Author's Notes (Updated 10/28/18) – Brand new A/N section, goal is under 200 words for the sum of all the bullet points. Let's go.

*I recommend dark mode for reading. Default's fine too.

*This is the slightly censored version of this story. There's an AO3 version out there that's uncensored. More on this later.

*Offensive stuff in this fic. Would take too many words to cover all my bases with this. Get out while you can. Yell at me if you need to.

*Two m/f pairings. One in Act I, one in Act II.

*I haven't read all the Dragon Age material outside of the games. I don't remember everything, and I use the wiki to try and fill the gaps in my knowledge. In short, there'll be some inaccuracies and unfaithfulness to the DA Lore. But this story is set mostly "before" with one big AU divergence moment at Ostagar (+a bunch of Schrödinger's Cats) instead of "after," so I should be able to get away with it. Probably.

*Reviews appreciated, but not necessary.

*I don't own Dragon Age. Dragon Age is the intellectual property of Bioware and Electronic Arts. This story is a fan work and I make no profit off of it.

The fifth point's still too long.

Enjoy.

Prologue

The Lady of the Lake

Black.

And a blurry shape of faraway silver.

Why was he moving?

He didn't know.

He didn't care.

He tried to protest. No sound came.

The black around him had become dark blue.

And then, pure white emerged to envelope him.

He felt a warmth that he had never felt before. And yet nostalgic, almost as if it had been a part of him all along.

Her mouth opened. She said something, something like a song. Like a lullaby meant to calm a wailing child.

And the woman's words, which he would never forget.

"Do you believe in the Maker?"

Prologue, Part One

Silver and Black

Year 9:31, Dragon Age.

One year after the death of King Cailan at Ferelden's Victory at Ostagar.

Two grey wardens rested in the thick of the Korcari Wilds.

One stood on the ground, clad in helmetless silverite splintmail armor, looking up at the dense greenery sprouted from the trees.

The other sat atop the lowest hanging branch of the tree, regaling an anecdote from his past.

"I remember as if it were yesterday…"

A baritone voice, but dignified and refined.

"…we were walking down the sun-glossed streets in Val Royeaux, hand-in-hand. In contrast to Denerim, Orlesian storefronts often have glass windows, a design which allows them both to showcase their best items as a stall owner would without the same uncomplicated accessibility for thieves. One such storefront was Société Jacqueau. Jacqueau—the former personal jeweler of the Valmonts—was the most famous of his craft in all of Orlais. And when my beloved and I passed by Jacqueau's unhumble abode that day, I saw from the corner of my eye a rapid infatuation, and then an equally hasty retreat when she saw the price. I would have done anything to see her smile. I waited briefly before our boat ride to whitely lie about how I left something in the marketplace and then return with one hand behind my back. And as we drifted beneath the thousand-year-old fine arches of the world's grandest city, I softly commanded her to close her eyes and stretch out her hands. I leant forward and whispered closely to her ear as I placed it between her palms. 'Hey, you know those earrings you were looking at? Well, I'm not too good at these things, but…I got you a pear.' She threw it in the water. Must have not liked fruit."

The storyteller paused from atop their vantage at the sound of their sole listener desperately trying to swallow a restrained giggle. He resumed, throwing in a last line to break the floodgate.

"Do you understand the wordplay? Pair, pear…"

Alistair keeled over on the ground in laughter. That was officially the worst joke he had ever heard.

"She did not have the same reaction as you did. Personally I would say it to be a flaw in her sense of humor."

"Ahahaha…" Alistair's laughter receded into a nervous chuckle. "…Um, that didn't actually happen did it? Tell me that didn't happen."

"Have I not told you before? I never lie." The voice above stated this matter-of-factly, but Alistair shook his head. It was true that his fellow warden was painfully honest, but there was simply too much in that story that was out of character for the narrator telling it.

Besides, didn't he say in his own story that he had 'whitely lied'…?

The warden on the ground looked back up at the figure above. His face was obscured by the shadow of a mesh of leaves hanging overhead. "Are we close?" Alistair asked, "The Head Scout might cry into her pillow about how lonely she is if we're late again."

"The Head Scout is a dwarf-fucking bitch that needs to learn to shut the fuck up and stick to picking berries instead of demanding to know every pile of mabari shit that we step in."

"…So…ahmmm...are we close?" Alistair didn't really know how to respond to that, so he just repeated himself.

