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: May contain spoilers for Origins, Awakening, and Dragon Age II as well as the novels The Stolen Throne and The Calling.

A/N: Should've had more than this after all weekend, but as sometimes happens, life got suddenly and inexplicably hectic. I think I've restored the usual bland doldrums that facilitate writing.

No Bull From the Big Bull, Volume One, by Varric Tethras, a Humble Storyteller

Excerpt: Bedtime Stories

Ruling wasn't pleasant or at all easy, even ruling only part of a nation. But if you asked Loghain Mac Tir, new by only a handful of years to the trials and tribulations of high nobility, which was the worst of them, he would have answered without hesitation: Servants. Servants to light the fireplaces, servants to wash the floors, servants to shine his bloody armor and servants to lace his sodding boots. He tripped over servants whenever he took a step, or slammed into them if he should stop or turn too quickly. Servants had become the bane of his existence.

He had a manservant now, a valet, though he couldn't bear to use that word at all. What a dreadful word, "manservant," and what a ridiculously Orlesian concept. He was quite capable of dressing himself. What pitiably inept creatures nobles were expected to be. Did they actually like such attentions? He himself spent much of his time devising ways to get the servants out from underfoot. He was becoming very adept at it.

Some of them weren't so bad. They were just poor people, elves mostly, doing their jobs, even if those jobs were ones he would have preferred to do for himself. It was the zealots he couldn't bear, the ones who revered the legend he was surprised and more than a bit dismayed to discover he had become. They were faithful idolaters of a man who did not exist, and he had no way of making them see that he was no more than human.

One among their number particularly irritated him, a young man - scarcely more than a lad, actually - named Imrek. Imrek was technically his squire, although there was slim chance in hell that he would ever become a knight, he simply didn't have the ability or the discipline necessary; he was a sop to those who found it improper for a male knight to have a young female squire. Imrek helped him strap on his armor; Cauthrien was his protégé with all other duties. But whatever the reasons Loghain was saddled with him, the boy was constantly underfoot, a perpetual irritant. If it ended at simple adoration it would have been bad enough, but the lad swaggered, acted as if being nominal squire to the Hero of River Dane bestowed some especial honor and status on his head that made him better than other mere mortals, even those who were in fact far above him both in official rank and personal value.

Loghain had devised a delightful way to rid himself of Imrek; send him to Orzammar with a message for the dwarven King. That message would be something along the lines of, "Please take this young fool and do something with him. I don't care what. He would make an excellent footstool, perhaps." His hand was stayed only because Imrek was simply too young to send off on a cross-country trip like that…and the dwarves had done nothing to deserve being inflicted with him. The Orlesians, perhaps, but then, he would not be seen to give those bastards so much as a dirty sock with a sodding hole in the heel. But it was pleasant to dream.

So a great deal of energy was wasted, daily, in avoiding or misdirecting servants. Sometimes he just had to get the hell away from them, for the sake of his own sanity, and on those occasions he would go hunting. There were servants who would also prefer to do this for him, in fact he had his own head huntsman, but it was at least something he did not need to invent an excuse to do for himself. But nowadays it was harder than ever to make it out the door for a day alone. It was easy enough to get past the huntsman - a simple command was usually sufficient. But how exactly did one give the slip to a six year old girl?

Celia was no help at all. She thought it was a "good idea" for he and the girl to spend time together, just the two of them. Maybe she was even right, but, well…

Even though he was still a young man, with many enemies yet to face in life, nothing he had ever encountered, or would ever encounter, frightened him as much as that one creature. Less than three and a half feet tall, with huge blue eyes and long blonde pigtails. His daughter.

So he often had to take her with him when he went out, but even though he worried that he might be a bad influence he had to admit he enjoyed the company. She was quiet, not a chatterbox like most children. Serious. Thoughtful. She paid attention to what he said and followed direction well. And, since he didn't know what else to do with her out there in the woods and his own mother had begun to teach him those things when he was about her age, he taught her what he knew of arrow craft and woodlore. He helped her make her first small shortbow, taught her how to set snares, taught her how to read tracks. She was a quick study.

