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 Nineteen: Like the Last Night of Our Lives

Loghain entered the ladies' room fully intent on having his say, but when he saw Elilia sitting primly in the big wingback armchair with her legs drawn up beneath her, working daintily with a lap-sized shuttle, he completely forgot what he wanted to have out with her. Unperturbed, Champion padded into the room and flopped down on the floor next to her brother, after a friendly sniff of greeting.

"What are you doing?" he asked in some dismay. Somehow the idea that Elilia would be making lace seemed to him the death knell of any last shred of hope he had that she would ever be his again. Probably had something to do with a trousseau. She was preparing herself for her new noble household and her new noble husband, Maker curse his name whoever he was.

"Tatting," she answered, with a prim set to her mouth.

"Tatting," he repeated, unable to think of one further word to say.

"Yes, tatting. It is a fine pursuit for an accomplished lady. I shall also take up spinning, and will practice while we are on the road. Then I shall always have a ready supply of fine handmade thread with which to tat."

"Spinning. We're not hauling a bloody spinning wheel across the breadth of Ferelden." He was fairly certain now that she was having him on, but he could not be sure how far.

"I shall carry a distaff and spin by hand, like the old women who spin by the side of the road in small villages with a gimlet eye for passers by," she said archly, and then her expression crumbled and she laughed. "Actually, Seanna finished working the loveliest embroidered handkerchief and I rather rashly promised to make her a border of lace in my mother's old family pattern, before I remembered that I haven't tatted lace in ages. It's coming back to me in littles. 'Did you want something? I suppose I have a moment.'"

"I wanted something, but you quite broke my chain of thought, and it shall be difficult to pick it up again if you persist in mocking me," he said. He scratched his head thoughtfully. Elilia espied the book in his other hand.

"What are you reading?" she asked, further distracting him from the point of his visit and not caring a whit.

He was startled by the question. "What? Oh…" Sheepishly he showed her the book. "It's…Duncan's primer on Natural Philosophy, actually. With things so unsettled my mind has been a whirl, and now and then it crops up some ridiculous question and I've no peace until I've found an answer. But so far the answer only compounds the question. I thought that a book meant for young schoolchildren would be easier for me to comprehend but I suppose I'm further behind than I thought."

"What question were you trying to answer?" Elilia asked.

He grimaced. "'Where does the sun go when it sets?'"

She blinked. "You asked yourself this question? Duncan didn't ask you?"

He shrugged. "It just occurred to me that I hadn't a clue. It just doesn't look that far away, yet it certainly doesn't set in Ferelden. It crosses the whole of our nation and Orlais, and Nevarra too, and Maker knows how much further beyond, which means that it must be unbelievably far away, and fucking enormous since the whole of Thedas can see the damned thing. The book doesn't say anything about that. It talks about the edges of the earth but it doesn't make a claim as to where exactly they might be, just that they're somewhere beyond the place where our maps end. It makes it sound like the world just stops, in a nice straight line, which makes no sense to me. What keeps the water from just draining right over the edge? Is there a wall to stop it?"

Elilia was looking at him as if at a madman, but he plowed on relentlessly, on a roll. "The book says the sun circles us, but is that true? Perhaps the sun is perfectly still and we're the ones in motion, too used to it even to notice! And was the world truly made like a piece of parchment, forests and mountain ranges and towns all laid out on the flat by the Maker or whoever, or is it more like a stone upon which moss has grown? If I could stride across the earth and water at the same speed as the sun would I eventually come to the edge and fall off as the scholars claim or would I find myself back where I started from in a single day as the sun seems to? And how is it the sun and moon and stars seem just to hang there in the sky? Surely there is something holding them, just as something must be holding us. Could we be like frogspawn, safe and oblivious in a bubble of air we cannot think beyond as the stone to which we are attached tumbles about in a stream surrounded by all these other bright, shiny stones?"

Elilia shook her head. "'Oh, what a noble mind is here o'erthrown,'" she said, sounding as if she quoted - probably that Bard fellow everybody was talking about these days. "You need a change of scenery, I think. I'll be glad when we leave this place."

