What had befallen the second Arl of Denerim in less than six months drew most of the city guard out of their barracks at Fort Drakon. That, of course, had been almost the entirety of Ten's intentions in playing a macabre game of dress-up with a dead man. She entered the fort via a little used passage which cut down through the rock of the hill on which it was situated. She imagined that at some point it had been used as an escape route back when the fort housed most government functions, but these days it was used mostly by criminals and only in the most dire of straits. The cells in Fort Drakon held only the perpetrators of the most heinous crimes, like her, incorrigible recidivists, like Daveth, and political prisoners. Perpetrators of more petty misdemeanors were sent to the city lockup by the docks, which was less impressive looking, but ironically more secure. And so, Ten had really only availed herself of this out once, when a labor organizer from the Alienage had gotten imprisoned on a trumped up murder charge. As she reached the top of the narrow stairs, she hoped nobody had moved something heavy up against the trap door.

Evidently it had seen some use in the several years since she had used it, and so she was able open it, and pull herself up and out, and then fumble in the dark for the door handle. She cracked it open, looked over the hall. I suppose it's a night for reliving wonderful old memories… There was no guard outside the cells. In fact, it looked like the place was completely bereft of them, except for the desk which sat between the entry to the cell block and the main entrance to the fort. I guess the alarm has gone up. Better move quick before they realize they don't need every copper on the force to investigate the murder of a man half the city wanted dead.

She crept the dozen yards or so from the closet onto the main cell block. There really weren't many locked up there at the moment. In fact, there were only two men, both of whom she recognized. Alistair was sitting there, thankfully conscious, actually in the same cell she herself had occupied, staring at the opposite wall. He looked over when he heard footsteps, relief spreading over his features when he recognized the figure in the dim torchlight. Relief then turned to annoyance when she just stood there, laughing silently until tears ran down her face at which one of them was on which side of the bars. She finally got ahold of herself, got her hands steady enough to pick the lock - find the thingy, wiggle the other thingy - and knowing the door creaked, whispered to him to wait as they would have to make a break for it once it did. She then went to the other cell, the one they had put Daveth in with all the other thugs, and looked through the bars at the slight figure of Thom, the boy she'd sent back to Denerim after slaughtering his entire squad in a bar, curled up in a fetal ball in the corner of it.

"Psst!"

He looked even younger than the last time she'd laid eyes on him, all those months before in the public house in Lothering. He stared at her a moment, trying to place her features, before fear washed over his face and he took a breath to call for someone, anyone, to come save him from the diminutive menace on the other side of the bars. She shook her head vigorously, demonstrated that she would let him out if he wanted. He rose slowly and walked over to the bars so they could talk without alerting the measly few guards still in the place.

"Are you a demon come to torment me?" he asked.

"No," she said, "Why, do you like it in there? I could leave you."

"They're going to hang me, thanks to you," he said, "They said I deserted."

"Nice man you're working for," she said, "I could get you out if you wanted. You have somewhere to go?"

"Yeah," he said, "Out of Ferelden, that's for damned sure."

"All right," she said, "No sense you hanging for being in the wrong place at the wrong time." With some difficulty, as the lock was old and likely rusted to hell, she got it open, "Now don't move. The door's going to make a hell of a noise, so you and the guy in the next cell are going to need to open them at the same time and then run like the wind. There's a closet to your right on the far wall, and there's a trap door in there that leads down and spits us out near the river. On my signal, you're going to run. Got it?"

"Got it," he said.

"All right," she said. She backed up, looked at both of the men in the cells, and counted to three on her fingers. With two great groans, both doors were pushed open, and the three of them ran for the closet, jumping down into the darkness below. Thom, who was quite tall despite his age, pulled it shut behind them, and they rushed down the damp stairs to the entrance, hidden by decades of vine growth on the south bank of the Drakon River.

"I haven't been outside in months," Thom said. He looked over the river, walking to the bank and feeling the icy wind on his face.

"Sure and you smell like it," said Ten, "You know where you're going, lad?"

"Yeah," he said, "I don't know if I should thank you."

"Excuse me? You were in there because you tried to kill me," said Ten, "You were just no good at it."

"I was following orders!"

"Alistair, push this idiot in the river," Ten said.

"What? No!" Alistair protested, "I don't even know who he is!"

"See how easy that was, Thom? Go home to your ma, lad. Wait a few years before trying to play soldier again, it doesn't suit you."

Thom hung his head, "I'm sorry Missus." He slunk off into the darkness.

"Wait, so who is he?" Alistair asked after the kid's back disappeared around a corner. The two of them took the low path right along the banks of the river, or rather, Ten did, and Alistair followed. It was deserted in the middle of the night and would take them to the low bridge across from the Alienage. It was certainly the long way around, but the closest bridge was high and they would be visible from anywhere in the district on the crest of it.

