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 Five: The Calm Before the Storm

Time passed, as it has a way of doing. The chaos within the Chantry increased until it seemed the Andrastian religion was destined to collapse completely, and fear for just such an unthinkable outcome kept the kingdom - and virtually every nation in Thedas - in turmoil. Despite the troubles, or perhaps because of them, the threat from Orlais grew ever more certain as days passed into months. Some said Celene would never allow her armies to attack, others claimed she was only pretending diplomacy in order to wait for the opportune moment to strike, and still others knew with sick certainty that regardless of whether the Empress's intentions were honorable or not, sooner or later the intrigues of the Orlesian court would catch up to her, and if she continued to refuse the demand for war she would find herself at the receiving end of an assassin's craft.

Alistair and Anora kept as much of this from their children as possible. Parents always make such efforts to shield their children from the horrors of the real world, and while some are better at it than others, few ever really succeed. At the very least children know when their parents are afraid, even if they don't quite understand the why, and it scares them.

Not having a hand in the running of the country, and with no men to train or strategies to plan, Loghain had little to do except whack away at scarecrows in the training courtyard, and so as the kingdom's troubles mounted and the King and Queen spent longer and longer days at court attempting to solve them, he slowly and somewhat reluctantly stepped into the role of Chief Babysitter for the prince and princess. He loved both his grandson and granddaughter dearly, and he'd enjoyed fatherhood very much, but he'd always felt more than a bit out of his element when it came to spending a lot of time alone with any child, up to and including his own. They made him feel clumsy and oversized, not to mention crass and occasionally stupid.

Keeping them active settled that last problem, for as long as he could forestall their endless and, to him, unanswerable questions then he would not have to reveal that his head had never been able to accept a great deal of learning beyond that which was necessary to swing a sword or read a map. The processes that went into making the sky blue, for instance, might potentially be of some value to someone, but had absolutely no relevance to him, and when Maric, insisting upon some formal education before making him over into high nobility, had attempted to clutter his mind with such things he had planted both heels and rebelled. "Why do I need to know what makes the bloody sky blue?" he'd demanded of his friend, "or whether the earth goes 'round the sun or vice versa? What possible difference could knowing such things ever make for me? It won't make me a better general and it won't make me a wiser Teyrn, if you're truly so set on this ridiculous idea of raising me." Maric smiled, shook his head resignedly, and set aside the books of natural philosophy in favor of books on politics and government, and the study of languages. Loghain never learned how to speak any other than his native tongue to any degree, but he learnt to understand well enough to know when foreign delegates were being duplicitous, which was all he cared about. And so when Duncan and Baby Anora were in his care the goal was basically to keep them too busy to talk, and wear them out so that they'd sleep until someone with answers, like their mother, came to hear their questions.

At first it was obvious that Alistair was not especially happy with the new arrangement, particularly when he found son and daughter laughing ecstatically on the back of a trotting pony, going round and around in a circle at the end of Loghain's lead rope, but as time went on and he saw no harm seemed to come of any of it, he began at last to relax his guard. He worried more about his daughter than his son, for Loghain behaved more gently toward the lad and seemed rather fierce toward the girl, but in the course of time he realized that far from being frightened, Baby Anora reveled in the roars and rough games. And he saw, too, the way the old warrior's hard features softened whenever he was with either child, and he recognized that the man truly adored his grandchildren.

In a rare respite from the cares of rule one day some months after Loghain's return to Denerim, Alistair and Duncan were together in the stables to greet the arrival of a litter of mabari pups born to the stable master's bitch. Duncan scratched behind the ears of one tiny blind puppy and said to his father, in a casual it-makes-no-nevermind-to-me-one-way-or-the-other voice, "I was wondering, father, if you might not teach me to ride a horse one day soon."

Alistair, who had never been on horseback a single time in his life, was too embarrassed to confess such to his son. "I don't know, Duncan, I'm awfully busy these days, and it seems to me you're a bit too small yet to ride a full-sized horse. I think perhaps you should stick with your pony for now. When you're older we'll see about getting the riding master to teach you proper."

"Oh. All right, then," Duncan said, as if he didn't really care, but the crestfallen expression on his face went straight to his father's heart. The boy excused himself shortly thereafter, as it was time for his afternoon lessons, but Alistair stayed in the stables awhile longer, looking over the horses and thinking dark thoughts about them, as though it were their fault he could not teach his son to ride.

"How about having the riding master teach you proper?" The deep, harsh voice startled him out of his brooding.

"Andraste's ass, Loghain - how long have you been here?" Alistair demanded, blushing because he'd allowed the man to see him start.

"Long enough," Loghain said. He stepped out of the shadows, leading a tall, heavy-bodied charger. "Haven't got a whole hell of a lot else to do so I ride a lot. You, on the other hand, don't ride at all. Do you?"

"Ruling a kingdom takes up a lot of time," Alistair said with some asperity, attempting to cover his chagrin with pompousness. "Just because I don't ride to the hunt with the frivolous nobility doesn't mean I am unable to - "

"Your father was practically born on horseback," Loghain interrupted, "and the best that could be said of him by the time he died was that most of the time he didn't fall off. You were treated more or less like a scullery boy at Redcliffe, and in all my years I've never seen a templar on a horse. You were never taught to ride."

