And, I think that neither of you should return nor seek to contact me until such a time as I decide I wish for it." She turned away from him and paced over to the window, taking another long pull from the bottle in her hand.

"You don't mean that." Alistair asserted, starting to move forward but freezing in place when she screamed and tossed the half full bottle at the wall beyond his head.

"I mean it! I am tired of this! I am tired of all of this!" Elissa was enraged, and all of the men in her company scrambled for some way to diffuse her. "I'm tired of fighting with everyone all the time. I'm tired of trying to live up to these impossible expectations everyone has of me. I'm tired of babysitting an entire fucking nation! Stop chasing after me. Stop worrying what I'm doing. Just stop! You're the bloody king, Alistair! It's time to grow up and start acting like one!"

"What's gotten into you?" Her words stung, but Alistair could hear her speech slurring and see the slight glaze to her eyes. He took a few more steps forward and pried open her fingers to reveal yet another secret. "What is this?"

He shook it in her direction, but she offered him nothing, and so he turned to the others in the room. Zevran wouldn't meet his eyes and he couldn't bring himself to seek aid from Nathaniel, so he tossed the rust-colored glass over into Anders' hands.

He popped loose the cap and breathed in the scent of it, glazing a small amount on his finger to taste and be certain. "There's lyrium in here, and deathroot… but that's all that I recognize."

"The rest will be a colorant derived from Red Amaranth. The locals use it to give the drug its unique signature – but most would know it as Bozzoli Rossa." Nathaniel explained, both accusation and fear in the look he gave Elissa. He'd had no idea just how far she'd been willing to go.

"An opiate? You've been supplying her with an opiate?" Alistair was yelling when he turned his eyes to The Assassin, and Zevran offered up no argument in his defense. "Elissa, this has gone too far. You've got to stop. You need to free yourself from these addictions. You need to…"

"I need for people to stop bloody telling me what to do!" Elissa yelled, distancing herself from Alistair again. "I need for them to listen to my orders for once! Now get out! Go collect my brother and get on your fucking way!"

"You're not thinking clearly, Elissa. You'll be sorry tomorrow when…"

"I am thinking clearly, Alistair. For the first time in a long time I'm thinking of myself and what I need instead of what you need or what Ferelden needs or what…" She pushed her fingers up into her hair and screamed again. "I'm done. I'm done with it all. I'm done with being your queen. I'm done with being Nathaniel's memory. I'm done with being the savior of the bloody world. I quit."

"You can't quit." Alistair was frantic, attempting to block her path when she made it obvious she was going to run again.

"I just did. Find someone else to clean this up, because I've had enough of it." She pushed past him and dashed off down the hall, leaving those remaining to stand in stunned silence.

"You can't just let her run off like that." Anders insisted, turning his eyes first to Alistair, then to Nathaniel. "She's completely broken down! You've both seen to that!"

Still they stood, motionless and silent. "Both of you claim to love her, and yet neither of you will go after her when she needs you most?" Anders was livid, glaring at each of them in turn and finally turning to find The Assassin. "Not even you? She trusts you to be there when she calls and you can't find it in yourself to come now?"

"I can't go." Alistair spoke up finally, his voice breaking. "She's gone somewhere now I cannot follow."

"I think she's made it fairly clear that she has no desire to hear from me." Nathaniel offered, his own jaw tensing with emotions he fought to conceal.

Zevran said nothing, but it was clear he wouldn't follow either.

"You're cowards. All of you." Anders hissed, eyes narrowed as he strode to the door. "Where would she go? Is there anywhere on the grounds she'd consider sacred?"

"The cliffs." It pained Nathaniel to think of it, but he knew it was true. "If she's stayed close by, that's where she'll be."

Anders followed Nathaniel's advice, pressing forward through the forest in the direction of the coast. The path to the cliff side retreat was overgrown and difficult to follow at times, but it was there.

He was relieved to hear the sound of crashing waves as he moved into the last expanse of thinning trees, but that relief dissolved as soon as he saw her. She stood perched on a large rock, stripped down to her underthings. The moonlight set her tattoo alight and it combined with the long red curls of her hair to make Anders believe for just a moment she had literally caught fire.

"Elissa?" He called out to her, but she did not turn to acknowledge him. He approached her slowly, now wary of the blade dangling at her fingertips.

"So you're the one who's drawn the short straw." The short huff of insincere laughter burst out of her, and the arm holding the dagger curled up toward her head.

"I didn't come here to watch you physically tear yourself apart," Anders warned, pulling the magic required for an immobilization spell into his hands should he need it.

"You seem awfully confident you'd be able to get that off before I put you down."

"Probably not, but you have to know I'd try." Anders watched her inspecting him and hoped the lack of darkness in her eyes meant she was still somewhat in control.

"You won't have to." Elissa assured him, following through with her original motion and cutting loose a large chunk of her hair. She held it up briefly for him to inspect before tossing it into the wind and hacking at another. "I realized something tonight, Anders. Do you know what that is?"

"That you're very, very cross with your… hair?" Anders allowed himself a small smile when she chuckled in response.

