Disclaimer: I don't own Marvel Comics, Dragon Age, Stephen King's Doctor Sleep, Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, or any of their related characters. Character Warjen Zevonishki or "Zevon" is an homage to my favorite musician, long deceased, no disrespect intended, I included him because King dedicated the novel Doctor Sleep to his memory. 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 Doctor Sleep, Dragon Age Origins, Origins DLC, Awakening, and Dragon Age II, Dragon Age II DLC, Dragon Age Inquisition as well as the novels The Stolen Throne and The Calling. May also contain spoilers for Marvelmovies, series, and/or comics. Song lyrics included herein were used without permission.
Chapter Seven: Fete of the Noble Few
King Cailan gave the nobility a couple of days to send Lord Vaughan to the Maker in whatever way they wished before the party to memorialize the late Teyrna of Gwaren, but most of the nobility were consumed with thoughts of that and that alone. Any time Their Majesties threw an event at the Palace it was, by default, "The Event of the Season," no matter the reason. When notice was sent out that Teyrn Loghain was under orders from the Alfadir himself to remarry, and to remarry very soon, excitement trebled. Word was that nobility from faraway provinces were coming to present their unmarried daughters for his consideration.
Loghain did not hear the rumors. He actively avoided rumors unless they were in some way connected to the health of Ferelden or Asgard at large. His upcoming unwonted nuptials were not of any concern to those matters. He had agents looking out for any rumors that did.
The day of Vaughan's funeral, which he did not, of course, attend, he went with Zevon to the hospital and asked for a paternity test. The Healer behind the counter looked at him with wide eyes and said, "For whom?"
"For myself and this young man," he said, with what he felt was admirable patience.
The Healer looked from him on high to Zevon, slightly shorter than herself, and began to laugh outright. "Is this a joke?"
Loghain crossed his arms over his chest and said, "Am I laughing?"
The Healer brought herself under control, with some difficulty. "All right," she said, as if it very much wasn't. "Right this way."
She led them into a small examining room, where there was a large device, the length of an average Nord, called a Soul Forge. "Each of you put a hand down there, and we'll see what there is to see," she said. She sounded bored now. Loghain put his hand on the black glass table of the Soul Forge. Zevon put his down next to it. The size disparity made the Healer laugh again, but she turned on the device and tuned it up. Projected in the space above them, an image of their hands appeared, with various information regarding them that only a qualified Healer could comprehend. She dialed in the image further, and a pair of DNA strands appeared and broke apart. She made whatever comparisons were to be made, and turned off the machine.
"Well, that's… not what I expected at all. Congratulations, Ser… it's a Breton."
"He's my son?" Loghain said.
"He is. Exit's that way." She bustled out of the room.
"I have to say, I didn't expect that," Zevon said. "What now?"
"What do you want?" Loghain said.
"Well, nothing, really. I mean, having a father that acknowledges I exist is more than I ever expected to have."
"You can have a great deal more. If I acknowledge you before the Landsmeet, you'll be a nobleman of Ferelden. Not much, perhaps, in the greater scheme of the world, but it ain't chickenshit, either."
Zevon snorted, shuffled, and said, "Is it all right if I say that you are, at once, nothing like I expected and entirely like I expected?"
"How the helheim does that happen?" Loghain said.
"Well, you're definitely what I expected of 'The Mighty Loghain Mac Tir, Hero of River Dane!' But you're nothing like what I thought the Teyrn of Gwaren would be."
"You thought I'd be two different people?" Loghain said, eyebrow cocked quizzically.
"I thought you'd have… like… a war face and a political face."
"I'm not really a politician. I try, best I can, since I am unfortunately enmeshed in the world of politics, but I'm absolute shit at it. Best I can do is keep scowling at everybody, because other than that I have no Wicked Grace face at all."
"I would think your scowl would be a pretty effective Wicked Grace face. But I meant, like, you'd use Court manners."
"Well, I try not to curse in front of the Queen, but that's because she's my daughter, not because she's the Queen. Other than that, I've never really gotten the hang of Court manners. All seems rather ridiculous to me, who sits, who stands, and where and when, curtsy and bow and what have you. I use as much as I must to get by but by and large I don't bother. With the rank of Teyrn, I'm above anyone else not a Teyrn or a High King or Queen or the Alfadir himself, so that helps. People don't take me to task for it."