"Indeed. A few hundred meters, if my eyes do not fail me." And his partner responded as if he had said nothing at all.

The man in the tree was always like this. He could speak with great articulation and enunciation, fluently stringing together both the archaic and the prochronistic of the common tongue and vocalizing them in such a way that the words were left resonating in the ear, lingering ominously for moments after his tongue had lay flat. Or he would speak with incredible crudeness, delivering every obscene, blasphemous and offensive word completely calm-faced and unreserved. Occasionally he mixed the two to creative results, but never could he seem to achieve the common middle ground that most intelligent life in this world walked on.

The Grey Warden above stood up on the branch he had been sitting atop. A careful man would slowly dig their fingers into the same crevices they used to climb up to the tree and controllably descend back to the ground.

He jumped.

And landed on his feet, composedly absorbing the impact by bending his knees and then snapping back up straight to his full height, half-a-head taller than Alistair. The black and red of his Sentinel Armor drew a sharp contrast to the worldly nature surrounding its outline.

'Intimidating' was not a strong enough word to be used as a descriptor for this man's appearance.

Standing before Alistair was a ferocious shape of a man mismatched with a pair of ultramarine eyes. The intensely blue hue of his eyes contrasted with everything else about him. They contrasted with the huelessness of dark hair, short, yet rendered shapeless by nature and wilderness. They contrasted with dreadful scars—ranging from a small graze to the nose's bridge by the tip of a dagger, to two parallel marks left by a high dragon's claw. They contrasted with the roughened skin, hardened and unpleasant from a wisdom of the body. And they contrasted with the prominent, protruding bone structure beneath the skin, evidence of what may have once been a striking face before being covered by multiple layers of experience.

Aedan Cousland had a face that was born to command and forged to terrify. The color of his eyes; so innocently bright between constantly narrowed eyelids, more vibrant than the ocean or sky, all seemed a cruel irony by the Maker. The disparity only accentuated a presence that rejected all forms of tenderness.

Cousland slipped a gauntlet, undid from when he had climbed the tree, back on to one of his leathered hands. Alistair caught a glimpse of the dark follicles on the back of Aedan's hand. Underneath his armor the man had hair—everywhere. On his arms, on his legs, on his chest. The only place the Warden-Commander didn't have hair, oddly enough, was his face—even more closely-shaved than Alistair's. Alistair had pointed out the peculiarity of this on more than one occasion, but always got the same answer, some line about how every proper nobleman must always keep a groomed face. No mention of how proper it was to be so frequently covered in darkspawn blood. Or to look like an Alamarri warlord that had survived a hundred trials despite only being a year older than Alistair himself. A bit of hair on the face seemed downright trite all things considered.

If Alistair had to put Cousland's wild appearance into words, he'd say he was a man that was part-warrior, part-noble, and part-youth. And on top of the man parts, he was also part-bear.

"Shall we get going?" The same dignified voice from earlier, belonging to a man who appeared anything but. It would be quite funny, really, if the first impression this man always made wasn't scaring people to death.

"Sure. Can't miss this week's ritual dismemberment, now can we?" Alistair joked with a boldfaced lie. Though, with Cousland around, a would-be bystander could be forgiven for believing it true.

The two walked together, side-by-side. It had taken Alistair quite some time to get used to his new Warden-Commander and the sheer pressure his presence seemed to emit. When he first saw him at Ostagar as the junior member of the Order, he could swear that his dark-haired companion were a vicious murderer that had slaughtered an entire noble house and stole their armor. And that sooner or later he may very well snap and cross blades with a certain former Templar.

Of course now that they had a contract, one that Aedan wouldn't disobey unless he fundamentally went against one of his most stubbornly-held ideals, there was no threat of that at all. Instead, they were inseparable companions. Against Alistair's will. Honestly, he wasn't quite sure which was worse.

They had no reason to fight, despite being opposites. So they simply walked together.

And walked together.

There was no hum of cicadas or singing of birds in the wilds during a Blight. No trampling of vegetation by a tangle of fennecs. Just the clank of armored footsteps in the middle of a lifeless wilds, of two men that walked together.

And walked together…

And were still walking…

"It's been ten minutes now" Alistair thought.

And not talking…

"Should I say something…?"

Alistair got a foot caught under a tree root, stumbled for a bit, but didn't trip. Being deathly quiet while they could very well be walking to their actual death did not help relieve tension.

