Disclaimer: I don't own Dragon Age or any of its related characters. This is just for my own enjoyment and the potential enjoyment of other fans like me, and no monetary gain was expected or received.

Rating: T

Spoilers: Takes place ten years or more after the events of Dragon Age: Origins, from the background of a female Human Noble pc who has recruited Loghain and persuaded an "altered" Alistair to marry Anora and rule as King despite his survival, and persuaded Loghain to perform the dark ritual with Morrigan. May contain spoilers for Origins, Awakening, and Dragon Age II as well as the novels The Stolen Throne and The Calling.

Chapter Two: An Armistice of Convenience

I knew I should never have come to Denerim, Loghain thought as he stepped out of the dockside pub and found a small regiment of city guardsmen advancing upon him, but the thought wrung a grim smile from him. He'd hoped to find penance and redemption with the Grey Wardens, but that was not to be. It would serve him well enough to find some degree of it in the bowels of Fort Drakon. At least it would be dying at home rather than abroad. And hey, he'd gotten to meet his grandson, even if the boy would never know it.

"Loghain Mac Tir?" the nervous Captain said. "I have a warrant for your arrest, Ser, sworn out by King Alistair. I ask you to relinquish your weapons and come peacefully."

Loghain snorted softly. "If I refuse?"

"Then I am under orders from the King to allow you to."

Loghain laughed. "That kind of honesty doesn't serve, does it?"

"Please, Ser. I have no particular wish to arrest you, but His Majesty is His Majesty."

Loghain looked the Guard Captain over closely. "Kylon, isn't it? I recall when you were so desperate as to post bounties on the Chanters' board. It seems you've improved your lot since then. Good to see you survived the Blight."

The Captain looked uncomfortable and embarrassed, but nodded graciously. "The warrant, Ser…?"

"Ah yes, the warrant. Well, far be it from me to naysay the King of Ferelden." He dropped sword and shield and unslung his bow. "Guardsman, do your duty."

Kylon looked relieved. "Thank you, Ser." He gestured for some of his men to gather the discarded weapons. A contingent of guardsmen surrounded the elder warrior and he was escorted in that way to Fort Drakon, where he was put into a cell with a courtesy that most arrestees did not enjoy, and was left alone.

Loghain dropped onto the straw pallet that he supposed would be his bed if they left him alive long enough to sleep. So Alistair was to have his execution after all, and he hoped the boy took some comfort in it. He knew that he would. He amused himself with wondering how it would be done while he waited for his sentence to be handed down. Most likely it would not be public, which more or less ruled out hanging. There was the ever-popular rack, of course - he could see it from where he sat, looking as though it hadn't seen much use in recent years - but that particular implement wasn't all that effective on people in excess of six feet in height unless specially designed to accommodate the unusually tall, which was why the deceptively innocuous framing of the rack's corollary, a squeezing device, hung on the wall nearby. But Alistair, unless he had changed very much, had no taste for torture, and more likely than not he would simply be beheaded quickly and efficiently disposed of, ideally before Anora found out he was ever in Denerim. With luck, she'd never learn his fate and Alistair's marriage would continue in the peaceful armistice they seemed to have found with each other.

"I confess, I'm not sure whether I'm glad you allowed Captain Kylon to arrest you, or whether I'd rather you'd refused."

Loghain looked up from his contemplation of the blood-stained rack into the ghostly evocation of a lost friend in the face of Maric's illegitimate son on the other side of the bars. "The years seem to have been remarkably kind to you," Alistair continued. "I'd have expected someone your age would have gone to his Calling by now, but I suppose an old dragon is tougher than an old man. Why are you here? The First Warden sent you to Montsimmard, and that was the last I heard."

Loghain spread his hands. "I'm not a Warden anymore."

"Really? Because I was under the impression that being with the Wardens was meant to be your chance at redemption, and simply leaving them doesn't seem like much of an attrition."