"Remember that bar fight I got into in Lothering you had an absolute conniption about?"

"Yes, you said you left one of them alive to tell Teyrn Loghain to go… I see. What was he, twelve? And, wait a second, where are we going?"

"Moon's full. If we cross the river here anyone can see us. Better we head east and cross at the low bridge near the Alienage. Come on, you're a hardened criminal now, you should know this."

"Well I can tell you now that I spent about three hours in that cell that I don't particularly care for being incarcerated. Reminds me of the Chantry. I did, however, find where you carved your initials in the bench though, that was good for about five seconds of amusement."

"Ha! I forgot about that," she chuckled, "Feels like another lifetime." She rummaged in her pack, found a flask. She forgot what she had put in this one, but took a sip. Shit. Deathroot. She spat it out into the river. Found the proper one, tried it. Southron rye, good enough. She offered the flask to Alistair.

"So am I forgiven for being a drunk prick the other night?" he asked, accepting the drink but sipping it gingerly.

"I just staged the city's third most gruesome crime scene this year so you could get out of the pen a few hours early," she said, "What does that tell you?"

"That'd be much more meaningful if you weren't also responsible for numbers one and two. And the runner up in Highever."

"You only left me one important corpse to work with," she protested, "I did my best."

"So I'm guessing the shouting down the hall right before all the guards conveniently left was you?"

"Zev helped," said Ten.

"Do I dare ask what it was?"

"I just… moved the arl to where he'd be noticed."

"I heard the bit about the body on the balcony."

"I also put him in a dress."

"You what?"

"And a veil. Had to make sure everyone knew who did it. Would you rather I have left you in there?"

"No. But… don't you think that was… you know what, nevermind. Thank you for breaking me out."

"Anytime. Say, that knight hit you upside the head pretty hard, think it did much damage?"

"Nah," he said, fingering the back of his scalp, "It didn't knock me out, I just collapsed so they'd hurry up taking me in and leave you alone."

"Still, you've been getting a lot of those," she observed.

"I'm fine, Ten," he insisted, "What about you, she knock any teeth loose?"

"No," said Ten, "Just got to go around looking like I don't know when to shut my whore mouth for a few days."

"To be fair, you don't," said Alistair.

"Fuck off," she chuckled.

"Yeah, yeah, you too," he said, "So, you got to meet the queen. Step up in the world for you."

"Much more intimately than I would have chosen."

"What does that mean?"

"She got dressed right in front of me. It was horribly awkward," said Ten, "I think it was some sort of sick power move, like 'Watch, I can just up and show you my titties and there's not a damn thing you can say about it.'"

"Well I was going to ask what sort of person she is but I think that about answers it," Alistair said.

"I'm just saying, I've seen her naked and you could definitely do worse."

Alistair pulled a maneuver then that reminded Ten that, wide-eyed chantry brat or not, there was a reason the Wardens had wanted him. He first gave her a shove that sent her entirely off balance, waited for her to topple, just so it seemed inevitable that she would wind up in the river. But, before she could even realize that enough to feel fear, he grabbed ahold of her wrist and pulled her back to her feet.

"Speaking of sick power moves…" Ten grumbled, but acknowledged she had likely deserved that one.

It was closer to one in the morning than midnight by the time they made it back to Arl Eamon's estate, and so it was a bit surprising when all four of the companions who were not currently turning Ten's family and neighbors into guerrilla fighters were up and and about, seated at the table in the guest suite common room, cards and coins in their customary positions. They looked up as the Grey Wardens entered.

"Oh, thank the Maker," Lelianna exclaimed, seeing Alistair "I was afraid it had gone worse for you."

"Thanks for diving out a window and letting me take the fall," he said.

"I don't understand why you didn't follow," Lelianna said. She did, indeed, appear to be no worse for wear, though Ten imagined that had more to do with Wynne's talents than uncanny luck with broken glass.

"And do what, escape across the rooftops like a common criminal?" Alistair asked indignantly.

"You ran the Arl of Denerim through with a sword," Morrigan said, "What exactly do you think that makes you?"

"But he was only Arl of Denerim because he's Teyrn's Loghain's lackey!"

"And, right now, Teyrn Loghain is in charge," Lelianna said, "And killing the arl makes you… what?"

"But his power wasn't legitimate!" protested Alistair, "He took it!"

"That's the thing about power, isn't it," Ten said, "No matter who is on the throne, someone, somewhere, thinks they ought not be there and are totally justified in doing something about it."

"That was the nicest way you're going hear her say to get over yourself," Wynne said, not looking up from her hand, "Are either of you hurt?"

"Not really," said Ten. She turned to Alistair, "They work you over?"

"I took a couple of hits, nothing serious."