"Soooooo…" Alistair tried to say something, but trailed off. Inseparable companionship aside, a bloodthirsty noble was a bit difficult to make small talk with. "How's…"

Cousland stopped and shot his gaze over Alistair's shoulder with a stony face. Alistair didn't really think about what he was going to talk about, so he dragged on his words.

"How's…um…hoooww's—"

"Down!"

The younger warden froze up in shock at the sight of Aedan's frozen expression suddenly exploding into a yell. He felt a hand press hard against his breastplate as he was pushed to the ground by his Warden-Commander.

He heard a scream. But this time, it was not from a bloodthirsty noble.

It was from something with a bloodlust that no living man could match.

Lying on his stomach, Alistair turned his head to to see Cousland standing with Vigilance, both hands on the hilt and the edge pointing towards Alistair bloodied.

And in front of Cousland was a darkspawn, a hurlock that had been bisected from shoulder to hip; its armor, flesh, and bone all cleanly and uniformly cut with no signs of stopping or difference in speed as the blade had passed through it. It was as if Vigilance had cut through it like a knife through velvet.

Sometimes, the darkspawn were quiet. Cousland placed Vigilance back in its sheath.

Usually, Alistair could sense darkspawn coming from far enough away that he could steel himself and draw his sword. But when surrounded by so many, as they undoubtedly were right now, all he could rely on were the five senses he was born with. Well, four. Everything smelled rather uniformly awful for the moment.

Of course, that same downside was what allowed them to venture this far into the wilds without the entire horde descending upon them. Darkspawn sensed grey wardens the same way grey wardens sensed darkspawn. And if they were surrounded by tens of thousands of their own kind, it would be rather difficult for them to sense two lone wardens, miles away from their camp. The only reason that hurlock had seen him was through the simple use of its eyes.

The standing warden turned back to the one flat on the ground. Warm blood and black ichor had splattered over Cousland's face and armor. It did not seem to bother him. "Are you alright?"

Alistair shook his head, trying to maintain his cool. "Well, I'm not quite you, but I'm fine." Alistair grabbed Cousland's hand and pushed his own against the ground as to get himself back on his feet. Unlike his companion, none of the carnage from the hurlock's body had touched him. "Looks like I owe you my life for…oh, the fifth time this month now? You really ought to think about how much you could charge."

"You owe me nothing. It is a Teyrn's duty to protect his King." Cousland smiled with a closed mouth, contorting the two dragonclaw scars that reached from the upper-left of his forehead to the lower-right of his jaw. Despite the gore, and despite never doing so in public, it was an expression he was using now. As if being covered in blood were simply his most comfortable state.

"Please. I'm the bastard of a star-struck maid and a man who couldn't keep to himself. Don't call me a King." Alistair shook his head. He couldn't exactly take back the contract they had made at this point. Didn't mean he had to like it.

But, he owed this man much. He didn't know where he'd be today if Cousland wasn't there to pick him back up after Duncan died.

"Thank you." Alistair continued, serious this time. "I don't know how many times I would've died now if it weren't for you."

"Why are you thanking me? As I said, it is a Teyrn's duty to protect his King." In a reversal of roles, Cousland looked at him with curiosity, unable to comprehend what was being said.

Alistair rubbed his scalp and looked up. "…Well, I take that back. I would've only died once. Can't exactly die more than one time, now can I?"

"This aside, earlier you kept saying 'How'?" Aedan Cousland brought up Alistair's meandering from before the Hurlock appeared.

"Right, I was...erm—"

"You were asking about Arl Rendon 'Howe', correct?" Cousland interrupted before Alistair could make something up.

"Yes! About…him…why not?"

"You wish to know of my victory over the usurper Howe and the reclamation of my ancestral birthright by that pathetic traitor?" The Warden said this without and irony or slack in tone, as if he were presenting a story before a large gathering in front of Denerim's royal palace. Both of them had taken separate leaves of absence from Ostagar since the last battle with the Darkspawn. Alistair had traveled to Redcliffe and, unsuccessfully, tried to cure Arl Eamon's sickness. And Cousland had taken what remained of his missing brother's forces north to retake Highever and subjugate Amaranthine, returning with his rather unusual sword and armor afterwards.

"Not really, but let's go with that" Alistair muttered under his breath.

Cousland did not hear him. "There is not much to tell. Howe's men did not put up much of a fight outside the castle, and by the time I had scaled the walls the former Arl was already on his hands and knees, begging for mercy."