Seanna spoke up from the next room. "I think he has some good questions, if he lacks a bit in background information." She came to the doorway. "Seeking answers to questions like those are how we further our knowledge, not by simply accepting what we are told at face value. Loghain has the makings of a fine philosopher."

Elilia laughed heartily at that. "Oh, what a capital joke it would be to retool the Great Pragmatist into an airy-fairy philosopher! He might actually manage to cut through much of the foolishness of that breed and find some actual truth, too. It would keep him occupied between wars, at any rate."

Seanna smiled crookedly. "Pragmatism is a philosophy of its own," she pointed out. To Loghain she continued, "I believe that you have spent much of your life absorbing whatever you could learn about the arts of warfare and military strategy and did not bother with much else, and it is clear from your knowledge of these things that you have a fine mind, but I should think it wants more than that. The brain needs nourishment and exercise the same as any other muscle, and yours is crying out for better food and more complex work. I dare say Elilia is right, a man like you could have the dedication and even the genius to answer some of the unanswered questions of this world, if you chose to pursue them. Read your primer, even if the questions vex you. Feed your head."

"But I would recommend getting your own copy, or else the Prince will be called to task for it with his tutors," Elilia said, and she would smile and make a joke of it, the harpy. "Get a book written for grownup minds and not for children, too. My old tutor Aldous always said that the printing houses foist the worst nonsense on young scholars and that it was misery itself to reteach them properly."

"It's true," Elilia said, rather darkly. "The Chantry has them print schoolbooks a certain way so that young minds don't get 'dangerous ideas,' whatever that means."

Loghain laughed harshly. "Perhaps I'll warn Anora that her son is being taught to be a vacuous fool of the sort the Chantry is so fond of," he said. "I'll look into the matter of a better book. It would be something to keep me occupied between wars, though perhaps my mind is exactly the sort that should not be trusted with information that leads to 'dangerous ideas.'"

Seanna smiled, a bit of her old shyness evident in it. "While we are traveling I would be glad to help you as much as I can - in the Circle life was nothing but study, so I'm quite used to it."

"So what is it you came here to talk about, Loghain?" Elilia asked, a bit sharply. Was that a note of jealousy he heard in her voice? He smirked at it, but the truth was that he could not speak of the matter he had wanted to broach in front of Seanna, though she seemed aware of his interest in Elilia. Asking her to bed him tonight, even if never again, was just too personal a request to be made in public, no matter how close the friendship might be. He grabbed for a topic that had been much on his mind of late, when not consumed with foolish questions about the mysterious workings of the sun and stars.

"I was wondering if you had anything to contribute to my plans for foiling potential assassination attempts," he said. "I've spoken to Their Majesties about increasing their personal guard, but we both know a clever Bard would have no trouble infiltrating the palace regardless." Like that bloody fool of a Bard everyone, Elilia included it seems, was quoting these days. He claimed to be Ferelden but who could know for sure? Just because he was balding and rather paunchy didn't mean he was harmless.

Elilia huffed. "First thing I'd do is get rid of that Erlina," she growled, in a fair imitation of Loghain. He sighed.

"I know. Believe me, I know. But Anora says she knew from the first that Erlina was sent here by the Empress to spy on our court, and that she won the girl over. She is now, according to Anora, completely loyal to Ferelden. Or to Anora, more likely. I'd still prefer to kill her regardless, but Anora won't hear of it. And if she is loyal then I suppose she's quite valuable. She has at least agreed, for the present, not to let the woman out of her personal sight during the day, and to lock her in her rooms at night. Not that this calms me much." A thundercloud descended upon his countenance.

"Some of the mages who returned with the army are working for the King and Queen now, correct?" Seanna said. "There are a few simple spells that can test food and drink for poison, and you could put a couple of them to scrying in shifts for assassins. It's not foolproof, but it would certainly be a grand help."

Loghain slapped his thigh. "Seanna, you're a godsend, truly. A fine idea. I'll relay it to the King and Queen at once."

Elilia sniffed. "Yes, do. I've nothing for you myself, and if Seanna has no further suggestions then I'll thank you to leave - I'm expecting a gentleman caller at any moment and your presence would be most inconvenient."