"Well then you're already better off than most of the poor sods who wind up in a cell," Ten said.

"I should report," Lelianna said, discarding a card from her hand and picking up one from the stack in the middle of the table, "The queen has arrived safely at her... destination. I headed there after clearing the estate, I figured if any were to follow me I'd rather lead them there than here."

"Excellent," Ten said, "And what does her majesty think of the accommodations?"

"She would not stop giggling," Lelianna said, "It became a little uncomfortable."

Ten sighed, "She is certainly not what I expected."

"Do we trust her?" asked Zevran.

"No," said Ten, "But from the little I've seen she operates a lot like I do."

"What, by doing the most outlandish thing possible to get her way?" asked Alistair.

"Worse. She has stooped to depths I would never even dream of," Ten said.

"You put a dress on a dead man and hung him from a balcony," Alistair pointed out.

"You what?" Wynne exclaimed. She put her cards down and looked at Ten sharply, "Do we need to worry about you, young lady?"

"You don't wind up with this job being sound in the head," said Ten.

"I helped," Zevran offered, "She was about to put him in a gaudy nightmare. It was I who found a much more demure, delicate piece. Appropriate for a man his age."

"I'm not exactly an expert on corpse drag fashion," Ten said.

"By this time you really ought to be," Zevran said.

"So, now what?" asked Lelianna, "Don't say we wait."

"We have gathered all the pieces, it is time to put them into play," said Ten, "I am going to call my own little landsmeet in advance of the real one. There are some… unofficial leaders in this city who can be persuaded to put a little more pressure on the situation."

"What sort of pressure?" asked Morrigan, narrowing her eyes.

"Well, I've wheeled, dealed, blackmailed… now it's time for extortion," Ten said, "I have some letters to write, if you fine folks will please excuse me."

She was almost done with the last letter, this one to Boss Guilder, when a knock came on the door. It had to be close to three in the morning at this point, but she was completely wired from the day she'd had and she didn't think she'd be able to sleep even if she tried. Instead of calling out and waking all the sane people who were already in bed, she got up to open it. She knew it was one of two people, the women in the group had better sense than to knock on her door in the wee hours of the morning for anything but the most dire of situations. Something's on fire, Zevran's being a creep, or Alistair's being a sad sack. She opened the door. Smelled the whiskey. Great. Option Three. And he's drunk, just for good measure.

"I don't know when you got the idea it was a good idea to just show up at my bedroom," she said, standing in the door.

"Sorry. I saw the light, you weren't sleeping." He didn't sound like he was completely out of it like the time she'd had to half carry him up from the stables, but he had certainly had a few.

"No," she said, "Doubt I will tonight."

"Yeah, me either. Today… shook me a lot more than I thought it would. Thought we should talk."

"Ugh, you and your talking. Come on, no sense in waking the others."

He padded in, she could see that he'd washed and put on something resembling pajamas, and was barefoot. He went to the fireplace at the end of the room and sat at the hearth.

"I feel like we're up against something big," he said.

"We are," she said. She took the bottle she kept on her desk and took a swig right from it and went to sit behind him on the hearthstone. It was easier to talk to him when they were both facing the same direction and she didn't feel pressured to look him in the face the whole time.

"While I was getting hauled off there… I couldn't help but think how close to the block I am right now," he said.

"You always have been."

"I'd never seen it before," he said, "They stopped me by the window into the jailyard. Made me look at it. They didn't even know who I was. They just knew where I was going to die."

"I was supposed to die in that jailyard. Maybe I still will, who knows," she said.

"We don't have much time, do we."

"We never did."

"What happens if we fail? If we both get executed in a couple of weeks?"

"Then we die," she said, "Honestly, it might be a relief."

"But the Blight…"

"It'll be bad. But… help from Orlais will arrive. Sometime next year. The survivors will rebuild."

"There's just so many things I haven't done yet," he said.

"Well you've sampled about three fourths of the whiskeys produced domestically and not a few from the Marches, so I think you've accomplished enough on that front."

"Haven't had that one," he said, looking at the bottle in her hand.

"You're incorrigible," she sighed, but she took another swig and handed him the bottle. He took a sip. Looked at the label. Handed it back to her.

"Those three days you were gone."

"What about them?"

"I didn't know what to do with myself."

"You really need a hobby."

"Not like that," he said, "Nearly every day since Ostagar, you've been the only constant in my life. Sure, there'll be giant man goat things and all sorts of nasty creatures trying to kill me, but Ten's going to be there and if I can't figure it out, she will. Even when you've run off to Maker knows where and don't return until morning, you always came back. So, when one day you didn't…"

"I did though, it just took a little longer than I planned."

