"You come to me with an agenda, Arl. I would ask that you speak it plainly or leave."

Leaning back in the wooden chair, Argath studied the back of the human standing in front of the fire with his hands held out as he basked in its heat. It had been some time since the Warden-Commander had answered the knock at the door. The lack of a tainted presence hinted at the identity of the visitor even before he answered it and the dwarf had braced himself for what he had assumed would be an inevitable onslaught from an outraged noble. Yet aside from the customary exchange of platitudes and marks of respect, the man had said very little. And without Argath offering questions that required a commonplace response, the Arl had fallen into a preoccupied reverie. Yet as the hour began to slip by, the Warden-Commander found that he did not have the patience to continue with the gentle prodding that was evidently required in order to address the real reason the Arl had made a personal visit at such a late hour.

"You are right." Eamon tore his stare away from the fire and turned to face the dwarf.

"At last, we get to it," Argarth crossed his arms across his chest and settled more comfortably into the chair. "Speak then."

"Give Ferelden its King and you may take its Hero."

The statement was blurted out in the manner of a conclusion to a long and involved internal thought process. It was a process Argarth was loathed to enquire about but the implicit assumptions contained in the statement merited further examination.

"You seem confused, Arl. Aside from everything else, you request an exchange by offering the Wardens something that is already ours."

Eamon blinked and his eyes flickered to the side as he replayed the statement over in his head. It was clear the man thought his offer was self-explanatory and was thrown by what he regarded as the dwarf's deliberate obtuseness.

A confused frown lined the man's face. "You are challenging Alistair's claim to the throne based on his oath to the Grey Wardens, correct?"

Argarth nodded curtly.

"And you do so to preserve the sanctity of your Order's oath?"

"Yes."

The confusion was still evident in the tone of Eamon's voice. "But it is Elissa who the people refer to when they speak of the Grey Wardens. She is the Hero of Ferelden, the Grey Warden who raised an army and defeated the Fifth Blight. It is Elissa who you need to keep within your Order, not Alistair."

The Warden Commander allowed his incredulity to surface in a sneer. "As I discussed with Alistair, he is known as the Grey Warden King."

"True," Eamon conceded with a nod before holding up a hand as though to physically halt the argument he could already read in Argarth's face. He seemed to have located the point of misunderstanding between himself and the Commander. "But everything he has done has been tinged with the understanding that he is a monarch defending his country and people. As much as you may insist on it, Alistair is less a Grey Warden than he is a King. Elissa is more valuable to the sanctity of your oath than Alistair."

"You do not seem to realise, Arl, that I am not required to choose between them."

A sense of frustration began to seep into Eamon's demeanour. His still raised hand moved to his temples as he took a moment to regain his composure. Still rubbing at his forehead, he spoke with eyes closed. "You do not seem to realise, Commander, that you must choose if you truly wish to absolve yourself of politics. What you currently propose will have much further reaching consequences than permitting Alistair to remain as King."

"Veiled threats are of little interest to me, Arl," Argarth made his derision clear.

"The Blight has ensured that the eyes of Thedas are turned on Ferelden at this moment," Eamon snapped before visibly biting at his tongue. He swallowed and began again in a more even tone. "The eyes of Thedas are turned on us. You must consider how your actions will be seen outside this room."

"I have little interest..."

"Commander, you must appreciate the precarious peace that exists between Orlais and Ferelden. Do you truly believe any distinction will be made between the Orlesian Grey Wardens and Orlais? You are one and the same especially when you are forcing the rightfully appointed ruler of Ferelden to renounce his claim." The deepening scowl that darkened the Warden Commander's face as he recognised the truth in the words encouraged Eamon to continue. "How long do you think it will be before the Empress begins to involve herself in your affairs as a result of this? How long before other nations begin to look to their Grey Wardens with a suspicious eye? "

Argarth reached for the hidden hipflask at his waist and took a long draught. Sodding politics. To the Void with it. "That, I had not considered."

"It is true that you hold the power here, Commander. But neither Ferelden nor the Grey Wardens can afford not to come to a compromise over this."

"Perhaps," the dwarf conceded at last as the last of the ale trickled down the back of his throat. He shot a cagey look towards Eamon. "And what did your King think when you presented him with this co-called compromise?"

The Arl made a deliberate movement back towards the fireplace but he seemed unaware of the telltale tap of his finger against the side of his leg.

Spying the movement, a dry chuckle rose from the Warden Commander. "This is a dangerous game you are playing, Arl."

"It is necessary."

"Yes, it would seem so," Argarth rose to his feet. "Of course, your compromise relies on Cousland being of significant worth to us in order to overlook his oath."

