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.

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

Excerpt: The Seal of Rat Red

Patrick was the one who found him, and brought him back to camp. A lone man, bloody and beaten, with a terrible wound in his side. Sister Ailis took over at once, and ordered Gareth and Loghain to carry him into her tent so she could tend his injuries.

Gareth left the tiny makeshift structure immediately after depositing the man onto the cot. Loghain, however, lingered briefly, pale grey-blue eyes sharp and suspicious, until Ailis shooed him out.

"That boy doesn't want me here," the man gasped out, with a bit of a grin peeking through the blood and mud that caked his face.

"Loghain doesn't trust people; it's nothing personal," Ailis replied. "I don't know the full details, but he's seen things no lad his age - no one of any age - ought to have seen. Unfortunately, an all-too common story these days."

"The Maker-damned Orlesians."

Sister Ailis primmed up her mouth slightly. "Though I don't believe it is my place to judge such things, I do admit I hope you're right about that."

"I suppose you want to know how I came to this sorry end."

"I don't ask such questions, Ser. Gareth may wish to ask you later, if you're in condition to answer him."

"The big man, who looked like the boy?"

"Yes. He's Loghain's father. He acts as our leader. He's a good man."

"What is this place?"

"Only where we've all happened to fetch up. Most of the people here are just poor folk with nowhere else to go. Now hush - save your strength."

The man slept then, or perhaps it was not so much sleep as loss of consciousness. Ailis did the best she could for him, but it was easy to see that, without magical healing, the man was very unlikely to recover. No matter how much pressure she applied or how many poultices she used up, the bleeding would not stop, not completely. And she suspected he wasn't just bleeding on the outside.

Against her expectations, the man did awaken after a time. Gareth was there when the man's eyes opened, and they turned to him immediately. "You…you lead these people?" the man said, his voice far weaker than before. "You protect them? Even if it means breaking the law?"

"I do what I must to keep these people safe," Gareth said. "We all depend on each other: we have nothing else left in the world."

"Then you…you're the man I need." He raised shaking hands and stripped off a slender silver ring he wore on his left index finger. He held it out to Gareth. "Take it; the mantle of Rat Red passes to you."

Gareth stared hard at the ring, and then at the man. His broad shoulders lifted and fell in a silent sigh. "Rat Red. The man that causes trouble for the Orlesians."

"The men. There are never less than five of us; there can never be less than five of us. We each of us swore to do anything we can to help the people of Ferelden. The rings are our seal and our oath: I have to pass it on before I die."

Gareth shook his big head slowly. "I…can't."

"You already have. This is just making it official."

"No. I have a responsibility to these people. To my son. I can't go haring off to wage a one-man war against the Orlesians. Not even if there are four others doing the same."

"I bet your boy would do it. In a heartbeat."

"He won't. Because I won't let him."

"Gareth." The man broke into a spate of ragged coughs. "I'm not asking you to wage war. I'm asking you to help people - Fereldens - which is exactly what you're doing already. Just if you see an opportunity to help them by kicking an Orlesian ass or two, take it - and leave the mark of Rat Red behind. Doesn't have to be forever: just 'til Moira kicks the bastards out of here at last, right?"

The man tried to wink, but both eyes closed instead. "Please take the damn ring. It's getting…really heavy."

Gareth's hand, almost twice the size of the man's, hovered in mid-air for a moment before at last he took the ring. The man allowed his arm to drop like a stone. He smiled. "Thanks."

Gareth slipped the ring onto his left pinkie finger. "I'm not promising anything, you understand. My first priority must always be these people under my immediate protection."

"Gotcha." The man's voice was barely even a whisper. "I think I'm going to go back to sleep, now."

"Wait - what's your name?" Gareth asked.

"Doesn't really matter anymore," the man said, and faded away. Ailis jumped up and moved to his head.

"He's gone, Gareth," she said, and fingered the sun-shaped disc of the Chantry amulet at her throat.

The big man sighed, ran distracted fingers through his short, greying hair, and ducked his way back out of the tent without a word. Loghain stood up from where he'd lain, carefully concealed, at the back of the tent, where he'd listened to every word. He watched his father walk through the village of hide and ragged cloth houses, and out of the encampment to the woods beyond. He might have been going for a walk to clear his thoughts, or he might have been going to the nearby town to start his campaign as the new Rat Red in the south of Ferelden. He might be back in moments, or never again. Silently, Loghain turned away and went back to his chores.