"Indeed, you are correct. But unfortunately I wasn't given the choice. Have you ever heard this one before? Three men were sentenced to death by hanging, an Orlesian, an Antivan, and a Ferelden. They brought the Orlesian up on the gallows and gave him a chance to say his last words. He spit upon the platform and declared himself an innocent man. They put the noose around his neck and pulled the lever, but the platform didn't drop. 'The hand of the Maker has saved this man. Release him,' the magistrate demanded. Then they brought the Antivan up and let him have his say. 'I am guilty - screw you all!' he cried, and they put the noose around his neck. The lever was pulled but, once again, the platform refused to drop. Once more, the magistrate called it an act of the Divine and commanded the man's release. Then they brought the Ferelden up for his own last words. 'When I was down below I saw that there's a lot of rust on the release mechanism. If you oil it up, I think it'll drop just fine.'"

Alistair's lips twisted in a reluctant grin. "I believe I have heard that one before, yes, though I think it was the Orlesian who told everyone to go snog themselves."

"It may have been, I'm not that practiced at the art of telling jokes."

"Funny as it is, what is the point of that tale?"

"I was granted another stay of execution. The taint abandoned me, and so the Wardens have no use for me. Being as dumb as the Ferelden in the joke, I came home to have yet a third chance to put my neck properly in the noose."

"The taint…abandoned you? What does that mean?"

"It means I am no longer corrupted. It happens, I gather, although it must be pretty blasted rare judging by their surprise. Against my better judgment I offered to chug another swallow of their bloody poison, but they seemed to feel, as the magistrate did, that it was the will of the Maker. Myself, I think it's more likely to have something to do with…whatever it was that saved the Warden when she slew the Archdemon, and I'm in the way of knowing that the Maker had nothing to do with that."

Alistair leaned in close to the bars. "What did save the Warden, then? You know, or you couldn't be so quick in assuming that the Maker had nothing to do with it."

"I don't know, but I expect I know more than you. The Marsh Witch had a hand in it, and despite how well it worked out for the Warden I'm sorry to say that I had another, though only the witch herself knows the hows and whys - and though it pains me to say it, I suppose it wasn't exactly my hand that had anything to do with it after all. Suffice to say it was magic and leave it at that, for not even under torture will I ever relate the full details of that particular unpleasant memory."

"The Marsh Witch? Wait - do you mean Morrigan?"

"Was that her name? The dark one that went about 'dressed,' in the loosest sense of the word, like a Chasind prostitute."

"Yes, that was Morrigan. You think she…cured you, somehow?"

"Not deliberately, of course, but as an unexpected aftereffect of…of her 'ritual,' perhaps. The other possibility, I suppose, is that I simply developed some sort of immunity to the taint, but that seems less likely to me, given the circumstances. However it came to pass, I am no longer a Warden, and the Orlesians seemed quite happy to be rid of me, which I found unexpectedly hurtful, and so, having no other place to go, I wandered back to Ferelden. I kept to the quiet places for a time, avoiding people, but like the proverbial bad bit I suppose it was inevitable that eventually I should turn up in the Denerim market. I had a mind to see how far along the reconstruction had come and hear news of the kingdom, for I confess I've failed to keep current as I was unaware that there was an heir to the throne. It seems fitting, somehow, that the little devil would rat me out." He grinned.

"He didn't know who you were," Alistair said, apologetic despite himself.

"No, and I hope he still doesn't."

"He's a smart boy, and he'll figure it out once he finds the carving on the hilt of that knife you gave him."

The grin dropped off Loghain's face like he'd been punched. "Damnation. I'd forgotten that father inscribed it to me. I don't suppose there's a possibility you could carve that part out before he sees, is there?"

"Assuming he hasn't found it by now, is there any particular reason why I ought?"

"I didn't want to hurt the lad."

"And why would having his grandfather's hunting knife hurt him? Aside from the possibility that he might cut himself, that is."

"The knife isn't so sharp as the shame. I'd rather I'd never known the boy existed than to have him live with the knowledge that his traitorous grandfather was executed shortly after giving him a gift."

"Executed. Is that what you think I've had you brought in for?"

"What other purpose could you have with me? The Warden spared my life, and you made it clear that despite her machinations to put you on the throne, you very much resented the fact she bestowed upon me the so-called 'honor' of the Joining, to the point that, Blight or no, you refused to follow her a step further. Now at last is your chance to find justice for Cailan and Duncan and all the others who died at Ostagar, and in the chaos of the civil war."

