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.

Chapter Fifty-One: Public Engagement

Satinalia was never a one-day event in Denerim, even though the servants, ostensibly, received the following day off. Indeed, the holiday lasted right up to the Landsmeet, three days later. The day after the feast, Anora found her father ducked out of sight in a corridor for once devoid of washer women, apparently there to hide from a ragtag band of still-drunken nobles who were wassailing the halls of the palace more or less in the altogether alongside a fully dressed, mostly sober, and highly amused Captain Isabella.

"Father, I was looking for you. What on earth are you doing back here?"

"Keeping clear of the singing idiots," he grumbled. "Do you know where that disgusting little freak Kendalls has hung a sprig of mistletoe?"

"Unfortunately, yes I do."

"I'll cut it off him if he brings it anywhere near you."

"His Majesty has directed the guard to gently steer Arl Vaughan and the others to a place where they can…ah-hem…'sleep it off.' The problem should be taken care of directly. But I wanted to thank you for the chocolates, father. Did you actually set foot in an Orlesian chocolatier? For me?"

"I did. In retrospect, perhaps I ought to have sent someone to do it for me. The poor sales clerk practically soiled himself when I walked in, and babbled insanely about how the boss was an Orlesian but he himself was a loyal Ferelden and disavowed any knowledge of Orlesian activities. When I ordered a box of chocolates I sincerely believe his jaw actually fell off. Are they gone already?"

"Of course not, father; I only had one. I like them to last."

"Good girl."

"Would you care for one?"

"Oh, sweet Maker, no."

"I had a presentiment you wouldn't. I suppose I should share with Alistair, though. I hope he's not like Cailan. Cailan couldn't stop until he ate every candy in the box. I believe, if he had lived, he very well may have grown fat."

"Cailan didn't understand consequences," Loghain said, and promptly shut his mouth so tight his lips seemed to disappear.

"Cailan never had to suffer any. That was the crux of the issue. It is unfortunate that the first consequence he learnt of first-hand was one he could not live to profit from."

Undecided, Loghain held back his words for a moment. Finally he said, "I didn't want to leave him. To die."

"I know, father."

There seemed to be nothing else to say, so Loghain stuck his head around the corner to check the main corridor. "It seems the guards have successfully removed the naked carolers," he said. "I bet that seafaring woman put them up to it. Someone like that should never be grounded; the sea makes them crazier than they were before they set out on it. I do hope you'll have a mission for her soon."

"Alistair has intentions of sending her back to Nevarra, I believe, but her vessel is ill-suited to the ice choking the harbor. It may have to wait until spring thaw."

"What word, from Nevarra?"

"His Majesty has received some news from the west recently, and it seems to have made him quite happy, but he won't share it. I believe he's saving it for the Landsmeet. I do not know if it is a rumor of Nevarra or Orlais, however."

"Dare I hope he's had word of a resumption of hostilities on the Orlesian western border?" Loghain asked, fervently. Anora smiled.

"That is my hope, as well."

She took her leave of him, with a kiss on his cheek, and returned to her private chambers. Loghain continued his wanderings, which were not quite aimless. After quite a lovely interlude the night before, Elilia had vanished. She was not in her own rooms, and Seanna had not seen her. Loghain suspected she had gone to continue her holiday celebrations in the city, perhaps with Varric and Laz, and that was fine by him, but still he couldn't help but worry. Though he hadn't been paying the strictest attention, it had not escaped his notice that with the approach of the Landsmeet, Elilia was growing more and more restless and unsettled. Except it wasn't the gathering of Ferelden officialdom she dreaded, but what would come after. The woman was freakish and wild, like an unbroken colt, and if her fears grew strong enough there was no telling what she would do. The last time she disappeared, as he'd been told, she didn't reemerge for more than a year - indeed, the first sight anyone in Ferelden seemed to have had of her was at the war council prior to the Battle of Sulcher.

Maybe they should call off the wedding. Anora would be put out, but that was just too bad. Elilia didn't want to be a wife, and that was all there was to it. He couldn't exactly blame her. In many places around Thedas the legal rights of a married woman were slim at best, and in some they simply didn't exist. Ferelden's marriage laws weren't so severe, but even so some of what was on the books had a definite gender bias no matter how "egalitarian" Ferelden claimed to be regarding the sexes. No one would be stupid enough to try and enforce those laws upon Elilia, but they existed and she knew they existed.

Of course, that might not be why she dreaded the institution at all. Maybe it wasn't so much that she would become a wife than the fact that she would become his wife. He couldn't blame her for that, either.

A sudden decision stopped his prowling and sent him out of the palace to stalk the streets of Denerim. If he could find her, he'd ask her outright whether she wouldn't prefer to keep things between them as they were. He wouldn't hold her to an arrangement that was primarily the idea of his daughter.