There seemed no use in further denials, but Alistair could not meet the man's eyes when he mumbled, "No, I wasn't."

"Being your properly submissive half-captive and all I shouldn't say this, but a King that can't sit a horse is something of an humiliating statement for a nation. So I repeat: why not have the riding master teach you proper? Then you could teach your son to ride and not be embarrassed to speak of it."

"I don't have time," Alistair said defiantly, but he blushed again as he admitted, "and besides, the riding master would laugh."

Loghain considered that. "You're probably right," he confessed. He led the horse forward and patted its glossy chestnut neck. "But Stew-Bone here won't laugh, and I have no sense of humor that anyone's ever been able to detect. All you need to do is learn to get on a horse's back and off again without tripping or being caught up and dragged, and to sit on his back and not fall off the minute he starts to move, and then you could go to the riding master for proper lessons without feeling a stupid ass."

Alistair took a half-step forward, almost yearningly, but he said, "I'm not so sure I haven't detected at least the fainted trace of a sense of humor in you, Loghain."

"Well, perhaps I'm beginning at this late date to develop one, as it seems my life for the past decade or so has been something of a dirty punchline, but I promise you I shan't laugh."

The King took another half-step forward, like a stray dog who wants a kind master but is afraid of being whipped, and eyed man and horse warily but with hope in those hazel depths. "You'd…teach me the basics, then? So that I could at least keep my seat and not look a bloody fool?"

"No more than you usually look, at any rate," Loghain said, amiably enough.

Alistair didn't seem to notice the slight. He took yet another half-step and asked, "Why would you do that?"

Loghain sighed, fixed him with a steely eye, and said in a low, serious tone, "Duncan is my grandson, and he seems to have rather set his heart on having his father teach him to ride."

It occurred to Alistair then, with dawning wonder, that his children were the bridge connecting him to this man he was beginning to find it hard to hate, and that one day they might make it possible even for him to begin to forgive the transgressions of the past. Perhaps it was even already happening, too gradually to notice.

From then on, when they could find the time and the privacy, Alistair took lessons in horsemanship from Loghain. This tutoring usually took place after dark, as fears for the kingdom kept Alistair wakeful on many nights and Loghain seemed almost never to sleep. In time the King learned how to hoist himself into the saddle without too much awkwardness, how to dismount competently if not entirely with grace, and to sit upright and not feel as if he were about to plummet headfirst out of the saddle at any moment, but even then Loghain claimed he was simply too hopeless to risk the humiliation of public lessons, and the private tutoring continued. In truth, both men found these secret lessons something of a comfort, for different reasons. For Alistair, though he could not admit it even to himself except down very deep in his heart of hearts, they were somewhat fulfilling to the absence of a father figure he'd never in life felt so keenly as when he became a father himself, and for Loghain it was "something to do," for he was a man who did not thrive in stagnation. And Anora, who was not let in on the secret but who knew what was going on under her nose regardless, watched as both men learned more about each other than Alistair learned about horses, smiled triumphantly and said nothing.

On one moonlit ride along the Pilgrim's Path outside the city gates Alistair felt confident enough in both his saddle and his mind to ask something he'd wanted to for a long time.

"Did you…know my mother?"

"No," Loghain said tersely, and Alistair was abashed.

"Of course you didn't, that was a stupid question to ask. She was a Redcliffe serving girl, why would you have known her?"

Loghain looked over at him rather too quickly, the moonlight showing a strange expression on his face, but he looked back at the pommel of his saddle again before Alistair could begin to fathom it. "I never spent much time at Redcliffe, even before Eamon married."

"Wait - what was that look for? You know something, don't you? About my mother?"

"No, my King, I don't."

"You do," Alistair insisted. "Or at least you think you do. What is it?"

Loghain sighed. "I don't recall Maric spending any great time there, either."

Alistair puzzled over that statement for a moment, then laughed. "I don't mean to sound boorish but I don't think it absolutely necessary for him to have frequented the place. I'm told once is enough for some men."

"Aye, true," Loghain said, with a touch of a coarser, commoner accent creeping into his voice from beneath the time-polished tones of nobility, "but I have my doubts that it was Redcliffe your father was visiting during the time you must have been conceived, Your Majesty."

"What are you saying?" Alistair said, suddenly grave.

"I don't think the poor serving girl who died bringing forth a bastard son was really your mother. But I don't know, and Maker knows I should keep my suspicions to myself."

"You don't know? Did Maric never tell you who my mother was?"

"He said it was she who died. But he was never a particularly good liar, was Maric, and he looked a bit shifty when he said it. Then too it just never added up to me. Maric wasn't at Redcliffe once, to my knowledge, in the year before you mysteriously appeared there - looking a bit too large and strong for a newborn, in my humble opinion - and while it shames me to say he had something of a roving eye he wasn't a man the servants ever had fear of, if you catch my meaning. The man was in mourning, he had been for two years, and I never caught wind of any indiscretions in that time. Believe me, I was keeping watch."