"I have been trying to live out the lives of the dead for far too long." Her response was cryptic, and Anders held her eyes long enough to make it clear she was going to have to explain. "The girl Fergus came looking for died in Highever Castle along with her parents and the rest of her family. And the woman Alistair came after died atop Fort Drakon a few months later. I've been trying to force myself to breathe life back into them because it's what other people needed, but they're dead and gone and nothing I do will bring them back. It's time to lay them to rest once and for all."

The last bits of her hair fell free from her fingers, carried away by the wind over the edge of the cliffs and into the water below. She flicked the blade into the soft ground at her feet and turned to smile at Anders for the first time since he'd found her, and he was shocked to see it was genuine.

"There's only one problem. Now that they're gone, now that I've let go and made my peace with it, I have no idea who it is that remains." The smile was fading just as quickly as it had come, and Anders watched her turn to face the sea again. "There is just as much darkness as light. There is pain and sorrow and anger… and not so very much beyond that not held hostage by duty and obligation."

"There is more light than you see, Elissa. There is so much more inside your heart than you seem willing to recognize. If you let me, I can show you."

"Can you?" She'd turned back to him now, her eyes cutting away the layers to find the truth underneath. Whatever she saw there satisfied her for the moment, turning her focus back to the horizon. "You should probably start stripping then, if you plan to come along."

"I'm sorry?" Anders nearly choked at what he thought she was suggesting, but she tilted her head toward the water indicating to what she actually referred.

She wouldn't wait long, he knew that, and so he made his decision quickly – thankful he'd finally made the transition to wearing small clothes under his robes. A few moments later he stood at her side, lacing his fingers into hers and stepping over the edge to free fall into the dark water below.

Unlike Nathaniel, Anders did not hesitate. Unlike Nathaniel, Anders did not lose her as they hit the water. When she surfaced he was at her side just as he'd been the whole way down, releasing her hand only to swim with her to the shore.

She settled into the curved shelf of smooth stone she'd sat on with Nathaniel so many years ago, and felt the motion when Anders sat at her side. He didn't reach over to reclaim her hand, instead giving her the time to attempt to process her racing thoughts.

"I used to come here with Nathaniel, years ago… long before, well, everything really. Things were good then. I could come to him with anything. We would talk for hours." She let out her breath in a long sigh, focusing her eyes on some distant spot far out across the Waking Sea. "But even with all that, the only other time I jumped off that cliff I had to drag him kicking and screaming behind me."

She turned to focus her penetrating gaze in on him again, and he fought against his urge to turn away from it. "But not you. You came willingly, even though a part of you wondered if I'd gone mad, even though a part of you was sure I'd dash us both on the rocks below. I need to know why. Why do you care, Anders? Why does it matter to you what I think of myself in the end?"

Droplets of water made their way out of her hair and down her nose to bead on her lips, much like other droplets settled in the dip of her cleavage where her chest peeked out of the water. He was struck by an overpowering urge to kiss her. It was an urge he'd had before, but always managed to push aside for one reason or another. This time, he chose not to, instead leaning forward to take her lips against his own.

He put everything he felt into the gesture, everything he thought, the first burst of genuine emotion he'd felt in longer than he could remember – and prayed to the Maker that she would understand. That she would see what it was he was fighting so hard to help her redeem.

When he pulled away her eyes were wide in surprise, and she was frozen. She stared at him in silence, struggling to understand what had just happened.

"I'm sorry, I shouldn't have…"

Her hand broke through the water, pressing a long finger against his lips as she shifted closer to him – and he watched something new catch fire behind her emerald irises, something he'd never seen before, something she had only now come to recognize. And then she was kissing him back, her fingers winding into his hair as she gave herself over to it fully. He didn't hold back any longer once he knew she felt it too, giving himself over to every impulse he'd fought away, every thought he'd silenced, every emotion he'd suffocated and tried to deny.

When they broke apart minutes later, she was smiling, and settled in at his side to watch a long arc of electricity break free from the gathering clouds on the horizon and dip down to touch the water.

"Looks like there's a storm coming. We should go before we're caught in it."

"It's far too late for that." She replied, tugging him into motion behind her as she climbed out of the water.

When they finally made their way back to the Keep, Nathaniel was waiting for them, and charged forward immediately to intercept Elissa's attempts to enter the front gates without speaking to him.

He started to call out to her, but found himself stumbling backward to land against the stone wall near Wade's forge. Once he'd recovered, he turned his stupefied gaze in Anders' direction. "Did you just cast on me?"

"It didn't hurt you." The Mage replied, pulling his hand down from his forehead. "It was just meant to stun."

"Cast on me again and what I do in response won't be, I can assure you." Nathaniel's voice was threatening as he turned to dash after Elissa again, watching her disappear up the stairs beyond the front gate.

"She wants to be left alone."

"You said yourself she needs someone to help her through this." Nathaniel insisted, continuing in his pursuit.

"She has someone." Anders watched his steps stutter to a stop, and then the slow turn of the man's much larger body in his direction.

Nathaniel inspected the mage closely, wondering how he could possibly have missed it before. "You're in love with her."

"Yes." There was no need to deny it, not any longer.

"Good luck with that." Nathaniel snorted, breaking off in the opposite direction.

Anders knew better than to assume that was anything more than poorly veiled threat.