"I was just so embarrassingly out of sorts," he said, "And I know, and I know it's pathetic and you're either going to take the piss out of me or say something sweet as honey where your voice goes all high and gentle and I'm going to feel like an utter tit either way."

"I don't get it, are you apologizing?"

"No," he said, "I'm saying please don't fucking do that again. As ridiculous as it is, you are apparently the most important person in my life, and…" His voice trailed off and he stared at the floor in front of him, trying to figure out how he was going to finish that sentence.

Ten sighed and shook her head, then went over to where her pipe and tobacco were sitting by her bedside table, "Come on, I'm going outside."

"In this weather?"

"Gwylan will have my head if I stink up the bedclothes and curtains," she said, "You're making me nervous, and when I'm nervous, I smoke. " She grabbed her cloak from its hook and threw it on over the shift she had changed into, and went to the opposite end of the hall where a small door led onto a balcony that overlooked the river. He followed her, like he always did, stopping in his own room to grab the blanket from his bed, which he threw over his shoulders. In the intervening hours, it had begun to snow, a light but solid coating of white covering the streets and rooftops. She lit her pipe and took a puff. She offered it to him. He refused.

"You don't actually smoke do you," she said.

"You caught me," he admitted, "Never did."

"I suppose that's not such a surprise. So what was that about then?"

He laughed and shook his head, "It sounds ridiculous now, of course, but… one day I saw this girl I really, really wanted to talk to sitting there with this defeated look on her face, taking in tobacco like her life depended on it. So I said the first thing that came to my mind, and… well here we are. Now, if I'd known I'd wake up a few days later and all of a sudden she was my only friend in the world, I wouldn't have bothered."

"I'm not…"

"Yeah you are. The others tolerate me because they respect you. Not that I blame them really, I've hardly been a treat to be around. But don't think I haven't heard you make sure nobody's too mean to me."

"Well that's just because I like to be the meanest and don't want the competition," she said, blowing a smoke ring, "And I hope you've learned your lesson about hitting on random women, lest they turn out to be homicidal maniacs from the criminal underworld."

He laughed again, and looked out over the balcony, "You know, in the snow it's actually kind of a nice city."

"Tell that to the two men fighting in that alley," she said, pointing down to where, in between two warehouses, a couple of figures were circling each other, their shadows blue against the moonlit snow. She leaned against the railing for a closer look.

"Is that what's happening? Maybe it's a bizarre folk dance," Alistair said, coming up behind her and leaning over her so his chin rested on the top of her head, "Wait… no that is definitely a knife."

"They say there's no place like home," Ten chuckled. He had gotten one arm around her collarbone. Oh so he's just committed to making it weird. Maker's breath, what a terrible idea. She thought about making a stink, pushing him away, but didn't really want to. It's been awhile since anyone else touched me who wasn't actively trying to kill me. He didn't seem to be inching towards anything unseemly, nor did she really actually think he would, and it was, after all, cold out, so she just sort of stayed there and let him hold her.

"Sovereign on the little guy," he said.

"Really? Even with the big one's wingspan?"

"He knows what he's doing."

She'd seen about a dozen knife fights in her time, and they all went the same way. Two people, usually men, danced around each other, threatening, taunting, until one of two things happened. One of them might give up his pride and walk away. That was really the only way to win. If it ended the other way, and the combatants decided to close the distance and go at each other, it was over for at least one, but likely both of them. She sighed, and shook her head.

"Do you?" she asked, turning and looking up at Alistair. There were snowflakes caught in his pale lashes. He was searching her face for something, she was not sure what, but just to be safe she concentrated on keeping her features composed.

He just stared at her for a moment, and then admitted, "No, I suppose I don't."

She chuckled and shook her head again. She took his hand, which was now on the back of her neck, and removed it gently. "Go to bed, Alistair. You've been drinking, and I get the sense you're about to do or say something you'll feel really stupid about when you're sober."

"What if I don't feel stupid about it?"

"Then wait until you're sober and we can burn that bridge when we get to it."

He sighed and stepped back, "Ugh. It's the gentle voice again. And the 'poor sod's out of his depth' look. I can't argue with those."

"Go on, I won't take the piss."

She gave his hand a squeeze and dropped it, and he turned and went back inside, and she stayed, smoking her pipe. Well that complicates things, doesn't it. Chalk it up to the liquor and the loneliness for now. Deal with it later. Not sure how. There's no real way of avoiding him. She turned her attention back to the men in the alley, now up in each others' faces. This time was like any other, the two men looking for a moment like they were embracing, but within minutes, the larger of the two men had collapsed, falling to his knees, and then curling up in a fetal position as blood spread around him in the snow. The smaller man started walking away, but he was holding his side, and he had not gotten very far when he, too, staggered and fell. Ten's father's voice replayed in her mind.

The winner of a knife fight dies walking home.