"Did he get it?"

"Of course not. I had Rendon Howe hung, drawn, and quartered. I wanted his skull as a keepsake too, but my seneschal had the head dipped in tar and mounted on top of a spike above Amaranthine's main gate instead. A shame."

"Hung, drawn, quartered?" Alistair had heard of being hung, but the "drawn and quartered" part was new.

"It is an old Fereldan execution method reserved for high treason, such as regicide. A large crowd is gathered as we hang someone with a short drop so their neck does not accidentally snap when the platform opens up underneath them. Ideally with a noose loose enough to allow just enough air for a long suffocation. Roughly half a minute before they are to die, the rope is shot with a bow or otherwise severed. They are then dragged by the crowd onto the drawing table while they gasp for breath, where their midsection is cut open and their innards dragged out to be burnt before their eyes. If they are still alive, as Howe was, they are then castrated and emasculated, this flesh also being burnt in front of them. Death arrives almost immediately afterwards from bleeding, so the limbs and head are quickly severed while they can still…Alistair? Are you unwell?"

Alistair liked to consider himself as strong-stomached as any true Fereldan man.

This, however, was a bit much.

"Oh no, I'm fine. Just wondering what's for dinner." Alistair lied.

"Really?" Cousland pressed a hand to his chin. A bit of the blood smeared against his face. "If you do not mind eating without a campfire, I could catch some raw fish on the way back. If you are willing to wait until we get back to Ostagar, I could also prepare red meat, cooked rare…are you certain you are alright?"

"Uuuuuuugg." Alistair felt a bit of bile in the back of his throat. A spectacular backfire.

Aedan's face became stern and concerned. "You do not seem fine, here, stand still."

Cousland's couldn't feel temperature through his gauntlets, so he placed an armored hand against the back of Alistair's head and used it to anchor his head in place as he pressed their foreheads together. Their faces came near, with the close-eyed, serious face of Aedan's hovering inches away from his.

It was a little too intimate for Alistair's tastes.

"Ple…please don't get so close to me like that." Alistair jerked himself free of the slightly older warden's hold.

Personal space was as much a foreign concept to Aedan Cousland as human decency and common sense were.

"Hm, you do not feel hot." Aedan reeled back his head and placed his hand to his mouth, pointedly ignoring his companion's discomfort. "Is it something you ate at Ostagar before we left? A rotted tomato, perhaps?"

"No I—I'm fine. Just don't talk about food. Please." Alistair always managed to surprise himself with how much his conversations with this man threw him off-balance.

"If you say so." Cousland said, completely ignorant of the situation.

Alistair and Cousland resumed walking. This time, with a comfortable silence.

The trees had grown thinner since their last rest. Before they were thick enough that they had to constantly step from root to root, slipping between the trunks and squeezing their armor past the ever-narrowing openings. Now they were close enough to the epicenter that the advanced stages of the Blight could be seen. Moisture had dried out from the ground, withering away the small plants and turning the soil loose and dry. The small animals had all died out, and the larger ones had become blighted, leaving to join the main horde.

If Alistair were to travel a few miles northwest, to the Hinterlands, there would be plenty of unblighted animals and vegetation. Quite a few of which that would be willing to kill him. In that way, it wasn't quite different from where he was at now.

Beasts in the Hinterlands, and all of Thedas for that matter, killed humans for a variety of reasons. Often times as a slight for entering their territory or for perceived threat to their young. Occasionally even for food.

Darkspawn ate human flesh too. But they didn't need sustenance, unlike beasts. The magical essence of the taint sustained them, allowing them to live indefinitely until slain. So why did they eat…? Who knows?

Alistair looked up to the sky. Despite all of the evidence of a Blight on the ground, the sky was completely cloudless. He wasn't able to see it earlier with the layers of leaves blotting out the Sun. Now the branches had become bare, the trees simple husks in a permanent winter.

…Alistair couldn't stand how lifeless it could be during a Blight.

When Duncan recruited him, what he feared most about a Blight was what it would feel like when he was fighting Darkspawn. He worried that he'd lose his nerves and forget to swing his sword. That he'd face something that couldn't be beaten and die without his efforts meaning anything.

Now—what he feared the most about a Blight was not when he was fighting the Darkspawn, but when there were none to be seen.