Eamon started round and fixed an outraged glare on the dwarf. "She is the Hero of Ferelden."

"A meaningless title when actions speak louder than words," Argarth shook his head dismissively. "However she remains of interest to us for the moment. I have yet to speak with her. It may be that your offer may be more appealing once I have done so."

"This is a delicate solution to a complicated problem, Commander. I would urge you to act quickly."

"On that, we can agree. I intend to speak with her in the morning."

The glare faded as Eamon considered his position. He turned so he could look at the Commander straight on. "Alistair has ordered that guards are positioned outside her door when he is not with her." A pointed look was fixed on the dwarf. "You will not be able to summon her in the same manner you did with him."

"Then what do you suggest?"

"I will accompany you to her room and ensure that you gain access to her. You will need to conduct your debrief there."

"Acceptable. But I did not imagine that you would wish this meeting between us to become common knowledge?"

"Alistair requested that I speak with you." The Arl grimaced as he spoke. "I would appreciate some discretion in terms of its content."

Argarth chuckled again. "As would I, Arl."

"I will send for you in the morning. Around eight bells."

"Agreed."

Eamon inclined his head towards the Commander before he made to take his leave from the room. Pulling the door open, he was startled by the sight of an elf lounging against the wall opposite. Not wishing to engage in further discussion, Eamon made no effort to acknowledge him and departed down the gloom-filled corridor.

Through the still open door, Argarth gestured that his Second enter. He ran a critical eye over the elf as he stepped into the light; a swollen eye that was not far off from blackening and a cut lip which still trickled a little and forced the scent of copper into the room.

"Better?" he asked at last.

Torih leant forward in a graceful bow towards his Commander.

"Then we have much to discuss. Here," Argarth tossed the hipflask to the elf who caught it with little effort. "Tomorrow, we are to meet the Hero of Ferelden."

Dreich.

A smile flickered across Elissa's face as she looked over the city. Whether it was the news of Fergus's survival which stirred the memory of her father's ghillie and the hard guttural words which punctuated his speech, she did not know. But the light rain which dulled the early dawn light to a hazy grey and caused a choking smoke from the still-lit pyres to drift across the city created a view from the window which could only be described as dreich. At least, she hoped so. Eoghan had often despaired at her delicate elocution which stunted the onomatopoeic flow and disrupted the true fervour of the strange words from being communicated. She had once spent an afternoon wandering around the castle doing her best impression of a spitting cat as she attempted to regurgitate the harsh sound that was formed right at the back of the throat until her mother had caught wind of the strange behaviour of her youngest child and brought the exercise to an abrupt end. Eoghan had declined to teach her any words after that particular incident. Instead any plea had been met with an amused grin and the ever tantalising dismissal of awa' wi ye, quine.

The chill of the past snaked itself around her and Elissa curled her arms a little tighter around her upper body. Definitely dreich, she was certain.

A low mumble of a mutter from behind her helped to scatter the more painful memories from the forefront of her mind and she turned her back to the window so that she could study the still sleeping man in the bed.

Sleekit.

Another of Eoghan's words. Her understanding of it was only through association; it was one of the words Eoghan had used to describe Rendon Howe. Lurking in the courtyard, she had overheard him talking with one of the stable boys as they prepared the horses for a hunt. Delighted at the unexpected gift of a new word, she had skipped out into full view and had watched as Eoghan's eyes widened in panic. Elissa had flashed him a wide toothy grin that clearly indicated their new status as co-conspirators and that she was more than willing to pay the price of secrecy for her new prize. His face had crinkled into a reciprocal half grin and she had left him to his preparations with a small wave n order to search out a private space to practise her new verbal acquisition.

But no. Sleekit was too strong a word. Sleekit was deliberate, malicious and conniving. There had been flashes of those qualities in Alistair over their time together. Never sustained though and never towards her. Besides, she had known that he had been hiding something. And in fairness to him, he had never denied it. He had simply declined to tell her and she had just as simply accepted his rebuff, albeit after a few half-hearted protestations. No, sleekit was unfair.

Canny, then.

Yes, she imagined Eoghan would approve of that. Alastair was doing his best to go canny with her. She could understand that, mindful of her most recent state of mind, he was doing what he thought was needed in order to protect her. The jagged edges of her fragmented mind had dulled since the defeat of the Archdemon. Despite no longer being the sharp shards which slashed at her soul with every thought that passed through her head, she knew within herself that whatever secrets he held had been an unwelcome but practical necessity. What was more frightening was that she was also aware that those secrets were probably still required.