With Champion trotting patiently at his heels, he left the broad thoroughfares of the high city for the narrow alleys of the low. He found Varric at his usual table in the dark confines of the Fishwife's Cloister, accompanied by Laz and Paragon, who Champion greeted with a formal sniffing, and Captain Isabella, who had evidently been ejected from the palace following the caroling incident. Elilia was not there.

"Felicitations, Big Bull," Varric said. "Have a seat, and a drink. What brings you to this den of iniquity?"

"Actually I was hoping Elilia was here," Loghain said, but he sat and ordered a shot of whiskey despite the early hour. "You haven't seen her anywhere about, have you?"

"Can't say as I have, no," Varric said. "But then, most of the night I couldn't see much of anything except the table I was face-down on."

"I saw her," Isabella said. "Just before dawn. Leaving your rooms, as a matter of fact, wearing what I would have to assume, by the fit, were your clothes. She headed straight out of the palace with that big white mutt of hers but I don't know where she was going or what she was planning. Still, I wouldn't think she's gone too far in boots three sizes too large."

"I was aware she had taken my clothes," Loghain said, dryly. "Thank you, Captain, for sharing that nugget of information with everyone."

Varric chuckled deep in his throat. "The man's lady steals his clothes and storms out in the wee hours of morning? Not that its any of my business or anything, but it sounds like the two of you had a fight."

"Actually last night we were getting on rather well, I thought," Loghain admitted, even though he realized that the way they'd take it was exactly the way it sounded. That couldn't be helped, since that's exactly what had happened. "That doesn't mean she's not upset with me, though. The approach of our wedding day has her rather nervous, I believe."

"Cold feet?" Laz asked.

"Possibly. I wanted to talk to her, ask her if she wants to go through with it at all. I didn't exactly propose, you understand - we both simply agreed to a proposition put forward by Her Majesty. My daughter can be a bit…hard to deny, however."

"Where do you suppose she's got to?" Laz asked.

"I don't know."

"You don't think she'd run off, do you?" Varric asked.

"Not a chance. But would she take a powder for a few months or so? Yes, I could see her doing that. Even if she doesn't, well…I just don't want her to be unhappy."

"You really care about her, don't you?" Isabella asked, wonderingly.

Loghain shrugged. "I owe her my life, my country…I owe her everything. And for some reason or other she seems to care about me, so how can I help it? How, when she is everything I have ever admired in a woman?"

"But why would she be nervous?" Laz asked. "She seemed raring for the wedding when we were on our way through the Blightlands."

"Elilia values her freedom. She may love me, but that doesn't mean she really wants to tie her future and her fortunes so inextricably to mine. And there's no particular reason why she must, as far as I'm concerned. I rather hope she'll say she wishes to wed, but if she does not I shan't push her to it. It would make the Landsmeet much happier, were we to call it off."

"I think it sounds like you need another drink, Big Bull," Varric said, and signaled the barmaid.

They sat for some time, drinking and talking. Loghain kept one eye on the door, because he expected Elilia to come through it sooner or later. He hoped she would, at any rate. If she'd gone for a walk, she'd come back thirsty, particularly if she was still clopping around in his old riding boots as Isabella claimed.

It was some hours, but eventually his patience was rewarded. Haakon trotted through the door first, spotted Champion, and came over to flop down beside her and Paragon, clearly happy to be in out of the cold and wet. Elilia followed in short order, the legs of Loghain's trousers - baggy on her, and tightly belted at the waist - were soaked clear to mid-thigh from the snow she must have ploughed through, and she looked cold. Hardly surprising, considering she wore only the black velvet doublet he'd worn to her ceremony when she was presented to the Landsmeet as nobility, and no cloak or gloves. She saw him, and seemed to waver for a moment on the knife's edge of slipping back out the door, but then her shoulders squared and she came forward as he stood to greet her.

"I know it is the proscribed treatment for exposure, but I think you could use a drink, my dear," he said, and signaled the barmaid. "Where did you go, if I might ask?"

"Just for a walk."

"Not in the city proper, if you were in hip-deep snow."

"I wanted to be away from people."

"People like me?"

She didn't bother trying to deny it. He led her to the table nearest the fireplace, and scattered the patrons sitting there with a fierce scowl. The barmaid brought a snifter of brandy, quite good stuff considering the shabbiness of the place. "Anything in particular happen last night that made you want to be away from me?" he asked.

"No, I was quite pleased with everything that transpired last night."

"I fancied that was so, but I couldn't simply assume it was not merely my natural arrogance, or standard male over-confidence."

He eyed her critically for a moment, and then unclasped the cloak tossed casually back from his shoulders, stood, and draped it around hers. "Better?" he asked.

She clutched the lion's warm fur close about herself and nodded. "Better."

"I have touched upon this subject with you before, Elilia, but it seems to me that the closer we get to the day of our wedding, the more anxious and upset you become."

"Don't all brides-to-be get the jitters?" she asked. "I don't even have the planning of the wedding to keep me from the twitchy-feet; Anora has taken care of all that."