Loghain stared at her, horrorstruck. A gentleman caller? She would fling it in his face like that? He had known her to be a foul harpy, yes, but he had never thought her cruel. Much deflated, he bowed himself out. With a dubious glance at Elilia, Champion followed.

Seanna put a hand on Elilia's shoulder. "That was rather heartless of you, really," she said gently.

Elilia laughed. "He had it coming. Besides, I don't want him to know about my plans - there are good reasons why I don't like to bring up Alienages, particularly this one, with Loghain. Perhaps he'd like to be given a chance to make some sort of restitution there but he's hardly someone who could casually begin buying up property without it being called to Vaughan's attention."

Seanna shook her head. "I don't believe he came here to speak of assassination attempts or philosophy, Elilia, and neither do you. You've been blocking his every attempt to speak to you privately since we returned to Denerim. If you want him you should tell him so, for I believe he wants you. If you do not want him then you should not be jealous if another woman speaks kindly to him. And it is cruel to leave him hanging onto hope if there is none."

Haakon picked himself up off the floor and stuck his head in Elilia's lap, nudging aside the shuttle. He'd smelled the mating-smell on the male human and could hardly blame him for wanting the Mistress for his own, and Haakon was hopeful that she would relent because then he and his sister would be proper packmates again, which would be wonderful. And the Mistress would have a litter, and Haakon would like very much to be guardian of her pretty furless human pups. The Mistress scratched his ears.

"I'm not jealous," Elilia said defensively, "and I'm not hanging him out to dry, I'm just…ugh, it's complicated. I'd rather he just…grabbed me and bent me over a barrel than to actually have to…talk about it."

"You would not," Seanna said firmly but kindly, "want him to rape you. Trust me, I know whereof I speak." And she did, too, Elilia realized with a pang of regret at her careless words. "You don't want to talk? Fine, don't talk - but you'd better act quickly, or he's simply going to assume you don't want him and he won't spend a great deal of time pining for what he believes he cannot have. Get him alone somewhere tonight and give him a kiss, or a caress - or a good hard fondle, if you've the privacy and he's not wearing an armored codpiece. I'll be safe enough alone for one night," she added, with a sly smile.

"Seanna, you clever witch! You just want the bed to yourself!" Elilia cried, grinning.

Seanna laughed. "Well I confess, it would be nice to have one night to myself. You're such a blanket thief!"

The ladies laughed together and chatted a bit until an uncertain-looking servant came to announce "That dwarven-bloke Your Ladyship was expectin'."

"Ah, yes. Send him in, please," Elilia said, not even noticing the servant's odd looks or how inappropriate it might be considered to be receiving a guest - a male guest, and a dwarf - in her bedroom, even if she didn't have the luxury of a receiving parlor. The stout man entered, red-haired and bearded. He reminded her a bit of Oghren in look, but with more dignity and less drunkenness, which admittedly was not a high bar. "Ser Gorim, so good of you to come. I had it from our…mutual acquaintance…when we first encountered one another that you were once Second to a prince of Orzammar, and Warrior Caste. Pursuing inquiries of my own in recent days I have heard nothing but that you are a man of excellent faith and fair-handedness."

Undwarvenly fair-handedness, by account of most of the people she'd talked to, but he certainly didn't need to hear that.

He inclined his head slightly. "My Lady does me too much honor. I am but a simple merchant now, but I make an effort to live by the code of conduct insisted upon by the good Prince I served, Ancestors bless and keep him."

"I need a man I can trust to carry out a work of good faith for me. A commission, if you will, though dwarven smithing has no part in it."

She told him her plan, and though he seemed a bit confused by her intentions - the Alienage was, to him, just another Dust Town and he did not know why the nobility should be so interested in purchasing space there - but he understood the instructions well enough. She had him repeat them, to be sure.

"Make inquiries about the Hahren's house of its owner and secure its purchase. Wait a month, then send another whom I trust but who cannot be easily linked to me to purchase another property. Repeat, varying the cooling-off interval and never sending the same agent twice, until the Alienage is fully in your hands."