But Elissa had recognised that expression on Zevran's face. That look. Always, that look. One that had been turned on her by countless others and always accompanied by an expectation. Nothing good had ever come from that look. Whatever it was that Alistair wished to shield her from, it was clear from that look that events would soon be catching up with her regardless of what either she or Alistair wished.

And Maker, oh how she did wish he could keep protecting her. She had no wish to take that from him. As far as she was concerned, he could continue to be her knight in dented armour defending her from the fiercesome dragon. Except the dragon had been slain, the grubby and mismatched armour replaced in favour of one befitting a King and there was no room in the fairytale for anything but a brave and beautiful princess.

Elissa ran her fingers down the bridge of her nose with a rueful sigh. Oh sod it; this princess was going to have a broken nose to match her broken mind. Leave it to the scholars and storytellers to explain that particular ugly truth away. Too many over-ambitious escapes attempts from the impenetrable Tower. There, that was as good an explanation as any.

A small snort of amusement escaped from said nose and the sound provoked an unintended response from Alistair. He instinctively stretched an arm out as he reached for her but finding her side of the bed empty, he started up and stared fuzzily down at the space beside him as he tore himself from the depths of the Fade. The sheer panic written on his face eased as he regained enough consciousness to realise that he could still sense her taint.

For a moment, as brief as it had been, Elissa knew he thought she had left him again. She pushed herself off from where she had been leaning against the wall and returned to the bed, perching on the edge as she laid a hand on his leg. "Here, love."

Blinking at her as his sleep laden eyes focused in and out, there was a small expression of suspicious doubt which lingered on his face as he struggled to reconcile what he saw with what he had feared.

"It's alright," she soothed, shaking his leg gently. "I'm here."

As though to test the validity of the claim, he enveloped her in his arms and pulled her down against him. Unable to stifle the giggle that was entirely inappropriate to setting the tone for what she knew she had to force him to talk about, Elissa was at least rewarded by his own husky laugh in response.

"You're cheery," she teased him.

Alistair nuzzled at the nape of her neck. "Amazing what a good night's sleep does."

In an effort to ignore both the sleep roughened growl of his voice and the tickle of his breath against her ear, Elissa clung to pragmatics. "You were having a nightmare."

The movement of his mouth against her skin stilled as he cast his inner focus back over the dim memories of his dreams. Another husky chuckle vibrating through his throat told her he had found it. "Uh... yeah."

"Uh yeah?" Wriggling out of his hold before she could become caught up in it further, Elissa arched an eyebrow towards him.

Settling against the pillows, an embarrassed grin was already spreading across his face. "Never mind."

"Oh no, I think I want to hear this. What can give you a nightmare but make you laugh?"

Alistair muttered something under his breath as his gaze sidled away from her and towards the foot of the bed. His voice was too low for her to make out and she leant forward while she titled her head so that her ear was closer to his mouth. "What?"

"There was a cheese shortage," he repeated.

Her head jerked back and she stared at him as his cheeks began to flush at the admission.

"Maker, Alistair," she groaned as she rubbed at her forehead in mock pain. "The horrors you can imagine."

"You have no idea, love," his face smoothed out into a deadpan expression. "No idea."

Elissa snorted again and her shoulders shook as she tried not to laugh. The grin surfaced on Alistair's face and he made to catch hold of her again but she evaded his grasp by jumping to her feet and taking a few light-footed steps away from the bed.

"Zevran came to speak with you during the night, love." Even as she spoke, Elissa chastised herself for the bluntness of the statement. She regretted it even more as the good mood dissipated from Alistair and he sat bolt upright.

"What? Did he leave a message?"

For a moment that was longer than it should have been, she considered lying. The secrets had been both made and kept with good-intentions and what was more, with ones that she could fully understand. And that would make convincing Alistair to give them up all the more difficult; for both of them.

A stony glare settled on her as Alistair began to come to his own conclusions about her sudden reticence in answering. The anticipation of an answer was already there. The developing suspicion that she had indeed spoken with Zevran. The foundations for the bluff were all there and she would only have to build on it. A gamble there, a venture here; the truth could be teased out of him without him even realising.

"He wouldn't tell me, love."

The words were blurted out before she could be seduced by her own argument. She would not play him like she did the rest of her marks. There were worse requests she had made of him than to ask him to reveal his secrets.

A range of reactions flashed across Alistair's face but the most prominent was a guarded scepticism. He didn't believe her.

At the back of her mind, she heard herself make a comment with regards to the timing of his doubts but squashed the niggle before it could influence her voice. Approaching him with a willing meekness in an effort to convince him, Elissa expanded on the brief meeting. "He asked to see you but I wouldn't let him wake you. I told him he could tell me or wait until morning. He said he would wait."

"Did he say where he would be?"