It is said that the sight where Dumat was killed used to be a lush beauty, a green, never-ending forest that most of the world's fruit trees originated from. After the First Blight, it became a grey wasteland; less than a desert, less than a battlefield. No shrub or insect survived in the Silent Plains, no fleeting prey or chasing predators. It simply became nothing, a void of life.

The Blight was unnatural. It wasn't just evil. Greedy merchants that rose food prices during a famine were evil. Cutthroats in the Carta that killed and extorted unarmed men were evil. Sadistic templars that relentlessly chased self-contained magi were evil. Deranged maleficarum that summoned demons into the world were evil.

What was The Blight? The Blight wasn't invisible. The Blight had a face, and it was not an emotionless one. In a way, the stray Hurlock that just got sliced in half was downright jovial that it had someone to fight, even when it had no hope of winning.

"But…why?" Alistair wondered.

All evils of the world had a purpose. Gold, power, pleasure, survival, twisted joy. And the apex of all evils, the evil which threatened to erase all others along with the good, had no apparent goal. The Blight killed. The Blight corrupted. Those were its means, and those were its ends.

"Hey Aedan?" Alistair looked up with a bit of an ache in his neck. He never could quite get used to someone being taller than him.

"Mmm?" Aedan's inquisitive noise resembled a lion's growl.

"What do you think our chances are in the upcoming battle?"

"That will depend entirely on what we discover here today. However…" Aedan Cousland trailed off.

"'However' what?"

"…However, something is wrong." Cousland's voice snapped back to its full audacity after the brief pause. "Historically Darkspawn have never been on the defensive during a Blight."

"Maybe we killed most of them? Like the Siege of Hossberg, in the Fourth Blight." Alistair recalled a tidbit of knowledge from some of his time spent reading history texts in the monastery.

"Darkspawn do not retreat. In the case of the Fourth Blight, even after their losses in Anderfels they still pressed their advance west from their strongholds in Antiva." Cousland looked to his side, the one not flanked by another Warden. Alistair noticed this and scanned over to his left in turn, looking for more Darkspawn that they couldn't sense. "When Loghain led the charge after we lit the Tower of Ishal, we were able to win that day because of the pincer formation we formed between his army and the remnants that were under the command of Calian and the Grey Wardens before they died." Cousland spoke while the two moved and kept a watchful eye. "However, the strategy that he used shouldn't have worked. When Loghain charged, there were still Darkspawn pouring out of the wilds. Judging by the numbers I saw while we were crossing the bridge, they should've easily outnumbered us four-to-one and trapped Loghain's reinforcements in a reverse double envelopment. But the horde that was pouring out of the woods simply turned tail and retreated. And all throughout history they've never just gone back underground, biding their time for nearly a year while only sending out small parties to skirmish."

In a way, it was a rather effective strategy. The Darkspawn's game of disengagement had allowed the Grey Wardens to gather all of their allies from the treatises, save the magi, and raise levies from all of the lords that were slow to mobilize the first time. And they had done entirely nothing with them since then. The Bannorn was growing restless, and the freeholders that were mobilized had gone an entire year without attending to their farms. Orzammar needed their warrior caste back to deal with the succession crisis, the Dalish were jumpy around the race that had subjugated them many times over, and the Templars had their own problems with Ferelden's circle from what they had heard.

Cousland continued. "When Loghain first heard about the Blight, he absolutely hated the idea of moving the King's army to Ostagar and engaging the Darkspawn in battle on an open field. He wanted to fight a war of attrition and utilize skirmishing tactics like he did against Orlais. The only reason he didn't was because of Cailan. Now Cailan's dead and he's gotten exactly what he wanted, only to find out that the Darkspawn don't need to eat or deal with petty disputes back home, and that the Korcari Wilds are unideal for any kind of coordinated offensive. Great strategist, my ass."

"Oh, I wouldn't say that." Alistair shrugged his shoulders while maintaining his watch for darkspawn. "He's been keeping a lid on the pot this whole time, hasn't he?"

Cousland moved his gaze away from the forest and shifted it back at Alistair. "You don't feel any resentment towards Loghain for allowing Duncan and your brother to die?"

"Why should I?" Alistair cast a sidelong glance. Duncan's death had cut a particular hole in him, one that pained him when he couldn't move and never seemed to heal. "He still ordered the charge at the end that trapped the main darkspawn force and stopped them. It was my fault for slowing you down when we were trying to light the Tower of Ishal."