The first time she killed a rabbit with her bow he saw the way her eyes grew wide and solemn and slightly tearful. She never cried, not ever, and it was a bit of a surprise to him to discover she could feel badly about ending the life of a small, furry creature the same as any other little girl. He had gotten used to thinking of her as something else, something…he didn't know what. Not better, exactly, but harder. He wasn't displeased to note that there was sympathy in her heart, but nothing about her was more terrifying to him than the possibility of tears so he did his best to alleviate the situation. Thinking quickly, he taught her to say a little prayer of thanksgiving for the meat and fur, and a prayer that the spirit of the rabbit would reach the Maker's side. He had no way of knowing it, but the words he felt so silly teaching his daughter were very close to the words of the Dalish ritual his mother had very nearly taught him by mistake so long ago when she first taught him to skin his kill. In any event, the words worked to forestall his daughter's tears, and the warm rabbit fur muff her mother made for her out of the tanned hide kept her in smiles all winter long. A fair trade for the life of one rabbit, he thought. He kept her to target shooting after that, though. At least until she was older.

He just didn't want to damage her, that was the crux of it. She didn't have quite the same advantages he'd had growing up - her mother was everything a child could ask for, but as a father he felt he left a lot to be desired. He spent a great deal of time away from home even before he went to Denerim to aid Maric's failing rule in the days after Queen Rowan's death, chasing down rumored assassins and bandit gangs, keeping peace in the teyrnir, and that was the best thing he thought he could do for his child. Keep her safe, and keep her away from the worst that was in him. He didn't want her walking in his footsteps.

She went with him, one day that winter, to check on snares he'd set. She followed along behind him, quiet and stoic, with no complaint about the cold or the deep snow. The traveling was easy for her when the snow was light enough for Loghain to plough through it; she could walk easily in the track he made. But when the drifts were deep and heavy enough that he was forced to step through, that made her passage difficult. Her legs were short, his stride was long, and she foundered behind in increasing but silent frustration, cold and growing wet. He noticed, picked her up by the collar of her thick winter coat, and hoisted her into his arms.

She snuggled into his shoulder with a satisfied sigh. "Getting tired?" he asked.

"A little bit, maybe," she said. "Just a little."

"We should be getting home, then," he said. "There's probably a hot meal already waiting for us."

"Okay, Daddy."

Daddy. That was a term he'd never heard before coming to live in Gwaren - in other parts of Ferelden the term was Da' or Papa or even Dad. Probably any of those would have worked just the same, but the appellation had the effect of a fire bomb on his heart every time she used it instead of the formal "father." It was a reminder of exactly how much responsibility rested upon his shoulders as a primary guardian and teacher of this tiny unformed life, and just how much that really meant to him. Celia had been pregnant four times now: Anora looked more and more like an only child. Just one chance to get it right. He cuddled her closer and carried her back home to the Keep to dry off and warm up.

Late that night, long after everyone else, including most of the damned servants, went to bed, he was up and wandering the halls. He usually did, because it wasn't just the city that made him keyed up and restless - he was simply pre-keyed, as it were. He stopped into Anora's bedroom just to reassure himself that she was still breathing, something he did fairly often. His night vision was not the same as an elf's but it was keen for a human, so he did not require lights as he made his patrol.

There was enough moonlight filtering in through Anora's window that he could see her eyes were open. She caught his shadow moving against the darkness and gasped slightly. "It's all right, little one," he said quietly. "It's just me. Sorry I woke you."

"Oh. It's okay, Daddy - I was awake already."

He stepped into the room. "Is something the matter?"

She shrugged her little shoulders. "I'm just not sleepy. Would you tell me a story, Daddy?"

"I…I'm afraid I don't know any stories, little one."

"Everybody knows stories, Daddy," she said, with calm assurance.

"Oh really? Then perhaps you ought to tell me one."

She looked at him consideringly for a moment, then climbed out from under the sleeping furs and held out her arms to him. "All right. Sit down with me and I'll tell you a story, Daddy."

He picked her up and sat down on the edge of the bed with her on his lap. She sat there for a moment lost in thought, then began with the time-honored "Once upon a time…"