He nodded toward the door and they both proceeded out. "Being a bloody nobleman has its advantages, I won't tell you it doesn't, but I will warn you that it's definitely not all its cracked up to be. It is, in fact, a massive pain in the ass. At least it is if you do take it seriously and do more than lay about eating candied grapes and Orlesian chocolates all day."
"I would imagine. I don't particularly have any desire to have the world's fate in my hands," Zevon said.
"You're lucky you get to choose. There is another option. If I were to acknowledge you as my son before the King and Queen, but not before the Landsmeet, then you would not officially be a nobleman of Ferelden. You would still be my acknowledged son, and entitled to a small quarterly stipend from the Crown along with some meaningless title – "Holder of the Trousers of His Royal Majesty," or something like that – and you could essentially sit on your ass and eat candied grapes and Orlesian chocolates the rest of your life without any repercussions, except perhaps in the gut. Or you could compose and play your music. Just a thought."
"Well, I don't really want to stop working, but more time for my music would be nice…"
"Here's another thought. Loki loves music, and he's a decent singer for as young as he is. I daresay he could easily learn to play an instrument, with a good teacher and, of course, lots of practice. If you want work and music, I will pay you to teach Loki how to play any instrument you can teach him to play."
"Take money from my father to teach my little brother how to play? Fuck no, man! I'll take the stipend and the stupid title, and teach the little runt for free!"
Loghain chuckled and patted Zevon on the back. "Let's get it over with, eh? No sense putting it off, and you should meet your sister."
"Will she die of shock and anguish?" Zevon asked.
"Not that she'll show. But Freya is very prim and proper, and the fact that her father had a bastard running about the world will definitely come as an unpleasant surprise to her."
It was worse than Loghain could have expected. Not only was every noble asswipe in Ferelden with a marriageable daughter at the party and acting like a carnival barker, trying to attract his notice to whatever little piece of tail they'd managed to produce, but a fair number of noble asswipes from all over the world were here, trying to sell their daughters like trinkets at fair day. Some of them were barely of age. Of course, he and Celia had assuredly not been of age when they married, but that had been by special dispensation of the Alfadir himself, to quell the fears of the nobility – Fereldan and otherwise – who feared that this brash young peasant who had risen to lead his armies would marry into one of their families and thus seize power for himself. And then in a very few years Maric had received permission from Odin for his wild scheme of raising him to the Teyrnir at Gwaren without any blood alliance! The nobility didn't find it funny at all, but Loghain had laughed about it, not that he wanted the damned title. It was a never-ending assache. And now the bloody nobility were crowded 'round, just begging him to marry into their families! The irony was thick.
Rendon Howe, Arl of Amaranthine, cornered him. He didn't particularly like Howe – few did, he had a personality that made Loghain look warm and cuddly – but Amaranthine was a very rich, very important holding, and Howe had proven himself a fierce and most importantly loyal warrior during the war to free Ferelden, so he didn't immediately brush past him to get away. Still, he would give a great deal not to be treated to the man's simpering, ingratiating smile and the endless contempt in his eyes. At least he gave that look to everybody, and not just jumped-up peasants.
"My Lord Teyrn!" he said, and took a swallow from a heavy silver tankard. Howe was known as quite the drinker, so Loghain doubted that it held anything so innocent as ale or mead, despite how large it was. "Tragic news, of course. So unexpected. And then to be given such a tight deadline for remarriage! Why, it's almost unseemly! What can the Alfadir be thinking?"
"I have never been able to say that with any certainty," Loghain said, sighing heavily.
"You know, my daughter Delilah is a fine young woman…"
"I have ten years, Howe," he said, not bothering to keep the bite out of his words. "That's not much, I realize, but allow me longer than a few bloody days."
Howe bowed. "My apologies, my Lord. I was only trying to help." He withdrew, probably to sulk.
