"Are we there yet?"
"Maric, I swear before the Maker, if you ask that question one more time I'm going to smack you senseless."
Githa laughed merrily and hiked along using her staff as a walking stick. "Enjoy the journey, Your Majesty," she said. "Beautiful weather, fresh air, healthful exercise…a really nice view."
She was walking directly behind Loghain. At her words his steps hurried slightly to put more distance between them. She laughed again.
"An even better view."
"It's just that we've been walking forever, and I don't see any ruins yet," Maric said. "Just lots of grapes. And the road keeps getting higher and higher. I'm tired out and we aren't even there yet."
"Unless you'd like to be the one carrying the camp kit, I suggest you shut up about being tired," Loghain said crossly.
"Isn't there a village or someplace we can stop for the night?" Maric asked. "I don't want to camp out."
"There are farms, but we're not stopping at them," Loghain said. "It's not that much farther. If we keep moving we can be there well before dark. You, Maric, have become spoiled."
"Why did we have to start with the furthest ruin?" Maric asked. "The other two Tevinter ruins are closer to the boarding house."
"The bordello, you mean. We're starting with this one because that scholar we talked to said it was the largest and most intact."
"I'm enjoying this immensely," Githa said. "I've never spent so much time outdoors. And no templars! And everything is so beautiful, and the people we pass are all smiling."
"Yes. It's unnerving," Loghain said.
"What?"
"Fereldans don't smile," Maric explained. "Especially not at Loghain."
"Oh."
They walked together in silence for a few more miles. The road wound up the side of what seemed to be a tame, rounded mountain whose lower slopes were covered with vineyard fields. After a time, the ever-shrinking shoulder of the road on the outside of the mountain fell away rather sharply.
"Don't fall off," Loghain said, and grabbed Maric's shoulder and pushed him toward the edge.
"Hey! Stop!" Maric said, and veered back toward the inside track. He pushed Loghain. "Meanie."
"You're like two gigantic children," Githa said.
"Of course. We're men," Maric said.
"Ask any wife, and she'll tell you the same," Loghain added.
They walked on a bit longer. Vineyards gave way to trees, but still the mountainside was broken here and there with homesteads where smiling peasants waved to the passersby. The mountain was, in Maric's words, looking more and more mountainy, with rather a sheer cliff on the outside of the road, which had narrowed. The ruin was on the peak, still high above them.
A small dark-haired child squatted on the side of the road, crying and sniffling.
"Hey, what's wrong?" Maric asked. He repeated the question in Antivan. The little boy looked up and his tearful eyes grew huge. He shot to his feet.
"Fereldanos!" he cried. Loghain expected him to run away screaming, but instead he seemed genuinely happy to see them. He gabbled in his native tongue.
Loghain tapped Maric on the arm. "What did he say? He talks too fast for me."
"He said he was playing with his puppy, throwing sticks. The puppy fell off the mountainside, Loghain, and he's on a little ledge down there, trapped. His puppy."
Loghain moved to the edge of the cliff and looked down. There was a narrow ledge about fifty feet below the road, and he saw a small mongrel pup standing on it, with his front paws on the cliff face. The pup stared up at him and yipped plaintively.
He stepped back and shook his head. "There's no getting down to it," he said. "The ledge is too narrow and the cliff too unstable."
The boy must have read from his expression and headshake that he thought the case was hopeless. He began to cry harder.
"Give me the rope," Maric asked.
"What?"
Maric grabbed the coil of rope that hung off the side of the camp kit Loghain carried on his back. He shoved one end of the rope into Loghain's hands, grinned wickedly, and bounded down the sheer side of the mountain. With an oath, Loghain wrapped rope swiftly around his brawny arms and ran to brace the rope around the bole of a nearby tree. "Maric, I'm going to kill you," he grunted as he strained against the King's weight.
Githa ran to the edge of the cliff and dropped to hands and knees to watch the King's treacherous descent. "Oh, be careful!" she cried as she saw the soft stone crumbling beneath his feet as he rappelled down.
"Don't worry, I got this," Maric called back, and reached the ledge where the worried puppy waited, tail wagging vigorously. He reached down and scooped the pup up and held it in the crook of his arm. "All right, Loghain - I got the pup. You can start pulling me up now."
"Pull you up? I can barely hold you!" Loghain shouted.
Maric's sigh rose up from below. "Must I do everything?" he said. He tucked the pup into the neck of his blouse and began to climb the rope hand over hand. He crawled back up onto the road and delivered the pup to the grateful boy, whose tears were now of joy. The boy gabbled his thanks and covered the puppy's face in kisses. Maric tousled the boy's hair affectionately.
Loghain dropped the rope and wiped sweat from his brow. "I thought you said you were tired," he growled.
"Well, I am now, definitely," Maric said.
The boy, pup in arms, walked over to Loghain. He looked up at the big man with an infantile reproduction of Loghain's famous scowl on his face. He stomped hard on Loghain's foot.
"Ouch. Ornery little shit," Loghain said, but he couldn't help grinning as the boy walked away with his dog.
A/N: This scene was the inspiration for the entire story, and I really never thought I'd have a chance to use it. It is fairly ridiculous; Loghain could never have braced the weight of a similar-sized man in time to do any good, no matter how strong he is, but I couldn't resist. Maric throwing himself off a cliff, sublimely confident that Loghain would never let him fall, seemed to me the definition of their relationship as I envision it. It was also quite fun to show off the aspect of Maric's character that makes people (Loghain included) think of him as "great."