"Wait - are you saying the King wasn't my father, either?" Alistair said, in some alarm.

"No, though I'd once had some hope of that, you are clearly Maric's son. But I don't think your mother was any serving girl. She existed, all right, but I believe she may have been only a convenient coincidence. If your real mother was who I think she was, it worked out well for Maric, and the kingdom, and even to some extent you that it happened that way."

"You know who my real mother was?" Alistair fairly shrieked.

"Calm yourself. Maker's breath, I wish you'd never brought it up, but now the cat is out the bag, so to speak, I suppose I can't plead ignorance and ask that you forget I ever said anything. Remember, Alistair - I know nothing, I only suspect, and given our history you have good reason to feel most uncertain about things I only suspect. That year was the year Maric let the Grey Wardens back into Ferelden, and the first thing that happened was they came to us at the palace and asked for my help in a Deep Roads expedition to find the Warden Commander's missing brother. I didn't trust them and said so, and thus Maric offered to go instead, which I flatly refused to allow, and so that night without a word to anyone he snuck away with them - or at least that's what he told me happened. I was never entirely sure the Wardens didn't simply kidnap him."

"I don't understand."

"Maric spent an awfully long time in the Deep Roads with those Wardens, and three of them were women. One was rather elderly and ended up dead, another was a dwarf and seems to have vanished into the Deep Roads with some sort of intelligent Darkspawn, and the third…I don't know what ultimately became of her, but I know she survived the debacle that concluded that particular adventure."

"So you're saying that my mother was…may have been…a Grey Warden?" Alistair sounded awed. "Tell me about her - what was her name? What did she look like? Do you know anything about her at all? Did Maric tell you nothing?"

"Calm yourself," Loghain said again, more firmly. "Maric said little to me about any of it, which was odd enough to raise my suspicions still further, but I'll tell you what I do know of her, which I fear is next to nothing. Her name was Fiona, she was I suppose quite pretty, and she…she…" he cut himself off short and sighed.

"What? By Andraste's Holy Sword, man, what?"

"Understand, Alistair, that if what I say were to be repeated by anyone else your rule would be in serious question, even if the banns didn't immediately rise against you. Fiona…was an elf. She was also…a mage."

Alistair had been leaning across the space between their horses further and further in his eagerness to hear, and Loghain didn't notice in time to stop him from tumbling out of the saddle at the shock of those words. He dismounted and helped the King to his feet.

"I'm a…half-blood?" Alistair said weakly. "And a mage's son?"

"You understand now a bit better, perhaps, why Maric found it impossible to claim you," Loghain said, sounding disgusted even as he said it. "If you were the offspring of a King and a serving girl 'twouldn't be much said, most noble bastards have a few literal bastards running about and more than one of the banns are the result of trysts between noble fathers and elven servants, but if it were known you had mage blood then the Revered Mother was like to call an Exalted March upon Ferelden, bloody stupid bitch that she was. But as I said, even I was never told the truth, if truth it was, so I don't know that anything I've said has credence."

"And yet it sounds so dreadfully easy to believe, somehow," Alistair said, and the moonlight reflected off his sickly smile. "Well. I feel rather as if I'd been in an earthquake."

"But you've survived it, and in time you'll get over it," Loghain said. "Know this: I don't care whether your mother was a mage or a servant or the bleeding Queen of Antiva, if Maric put her with child then Maric loved her. He wasn't terribly wise in his love, but he had a way of making even the worst people a bit more worthy somehow - take me as proof of that - and I don't find it very difficult to suppose that she must have loved him as well. Was she a good person? That I can't say, for I did not know her."

"But did my father love me?" Alistair asked, and his voice was that of a lost child.

Loghain sighed. "He never spoke of it to me," he admitted, "but I believe he loved you. It seemed to me from that day forward that he carried a terrible sadness and regret, and I believe that it stemmed from the fact that he could not be the father you needed. He tried his best to make up for it by being a stronger and wiser King than he had been in years past. I regret to say it gladdened me, for there was a time it seemed Maric would simply fade out and leave me holding the reins, and no matter what you think I tried to do in the wake of Ostagar, I never aspired to the throne."

"Let's head back to the palace," Alistair said. "Will you help me into the saddle? I don't think I can quite manage it on my own just now."

"Of course, my King," Loghain said, and gave him a boost. They rode back to the city in silence.

"Hello, what's this?" Loghain said alertly as they passed through the gates to find the city streets ablaze with light and abuzz with activity.

"I don't know. You don't think someone could have…?" Alistair ventured nervously.

"Not a chance. I'd have seen or heard something if we were followed. No, this is something else."

He kicked his horse into a gallop until he caught up with a bustling soldier and demanded to know what was afoot.

"The Orlesians, m'Lord!" the man gasped, eagerly if inaccurately as Loghain was no longer entitled to an honorific. "Scouts from the western bannorn report an army advancing upon the border! We're being invaded, Maker save us!"

Loghain and Alistair shared a grim look. "Blast and damnation," Alistair swore. Reining in his excited mount, Loghain could not but agree with that assessment.