"Not having enough to do may very well be part of it," he said, "but I don't think that it is all of it. Elilia, I'm just going to come right out and ask you - do you want me to tell Anora the wedding is off?"

She stared at him, goggle-eyed. "You…want to call off the wedding? But its only a week away."

One of her hands rested on the table near her glass. He covered it with his own hand. "I want you to be happy, my dear, and I most assuredly don't want to be the reason you are unhappy. If the idea of being my wife makes you unhappy then I don't want us to marry, and I wouldn't care if the bloody wedding was tomorrow."

She shook her head, but she was still pop-eyed. "It doesn't make me unhappy. I…love you."

That made him smile, a little, in his lopsided manner. "I thank you for that, my dearest, but if it isn't the idea of marrying me that bothers you, then it is the idea of marrying at all. I don't consider it entirely necessary to the progression of what is between us; we've done well enough together up until now."

She bridled a bit at that. "And we've had to keep it a deep, dark secret, which I hate. I can't go on that way, Loghain, and I won't, married or no. Are you saying you'd rather risk my honor than be married?"

He laughed, and raised her hand to his lips. "My love, I would do anything in my power to protect your honor, but one of the things I love best about you is that you are a doer, not a talker. In the process of your doing, I'm fairly certain your honor has taken a few stains. It does not seem to have done you any lasting harm. Your brother may challenge me to a duel if he wishes, but I doubt very much that anyone else would have much to say about the matter. Understand me; I want to be married. I want that very much. But this wedding was pushed upon us by my daughter's plan, not our own. I want you to look within yourself, Elilia, and tell me truthfully whether this is really what you want, and if the answer is no then we need to call it off before it goes any further."

"I…I don't know what I want," Elilia said, her face a study in misery. "Marrying you is the right thing to do, I know it is, but something just doesn't feel right about it. Maybe it is the way it came about. Anora didn't come right out and tell me that I must marry you, but even though we never actually told her we'd agreed to do it, she certainly had the whole thing planned out to the final detail when we got back to the city, without even the faintest hint that she feared we might not comply. Its been a long time since I had someone take charge of my life for me like that, and I suppose I resent it, even though I would have put Anora in charge of all this stuff anyway. I don't know anything about planning weddings and care even less, and she's good at that kind of thing."

"Do you think, if we'd planned this more amongst ourselves rather than allowing my daughter to do it for us, that you'd be happy to become my wife?"

She shrugged. "The idea of me being anyone's 'wife' strikes me as exceedingly peculiar and probably will for awhile to come, but yes, I think I would. Not the whole white gown and roses part, but the actual engagement; that part feels like it was stripped out of our hands."

He stood up again, and she watched him with a degree of wary uncertainty. Hers weren't the only eyes upon him: the entire tavern watched this exchange, almost breathlessly. He took both her hands in his and dropped easily to one knee before her. "I am a most unworthy man," he began, and Elilia protested weakly.

"Loghain, get up. You're not a man to bend a knee to anyone."

"You're right. In fact, I've only ever bent knee to three people, and you are the only person on earth to whom I have bent knee twice. And the only one to whom I have bent knee wholly by my own desire to do so. Now are you going to let me finish or not?"

She chuckled even through her discomfiture. "Oh by all means, pray continue."

"I am, as I say, a most unworthy man," he resumed. "But if anyone alive can make me better than I am, that person is you. In a little over a week, my daughter intends to see us married. I do not always agree with Anora on everything, but in this instance I feel she has the right of it, even if she has been rather high-handed about it. So I ask you, for myself, will you, Elilia Cousland, do me the honor of becoming my wife?"

Flushed, embarrassed, Elilia could only stammer for a moment, torn between those feelings and a degree of amusement. Amusement finally won out, a chuckle turned into an outright giggle, and she threw her arms around his neck and kissed his cheek. "Oh, if you insist, you big moose."

Wild cheers broke out amongst the tavern patrons, and the strange, after-the-fact proposal received a standing ovation. The barmaid set everyone up with a round of ale on the house, in honor of the occasion. "Well of course they're going to marry," she was heard to say. "Who else would be wed to the 'ero of River Dane than the 'ero of Ferelden? An' who else could wed the 'ero of Ferelden than the bleedin' 'ero of River Dane? Its just a natural 'appenstance, innit?"

It would be difficult to say whether Loghain and Elilia noticed any of the goings-on around them. After her acceptance he pulled her off the bench seat and slid onto it himself with her on his lap, and they stayed that way for quite some time. Both of them knew this story would make the rounds quickly, and soon all the city, at least the common portion of it, would know they were engaged. The nobility, like as not, would be the last ears the tale would reach, but reach them it would, and probably before day's end. It was what it was; neither could bring themselves to care how much damage they'd done to Anora's case for Elilia's accession to Gwaren at the Landsmeet.