"What if I were to tell you that it was irrelevant whether or not we lit the Tower of Ishal? That in actuality, Loghain had been planning to usurp the throne for his daughter and use us as scapegoats up until the very last moment when he had a change of heart and made an emotional decision?" Cousland made an outrageous declaration.

"I'd say you've read too many novels." Alistair said, dismissively. In his mind, he had no reason to blame Loghain. Instead, he blamed himself.

"You can blame Rendon Howe for putting the idea in my head while he was pleading for his life. But Alistair—" Cousland stepped forward to block his fellow Warden's path and formidably stare directly in his eyes. "What happened that day was not your fault. If you have to blame someone, blame Loghain. And if you cannot blame him, blame the Darkspawn. Blame the portrait of the world for its inherent deficit of color. Blame the eternal black that can be pushed from one place to another but never repainted. The only thing you killed that day were Darkspawn. Don't fool yourself into thinking you aren't a good man."

Alistair didn't quite comprehend the farfetched metaphors that his companion gave, but very easily understood the seriousness in his blue-eyed gaze. So he timidly nodded his head, trying to give the impression that he neither fully understood nor disagreed.

It was in that moment, however, that Alistair's worries about himself dissipated when he saw something on the edge of Cousland's form and in between two dead trees.

Smoke, rising from something below the ground.

"Aedan." Alistair's eyes became wide with realization. "Is that…?"

Cousland twisted his back and looked over his shoulder, his eyes piercing past the bark. He tilted his forehead forward, as if staring down an enemy commander at the other end of an open plain. "It is." A concentrated voice.

Alistair started off towards the source of the smoke, before feeling his torso run into what felt like a solid object. He looked down, and saw Aedan's hand blocking his path.

"I'll go first. You stay behind." Cousland ordered.

"No, I'll go first. You're the Commander of the Grey. It's my duty to protect you." Alistair replied.

"It is a Teyrn's duty to protect his King" Cousland countered.

"Look, my whole feelings on the 'King' thing aside, let's say I am what you keep calling me. Doesn't that mean you have to listen to what I say?"

"I'm more than willing to listen to your orders. Does this mean your regency is at an end?"

Alistair grit his teeth. Cousland was more than willing to allow Alistair take control of their group at any time. But saying "yes" would essentially mean two things. For one, Alistair would have to give in and call himself a king. And two, it would mean he would have to be the leader from now on. Both of which being incredibly unattractive ideas to him.

And someone who thought that the solution may be to say "yes" and then renege on the answer later was someone who did not know Aedan Cousland. There was no arguing with this man. Once given an order, he would insist on following Alistair's words down to the letter ad infinitum. A monarchy—imaginary or not—doesn't exactly close and reopen shop every Tuesday, after all.

The reality was that for Alistair, it was much easier to just to put up with Aedan's peculiar nature for the time being and to let him go on and on about how the unacknowledged junior warden that did not want the crown was somehow a 'king'. Even though Cousland was the Warden-Commander. Even though Cousland was the one that never took "no" for an answer.

At least that way Alistair would not have to be responsible for someone else's life again.

"…Fine, you win. I'll stand over here like a good little warden."

Cousland nodded his head in acknowledgement, as if he had been given the order instead of giving it.

He walked towards the source of the smoke. The trees ended at a few paces ahead of where the two stopped, the ground becoming darkened ash that bore no remainder of life. Forty more paces, and the ground itself dropped off, suddenly coming to an end as if it were the edge of a steep cliff. The Warden-Commander approached that end, first with bent knees, then with a crawl. When he was close enough to see over the edge, he paused, and la

"What do you see?" Alistair asked from the edge of the trees.

"The usual; hurlocks, genlocks, ogres, ten-titties…"

"Wait," Alistair's brow furrowed for a moment "ten—um, what?"

"Broodmothers."

"Riiiight. Those." Alistair nervously rubbed the back of his neck. "So, about the Archdemon…"

"Can't see him from for sure, but I feel a certain premonition at the sight. Look for yourself, seems safe enough for now."

Alistair mimicked Aedan's movements and came to a prone position alongside him.

A great chasm expanded before Alistair's eyes and stretched his depth-of-field as far as it could go.

A crater, as if a great mass had fallen from the sky as opposed to erupting from the ground. The center produced the smoke and glowed an overpowering shade of red, the hue of the Deep Roads. The middle where the Darkspawn first broke through to the surface was obscured by the color, much as a fog in the Fallow Mire would. Thousands of minor darkspawn clung to the walls like bees wintering in a hive, the closest no more than ten meters away.