"No, just that he would wait." Clambering back on the bed, Elissa folded her legs beneath her so that she sat cross-legged as his feet. "Something is happening with the Wardens, isn't it?"

Alistair shot her a silent accusation.

"A Grey Warden was asking to see me yesterday. An elf. Liahn spoke with him instead."

"Oh," his face eased back into a more neutral passivity. Pushing the bedding away from him, he drew his legs from beneath the sheets and swung his feet around her as he scooted towards the edge of the bed.

"Love." Elissa grabbed a hold of the wrinkled sleeve of his linen shirt while her pragmatic side whispered to her that they would either start having to undress before bed regardless of how tired they were or Alistair would need to start bringing a spare set of clothes to change into. "They'll keep trying to speak with me. You can't keep them away forever. I need to know what's going on."

Alistair came to a halt with her hand on his sleeve and his feet resting on the floor. From where she was perched, she watched as his toes curled in protest as the cold surface of the stone flagstones robbed them of any warmth. As means of a peace offering, her hand fell from his sleeve and she tugged at his leather boots she had appropriated before pushing them over the side of the bed where they landed with a dull thud next to his feet.

Wordlessly, Alistair wriggled a foot into the neck of each boot although he made no effort to bend over to pull them on properly.

Taking his disinterest in dressing as an encouraging sign, Elissa shuffled closer to him so her knee was touching his thigh and she slipped her arm around his. Sensing that it was important to just wait, she leant her head against his shoulder and closed her eyes.

Sitting side by side, the silence grew passing from comfortable to expectant to increasingly oppressive as time wore on. Beginning to regret her decision not to try and trick the information from him, it was with some relief that Elissa felt his shoulders straighten as he took a deep breath.

"I spoke with the Warden-Commander yesterday."

She allowed a few moments to pass before she spoke to avoid sounding as though she was interrogating him. "What did he say?"

"A lot. None of it good."

Sensing that there was a significant amount of detail to be expanded on, Elissa remained silent but she lifted her head and opened her eyes so she could look at him.

Alistair turned his head towards her but his gaze fell short and came to a rest on the hand she had entwined into his during the silence. "I told him everything about what happened. Except about Morrigan. It seemed simpler."

"A good decision, love."

"Nicely patronised," his gaze did shoot up to meet hers then and there was the faintest hint of amusement in his voice. Before she could apologise, he returned to the subject in hand and his eyes focused on his boots once more. "It hasn't seemed to put them off though. They know something happened for you to survive."

"I guess it was too much to expect they would chalk it up to a miracle." Absent mindedly, Elissa chewed on the corner of her lip.

A small laugh escaped from Alistair but the sound was hollow and tinged with a bitterness that cut her to the core. "Maybe."

Consistently the idealist, the optimist, the light-relief, it was becoming apparent that her actions and the added strain of whatever the Grey Wardens had discussed with him had robbed him of most of his reserves. Elissa squeezed his hand gently. "What else, love?"

Having committed to revealing the initial problem, Alistair made no effort to obscure the rest. "The Commander is using the Joining to challenge my claim to throne."

The taste of copper flooded her mouth as her tooth nicked at the thin skin of her lip. Ignoring the sting as her tongue flicked across the small sliver of raw flesh, she concentrated on not grinding Alistair's hand into a pulp. "Can he do that?"

"I don't know. He seems convinced he can. Eamon has promised to speak with him."

"That's something at least," she glanced at his face.

He remained quiet but she saw as his jaw clenched. His legs drew against the bed as his body tensed and she felt the internal fight as he struggled not to crush her hand in the same way she had had to fight moments earlier.

A familiar dread began to spread from the pit of her stomach and sent a numbing chill through her body. Knowing that Alistair had reached a point where he would not tell her unless prodded, Elissa had no idea if the words would form themselves but finally she heard her voice, cracking but audible, and felt as the words were pushed from her throat to make the demand. "Tell me."

"The Commander wants to recall you to Weisshaupt for... leaving."

"Without you." It was intended as a question but the flatness of her voice revealed to both of them that she was aware it was in fact a statement.

"Let him try it." A half-hearted joke encased in earnest promise, Alistair jerked his head up and turned to her.

Nestled beside him with her hand interlaced into his, Elissa only shook her head as the city bells chimed eight. It was her turn to avoid his gaze as she become engrossed in the scuffed leather of the boots. Scuffed, battered and close to worn done.

"Stop." The single word was accompanied by a firm grip of her chin as Alistair forced her head up to face him. "Stop, love."

A wan smile traced across her face. "Stop what?"