Alistair took a step back from the cell bars and folded his arms across his chest. "Before the Landsmeet, I followed the Warden because somehow I knew, even though I'd only just met her, that she was smarter, stronger, and a better leader than I could ever dream of being. I followed her without compunction into a few situations I didn't exactly agree with because I trusted she knew better than I, and for the most part time has borne that assumption out. Time has also shown me certain…evidences that I did not have at the time we faced you down at the Landsmeet that day, and I've come round to the opinion that perhaps in this instance as well she may have had the right of it. She saw something in you that was worth the effort of salvage, even though you stood with the man who slaughtered nearly her whole family, and I should have been adult enough to respect that decision even if I could not then understand it. I don't have the strength of character, I fear, to forgive you for your actions, Loghain, but I was wrong to resent your entry into the Wardens, and wrong to leave them for it."

Loghain gave him a long, considering look, then a huff of breath before he nodded and said, "I don't know that you're correct about the Warden's wisdom in sparing me, but thank you for suggesting it might be so. I would have met my death that day content at least in the knowledge that I left Ferelden in strong hands, but I found a certain dismay in the idea that my life's blood might splash my daughter as I died."

"Ah yes, your daughter. At last we come to the reason you're here." Alistair cocked his head to one side and chewed his lower lip as he appeared to chew over his words. "Although I could never have believed it when I married her, I have come to…care…deeply…about Anora. She can be rather brusque and is dreadfully impatient, has next to no sense of humor, and rides me harder than a dwarven bronto drover, but she is also a…remarkable…woman, the perfect example of a wise monarch for me to live up to, as well as the loving mother of my children, which means quite a lot to me as I never expected to be able to have children and she came to motherhood with some reservation. Duncan and Baby Anora are the joys of my existence. I am a man who is happy in his family."

"And glad I am to hear it," Loghain said quietly. "Your children are fortunate in both mother and father, I think."

"Yes, well, whether I like it or not, you too are family, and though she doesn't speak of it often, it is clear to me that Anora misses you terribly, particularly now that she is a mother. I didn't exactly have a proper father in my life, though Arl Eamon did his best I know, so perhaps I'm not in a position to understand exactly what it is she misses so, but it doesn't matter as the end results are the same. The happiness of my family that I love more than life is not complete because my wife cannot share her children with her own mother and father. I cannot bring her mother back to life, but there is something I can do about reuniting her with her father."

Loghain was silent for a moment, digesting that, then said, with a wry angle to his heavy black brows, "So you have him arrested?"

"I wanted the chance to speak to you without her knowledge. The fact that you allowed yourself to be taken into custody suggests that you are contrite, even if I doubt seriously the chances that you've become submissive."

"So what are you trying to say, exactly?"

"I'm saying that it seems to me fairly commonplace for a man to dislike his in-laws," Alistair said with a touch of growl in his voice. "I feel that I may have lost my senses, but if you'll pledge me your oath that you'll take no hand against the crown of Ferelden - meaning me, Anora, Duncan, or anyone else that might legitimately wear it one day - then I will take you from this place and restore you to the bosom of your family."

"'Pledge you my oath?' You would honestly take me at my word?"

Alistair sighed deeply. "For Anora's sake, yes. I would."

"Hmph. You do love her, don't you?" He considered that for a moment, and then climbed up off the floor of the cell to take a knee. "Very well, my liege - I hereby pledge upon the tattered remnants of my honor and my everlasting love for my daughter that I will never take a hand against any legitimate heir to the throne of Ferelden, up to and including yourself. And while you are correct in assuming that I am not exactly what one might properly dub 'submissive,' I do hereby submit myself to your will as my rightful King, and you are welcome to toss me around at your whim and put me into all manner of humiliating and/or painful situations as you see fit."

Alistair let out a noisy breath. "That will do for the nonce, I suppose." He took the jailor's heavy ring of keys from where he held it beneath his arm and unlocked the door. "Don't make me regret this." It was difficult to say whether that plea was directed at his father-in-law or the Maker.