"You can't possibly expect me to…," Alistair started, looking over the green eyed mage with such shock. It was hard to figure out if she was kidding, or this was some kind of cruel torture she had decided to bestow upon him. One he would silently agree that he deserved.

The human mage pressed her lips together tightly, such lush and full tiers that once kissed him with fevered passion going white from her disapproval. How his arms ached for her, and continued to ache for her… It was like he had angry rates eating away at his heart. If only she showed anger, instead of this awkward cold silence that seemed to have consumed the party. Nadine had shut herself off, and no one but the two of them knew why. It was so sudden, that even the cynical Morrigan commented, which only made Alistair feel worse.

Those emotionless, beautiful green eyes now burned with something. Life, was all that he could say to describe it, for love and rage mixed create a fire so amazing it is hard to decipher. He could feel their gaze boring into him, and his skin was crawling from it.

"Alistair…" Nadine said simply, calmly. Almost to calmly, he thought, which turned his blood to ice water. "There are people outside, in that city. People who are looking to us to save them… We had the chance to do it right, but instead you sought petty vengeance and now… Now we have no choice. Either one of us dies, or the both of us live. If one of us sacrifices our life to end the blight, who is to say that there won't be another archdemon? In what a hundred years? Ten years? Next week? We don't know what the darkspawn are up to… So, as your commander, you will bed Morrigan. For the people you have promised to save, you will put your dislike aside and you will father a child. Stop acting like a scared little boy, and just do it."

Alistair felt that comment hit him like a knee to the gut, his knees even giving a quiver of threat that he might sink to them. "Nadine.. I am not a coward." It was a simple phrase, a simple defense but it set her off into a fury.

"Yes, Alistair you are. You are. You are the biggest coward I have ever met. I wasn't even a day into the ranks when you thrust me forward into a position to lead, despite you being the senior Warden. You preyed on my feelings for you to get what you wanted, and then dropped me like an overripe and infested fruit. You killed Teryn Loghain to feel relief of rage you've harbored, and this thrust us both into this situation. You did this, now you will fix it. I will not die if there is the possibility that this will happen again. So stop it. Act like a man and not a mouse, Alistair."

Those words cut like a knife, and Alistair was powerless against it. "As you wish, my lady…" He murmured softly, and started for the door. She stood with her head held high until he was out of the room, and the door was safely closed behind him. She would not cry, Alistair had already called enough tears from her. She would not give that idiot the benefit of her pain any longer, no matter how much her heart hurt.

"He was mine, and he didn't want me. Nadine, tomorrow you fight a dragon. The least of your fears is a man. Especially that man…"

She walked to the window, and opened it. The moon, it was something that always calmed her. Staring at it, calming her with its bright glow… How many nights did she sit there, staring out at it? Pleading with the moon that tomorrow would be a better day…

Nadine sighed, just as Alistair and Morrigan came together and made a child that would give humanity a chance at life, and herself a chance to live another twenty years before violently dying. At this moment, Nadine hated the moon.