He stilled and a frown began to wrinkle his forehead. His grip on her chin slackened and she thought he was about to let her head drop when it tightened again. Focusing a hard stare on her, she watched as he braced himself for whatever he had decided to say.

"You know I love you, right?"

Of everything she had expected him to say, that took her by surprise. A prickling sting drifted across her cheeks as the words created a cascade of memories in her head and she pulled her chin out of his grasp. She searched searching his face for some reassurance that he had not meant to tear open the still fragile wounds that existed between them as a result of the conversation those words had begun.

Alistair held her gaze without flinching but offered no sign of apology or remorse.

Bewildered at the intensity of her own reaction, she extended her legs from beneath her and stumbled to her feet. Gasping as the tingling sensation of numb muscles made her stagger, she pitched forward and would have fallen flat on her face if Alistair had not caught her.

Standing with her back leaning against his chest, she tentatively stretched her legs and his arms loosely circled around her waist her as she concentrated on coaxing the numbness out of her limbs. Deliberately taking her time, Elissa waited for him to speak but he remained a mute support behind her.

She couldn't stand it. "Yes."

"Good." She felt as he rested his chin against the top her head.

Anticipating some further comment, Elissa remained still but when none was forthcoming she wrestled herself out of his hold and spun round with a resentful scowl. "Is that it?"

"What did you expect, love?"

Finding that he was now waiting for an answer that was proving to be strangely evasive, she was forced to give a half shrug.

"You convinced me to do something I wouldn't have chosen to do just by telling me that, Elissa." The rare use of her name caused her to flinch and her arms curled round her body as she dropped her head even as Alistair continued. "You were about to give up, love. And I don't know how else to convince you to keep going."

Elissa raised her head just enough so that she could study him from beneath her eyelashes. "There's nothing we can do if the Warden-Commander..."

"Apparently there was nothing we could do about the Blight," his voice hardened as his temper broke through. "Apparently there was nothing we could do about Loghain. Apparently there was nothing we could do about the inevitable sacrifice required to kill an Archdemon. Yet here we are. So much for nothing."

"We had some idea, some plan of what we needed to do..."

Her protest was interrupted by the telltale creep of scratching at the back of her head. Grey Wardens. The stiffening of Alistair's posture revealed that he had sensed them too and the wild look he threw in the direction of the door suggested that he was as thrown off-guard by their arrival as she was.

Spinning round, she watched him as he grabbed at his discarded boots and hauled them onto his feet. He rubbed his hands through his hair in a last ditch attempt to disguise the fact that he had spent the night before stuffing the bottom of his shirt into his breeches.

A short sharp knock came at the door and Elissa flinched, retreating a few steps away from it. Seeing the movement out of the corner of his eye, Alistair shot her a frantic look even as he stepped to answer the knock.

She smothered the groan that wanted to escape from between her clenched lips as his hand fumbled at the latch and he cracked the door open in a manner that was similar to how she had reacted to Zevran's intrusion last night.

"Eamon," the surprise in Alistair's voice at his uncle's presence was quickly suppressed as he addressed the rest of the group. "Commander; Wardens."

"The Commander needs to speak with the Hero of Ferelden," the sound of Eamon's voice floated into the room.

The title rang in her ears. Liahn had told her of it but it had seemed remote and unconnected in the small room with only Leliana to acknowledge it and she would never had asked her friend to address her by anything other than the Bard's own particular longstanding endearment.

"Of course. She's... uh... not dressed. Just a minute." Abruptly shutting the door, he whirled round to face her. Taking a few strides towards her, he took her by the shoulders and gave her a gentle shake. "Let me and Eamon come up with the plan, love. All you need to do is give them your report. Please."

Judging from that introduction it seemed that Eamon did have a plan, of sorts. And it rested on her personifying that title. Running a dry tongue across her lower lip, Elissa swallowed. "Alright, love."

Relief flooded through his face and his hands moved from her shoulders to cup her face. The brief clash of lips, teeth and tongue was a confusing conflation of give and take, from whom and to whom she doubted either of them truly knew, before he broke away from her and back to the door.

Smeddum.

The unbidden whisper from the past weaved itself through her growing fear and supplied one attribute that surely any Hero would have. What it truly meant, she had no idea. It was another word that Eoghan had taught her through association. She could only hope she would not let the memory of either of them down.

Alistair pulled open the door and gestured that it was appropriate to enter. Eamon remained outside but two dwarves and an elf stepped into the room. All three assaulted her with a judgemental stare and it was with an effort that Elissa stepped forward into the role she needed to perform.

Hand outstretched in greeting, she found the words came as though a memorised script. "I believe we have much to discuss, Commander. I am Elissa Cousland; Hero of Ferelden."