"Exactly. I give you five sovereigns to give in payment to each agent, and twenty for you yourself at the outset. There will be an additional ten sovereigns to you when the task is successfully completed."

"It will be done, My Lady. Er…"

"Yes?"

"What am I to do if the city…"

If the city falls to the Orlesians. Elilia smiled grimly. "What everyone else must do if that unfortunate event happens - flee and save your own skin, and good luck to you. But it won't happen. The King and Queen are preparing against the worst, and Loghain is at his brutal best in thinking of all the ways the Orlesians could invade and all the ways to block them. Ferelden will stand."

The dwarf bowed. "As you say, My Lady, and so may it be."

Loghain entered the throne room to find a mild state of pandemonium. His first thought, with the idea of assassins fresh in mind, was that he was too late and an attempt had been made, but when he found King Alistair cradling a fussy Baby Anora and wearing an expression of pure parental overreaction he realized the panic was of a more domestic nature.

"What happened?" he growled, unsettled and pissed off about it.

"Baby Anora swallowed a silver," Alistair groaned. "I've sent for one of the mages we hired."

Loghain felt a grin start up despite himself. "Sent for a mage? Whatever for?"

Alistair goggled at him. "The princess, your granddaughter, swallowed a silver," he repeated, slowly and carefully, as though he spoke to an imbecile.

"And what? Has she crapped out a hundred bits? That would be the time to send for a mage, I think."

The mage arrived then, to Alistair's evident relief, and cast a quick spell on the struggling girl. "Ah, yes, it is a silver. It's already reached the child's stomach," the man said.

"Well…get it out," Alistair said desperately. The mage, silver-haired and probably used to the idiocy of the relatively inexperienced even if he'd not had much opportunity to see the ways in which worried parents fretted over the smallest things, gave him a look of deep pity.

"Your Majesty, there is no spell that can will the coin out of the child. I could give her a dose of ipecacuanha, but that would be most unpleasant for the Princess and is really not necessary at this point. The coin will drop into the intestine in a matter of time, and will pass in the usual way."

"In other words, 'It'll all come out in the end,' so to speak," Loghain said.

"If the child experiences stomach pains, or if in three days' time there has been no sign of the coin then measures should be taken to remove it," the mage said. "But there is little to fear - the coin has nicely rounded edges and is not large. A laxative may be needed if it does not, as my Lord says, 'Come out in the end,' but I shouldn't think it likely. Children swallow inappropriate things, Your Majesty. I do not think the Princess will come to harm over this misadventure."

"They also stick inappropriate things up their noses," Loghain pointed out helpfully. "With Anora it was a little wooden chair from the dollhouse her grandfather made her. That hurt, I can assure you. She never stuck anything up her nose again, I'll tell you."

Alistair clapped his hands over his daughter's ears. "Don't give her ideas, I beg you," he implored. Then he sighed. "Duncan wasn't half as difficult at this age. My daughter shall be the death of me."

"Fathers of daughters always believe that," Loghain said. "I believed it manys the time myself. Let the poor tyke go free and listen to this idea I got from Elilia's mage-friend. It's worth the hearing, I assure you."

He ordered Champion to lead the child back to the nursery, which made the girl very happy. Champion walked with adult gravitas while the child clung to her fur and babbled about the "pitty goggy." Certain of the child's words - "No!" "Don't!" "Shan't!" - were very clear and perfectly enunciated, but she had trouble still with anything beyond imperatives. Loghain saw her out of the throne room and then told the King Seanna's plan.

"I know the spells she speaks of," the mage said approvingly. "I could teach the others if they have not learned them. It would be an honor for us to serve Your Majesties so. If I may add, I also know several spells for removing poison from food and drink, just in case."

"The Seneschal gave me these," Alistair said, sheepishly holding up a bauble that appeared to be a plain polished stone set in gold and depended from a golden chain with a heavy fob to weight the end. "I made Anora take one, though she laughed at me. He said that King Maric and Queen Rowan used them to guard against poison in the aftermath of the war with Orlais. They do work, don't they?"

"Bezoar stones? Yes, Your Majesty, they are effective against some poisons - most notably arsenic - but not proof against all. Still, it was wisely done."

