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, Origins DL content, and Dragon Age II as well as the novels The Stolen Throne and The Calling.
A/N: I usually do not look things up on wikis, even official ones. My thoughts are typically that if it isn't in the game or the books then it isn't in canon. But to refresh my memory on a point that now has eluded my recollection entirely I went browsing through a most authoritative-looking Dragon Age wiki, the first one to come up when searching. What I was looking for was driven from my mind when I stumbled upon an entry claiming that Loghain had no last name until Maric gave him one, upon his rise to the nobility. Hogwash! He introduced himself to Rowan by first and last name in the outset of The Stolen Throne, and Sister Ailis said "Gareth Mac Tir" when she told Loghain's father he had no need to apologize to her for doing what he had to do to save Maric. Everyone ELSE in Ferelden has a last name, including City Elves and elven Circle Mages and even casteless dwarves. So I have no intention of looking anything else up on a wiki ever again.
No Bull From the Big Bull, Volume One, by Varric Tethras, a Humble Storyteller
Excerpt: Wedding Day
He can't say he didn't see it coming.
For quite some time, now - years, really - he'd had to ignore the words of idiotic noble-born fools, most of them barely loyal to their proper King in the first place, who expressed in no uncertain terms their dislike of the fact that their armies were led by a commoner, their fears that he would use his position of favor with the King to negotiate a marriage into the nobility himself.
He could have saved them a great deal of worry and bother. He had no interest in becoming part of the ruling class of Ferelden through any means, and less still in marrying one of their daughters. Centuries of inbreeding made many girls of noble birth no great beauties and half-witted to boot, and there was only one woman he'd ever met, noble or otherwise, to whom he could honestly wish to unite himself.
And she was spoken for, well and truly.
But now he was getting married. Today. To a woman he didn't know from the Blessed Andraste herself. He felt rather sorry for the girl, actually. Who knew how she must feel, being pulled from her home to marry a man she didn't know in the slightest, either. He hoped she'd at least gotten fair warning about it. He hadn't found out until that very morning.
At least he'd been graciously allowed this chance to meet her, before the actual ceremony. To look into her eyes and let her know exactly why she was getting a raw deal. To apologize.
And now here she is, petite and pretty and painfully young. He is not terribly old himself, not in years at least, but already he can't recall ever having been so young as this girl. She is smiling, her dark blue eyes shining, and Maker's breath, she doesn't fancy herself in love with him, does she? He thinks he recognizes her. Gwaren is small, after all; he's probably laid eyes on everyone in the village at least once, and he never forgets a face.
She tips a brief curtsey. "Hello, Milord."
"I'm not a Lord," he says, uncomfortable in her presence. "I'm just a soldier."
She smiles a bit more warmly. "More than just a soldier."
He realizes then that she believes all the stories about Loghain the Hero, the man who knows neither pain nor fear, the man who never makes mistakes or betrays his friends. Or himself. He wonders just how quickly her illusions will be shattered. "There are…some things about me that you need to know," he says, and then he tells her everything. He tells her of his love for Rowan, of the many times he has failed himself and his King, of how utterly unworthy he is of love or respect. He tells her that he is a murderer, a death-bringer, a storm crow. And she…
…She laughs. She laughs like the sound of crystal bells tinkling in a wedding ceremony. And then she steps up to him, slips her arms around his neck, and kisses him.
"You are awfully hard on yourself, Milord," she says. "I do not care what has gone before; you are a great man, and a good one, and I am very happy to be looking at a future with you. I will do everything I can to make you happy with me."
He has no defense against such tactics. The first tentative prickle of love twinges his heart, along with the first real taste of the fear that will soon become his. Fear of this dainty, pretty creature, with her warm eyes and open smile. Fear of the day when those eyes will be full of tears, because he put them there. He knows he is not worthy of her simple faith, and he knows one day he will shatter it. He vows to postpone that day as long as possible.
And then the Chanter comes and scolds because he is not supposed to see the bride in her wedding gown - it is bad luck. Bad luck is the only sort of luck he has ever known, so he does not feel that he has put his marriage to this girl in any greater jeopardy by his error than it was already in.
It is a great pity: he does not believe in faith that cannot be shaken. If he did, if he knew that there was nothing he could do, short perhaps of committing some great horrendous atrocity in her presence, then so much would be changed. He could be…happy. If he believed in faith.