Loghain frowned. He'd been rather too short with the man. It's not like he was the first to offer his daughter up on the auction block this day. And he would not be the last, either. Even Leonas Bryland, Arl of South Reach, had made a rather half-hearted offer of his young daughter Habren. As previously mentioned, Loghain rather liked Arl Bryland, so he was fairly gentle with putting him off, but the thought of marriage to that girl – and barely of age, too! - made him queasy. He understood very well the impulse to spoil your children and let them have anything and everything they wanted and never suffer any consequences, but Leonas – and that sister of his, Werberga – had evidently spoiled that girl beyond all hope of repair, if half the rumors about her were true. And since Bryland himself had once sat down with Loghain in a tavern and asked him head-on, in tones of deepest despair, how he'd managed to raise two wonderful daughters and not murder them, he had to suppose there was some grain of truth there.
Bryce Cousland came toward him, and he groaned inwardly. Bryce was a good man, but, of course, he had a daughter. Loghain had never seen her and didn't know much about her. Maric had liked her, thought her a bright and lively girl. After Queen Rowan died, also miserably young, Loghain started to think Maric intended to marry Cousland's daughter himself, once she was of age, but his suppositions had come to nothing, as the girl was quite of age when he sailed off into the sunset and drowned two hundred years ago.
He turned slightly away from Cousland, not enough to cause offense, and sipped his goblet of epli juice. Coulsand stood beside him and said nothing for several long moments.
"How are you holding up?" he asked.
Loghain wasn't expecting that. There were plenty of insincere expressions of grief at the loss, but no one had asked him how he felt in the wake of it.
"It rocked me, but I have a little boy to take care of," he said.
Cousland nodded. "So terrible for him to lose his mother at such a young age."
"It's terrible to lose your mother at any age."
"True enough."
Trust a Cousland to be tactful enough not to dive directly into the attempted matchmaking, Loghain thought.
Cousland was silent long enough that Loghain wondered if he was trying to think of a way to "tactfully" broach the subject of his marriageable daughter.
"I suppose all these foreign nobles wouldn't be here if it weren't true, what Her Majesty said about the Alfadir's threat to you," he said.
"I don't think anyone came from Vanaheim or Tuchanka," Loghain said, smiling a little. "They're all Asgardians, in the final outlook."
"You know what I mean. You're not going to marry outside of Ferelden, are you?"
"I'd rather not, but honestly, right now I don't particularly want to marry at all."
"Very understandable. But ten years is an awfully short timetable. The shortest conceivable appropriate mourning period is five years. Odin really wants you wed in a hurry, doesn't he? What's his big stake in this?"
"I don't think Odin really requires a reason to feel obligated to interfere in my life," Loghain said, repressively. His gray-blue eyes flicked around the ballroom looking for any young women who looked anything like Bryce or Eleanor. "Tell me, Bryce, didn't you bring your daughter?"
Bryce laughed. "I did not. It would not have helped at all to do so, she is dead set against the idea of marriage. If I had brought her here to parade before you as a potential candidate, she would have set herself against it with every fiber of her being. She's a good girl, but quite spirited and willful. We love that about her, and do not wish her wed to a man who would seek to… 'rein her in,' as it were. I think you and she could potentially be a good match, someday down the line, at the appropriate time, but it would need to be handled a bit differently. If you were introduced, not as a marriage prospect but simply as an acquaintance, I think she would be quite well disposed toward you."
"Sounds like a lot of song and dance for what amounts to a betrothal contract."
"I may be guilty of bias, but my Elilia is worth it, I assure you. A very accomplished young lady, and unusually well-suited for you, I should think."
"In what way?" Loghain said, eyeing the man suspiciously.
"For one, she is a fierce warrior. Not battle-tested, of course, but very well-trained. Secondly, and perhaps, more importantly, she is quite an… elevated… young lady."
"'Elevated?'"
"She's nine and a half feet tall."
Loghain looked at Bryce, who was tall for a Nord but not gigantic, and tried to ascertain if he was lying or joking. He did not seem to be. A warrior woman… and tall enough he didn't have to bend double to kiss her? He wasn't ready to marry, whether the conventional mourning period was appeased or not, but gods knew he didn't have a choice about it. Maybe, in a few years, he would feel a bit less guilty about even considering it.
"I'll bear it in mind, Bryce," he said, feeling rather miserable. "For now, that's all I can promise you."