Loghain left the King and the mage to hammer out the details of bringing in the other mages and setting up shifts to scry for assassins. He wandered without real aim toward the nursery, but a strong hand latched onto his arm before he was halfway there. Elilia pulled him into the empty room and kissed him roughly. "Bar the door," she said, voice husky. He did as bidden.

"What about your 'gentleman caller?'" he asked, with a touch of bitterness. Elilia laughed guiltily.

"It was a merchant, from whom I wished to hire a commission," she said, blushing. "I'm sorry I misled you. A demon of pride made me do it."

"I've been battling my own demons lately," he admitted. "Where you're concerned, however, they've been only demons of desire."

Her blush deepened. "I don't want to talk," she said.

"No more do I," Loghain admitted, "but I believe we need to. Elilia, soon Anora will have you married, you know this is so."

"It is her intention, surely, she made that clear, but I don't think she will command it. Alistair is not wholly in step with her on this point, I gather, and she won't press him on it - for now."

"If she intends you for that bastard Vaughan I don't think I shall be able to stand for it," Loghain said, conversationally despite the fact that the mere thought of her going to the bed of that insufferable creature made his blood boil. "I shall kill him with my two bare hands."

Elilia laughed. "That was what I thought I would do myself," she confessed, "but it isn't Vaughan she's set her warrant on, Loghain - it's you."

"What?"

She nodded. "She wants to make Cauthrien Bann of Gwaren, and give the Teyrnir to me - provided I'll sign the proper legal documents making the Princess my heir. My own children," she said that with some dripping irony, "will then have the right to claim the Teyrnir if something should happen to Baby Anora, or will be made heirs of Highever if my brother will agree."

He thought about it from his daughter's perspective. "That would give her a strong footing in the Landsmeet, to be sure," he mused. "Cauthrien idolizes Anora, always has. You will feel free to disagree at your whim but you're often of a mind with Anora and hold good sway with the Landsmeet. Fergus would have an heir of his sister's body with strong ties to the Crown. But…me?"

"She wants your title restored to you, of course," Elilia said. "I would be her means to that end, as Alistair would likely never consent any other way. I would be the one with the Vote but I'm sure Anora assumes you'd be the one doing the ruling in Gwaren."

He held her at arm's length. "And what do you say about this?" he asked, looking her in the eye critically.

She squared her shoulders. "I say good luck to you on that, Milord."

He laughed and drew her back into his arms. "I'll toss you for it, Milady," he said, well aware of the double-entendre in his words. She giggled, evidently understanding him quite well.

"I know the way you 'toss,' Milord. You'll have to come up with a better offer and fast."

"Let me show you exactly what it is I'm offering," he said in a throaty voice. He unlaced the front of her blouse and began to kiss his way down her long neck while his hands busied themselves elsewhere. He uncovered the first of her many scars, a short white line on her shoulder where her flesh had been grazed by a poisoned quarrel, and he kissed the knotted tissue. She had given the perfection of her body and the first blush of her youth in service to the nation they both loved, and he loved her for it. Leave the dainty beauties of Court to other men, give him this powerful sword maiden with her fierce, beautiful eyes and her mad, laughing ways. She would tease him unmercifully for the rest of his short, miserable span, but it would be worth every barbed jest she flung at him.

There was no bed in the room but there was a good stout table, the design of which indicated as surely as a guild mark that it came from a craftsman of Gwaren - the irony was not lost on him. It seemed appropriate, as well, even if she deserved more comfort. They could always retire to his bedroom later. That there would be a later was something he would ensure. There was no telling what the future held, for them or for anyone, no matter what their plans. Tonight he would love her like it was the last night of their lives, for there was always the chance it would prove to be so.

A snuffling and wuffing outside the door heralded the return of Champion. The pup scratched at the panels a couple of times, whined curiously, and then grunted as she flopped down across the entry. She knew from the sounds and smells that her human was mating to the tall female, and Champion considered that a fine thing. Soon she and Haakon would be packmates again, and the female would bear the Master a pup. She scratched her ear with a hind foot and settled in to wait.