"Aedan."

"Yes?"

"One of us doesn't know what safe means" Alistair lightheartedly singsonged, dragging out the vowels in 'means.'

"It's safe." Cousland replied with innocent eyes. Or at least as innocent as he could make them. "Look there, where the darkspawn are thickest. Does it evoke a particular feeling when you do?"

Alistair squinted his eyes, looking towards the bottom where the darkspawn clung shoulder-to-shoulder and the intensity of the red overcame the air, but couldn't find 'feeling' Cousland spoke of for the life of him. "No, it doesn't. Give me a hint."

"Dreams."

"Dreams?"

"Dreams about the Archdemon. This has the same background as our dreams, does it not?" Cousland asked.

Alistair took a moment to peer at the sight, combing over every detail and trying to jog his memory for some type of revelation.

In the end, it didn't work.

"…I don't think so." Alistair answered. He had always dreamt about the Archdemon flying over the wilds or over a tundra. A giant crater was never a part of it.

"Really? Well, perhaps there is another way..." Aedan's hand extended to his unflanked side and grabbed something in the grass. Alistair couldn't quite see what it was. "Alistair, what do you think the radius of this crater is?"

"Oh, I don't know…long?"

"I'm going to approximate it at one-and-three-quarter kilometers." Cousland snapped his head up at the trees and sky, trying to judge the sway of branches for wind. "Which means if I throw it at pi over three…no, three pi over ten…"

"…Pie…?"

Aedan ignored Alistair's inquisitiveness and continued mulling to himself, muttering uncharacteristically quiet words before finally settling on one term in particular. "Eighty-one pi over two-hundred fifty. Does that sound right?"

"You lost me at the pie part."

"Right. Sorry, sometimes I get carried away." Aedan reeled back his arm.

"'Sometimes'?"

And threw the rock he had picked up from the grass.

Drawing a wide-arcing parabola, it was carried by an updraft of wind, before finally beginning to fall when it was a dot on the horizon.

They followed that faraway dot with their eyes until it fell towards the center of the red-grey fog, disappearing from view.

A second passed. Just a single second, of both of them frozen in place in complete silence.

What followed was a roar. A roar that would've shook the trees with the sound of birds and other potential prey fleeing, had they not all ceased to be from the Blight.

A bloodcurdling, distant roar, belonging to something tremendous and more terrifying than anything else he had ever seen. A nightmare that had crossed from the realm of dreams into reality. A monstrosity, a corrupted remnant from a God belonging to history, brought forth into the present from the endless march of black.

And then…

…Silence.

Alistair slowly, deliberately moved his head towards the man standing next to him. By the time the dark-haired Warden came into view, he was standing completely still with his arms folded and eyes closed, as if contemplating something.

"…Did you just throw a rock at the Archdemon?" His eyes were wide with shock. "Does the word 'insane' mean anything to you?"

"You thought it was the Archdemon too?" Cousland opened his eyes, replying in a nonchalant manner. "It appears our work here is finished, then."

"…"

"Alistair?"

"MHM! YES, THAT'S RIGHT." Alistair jumped up and jaggedly spoke spoke upbeat words with the same kind of energy that an insomniac man gets when he's been awake long enough to forget he's tired. "Oh, but—MMMMmmmmm." Alistair pursed his lips and vigorously shook his head. "I don't know. Maybe we should throw a bigger rock?" He gave a wild smile, no long caring about trying to be discreet near what may as well be a million Darkspawn.

Cousland dropped his arms to his sides. "Very well. We passed by a boulder on the way here. Give me a short while, I will roll it down to the center." He said, completely deadpan.

"Wahahahaha!" Alistair forced laughter out of his stomach. His stomach hurt. "You said that perfectly! Almost like...like..."

"W-wait." Alistair thought to himself. Cousland never lied and only told jokes that weren't funny. So when he said he would bring over a giant boulder—which should be impossible for anyone to move—except him—and use it to alert the entire darkspawn horde that they were there, he meant it.

Alistair dropped back down and curled into a ball, the strings of his bravado cut.

"I'm sorry, I was trying to be manly. Please don't bully me again or else I'll cry." Alistair whimpered, hugging his legs to his knees and rocking back and forth.

He was scared after all. Just not of any Darkspawn or Archdemon. The Final Boss had been right next to him all along.

"My apologies. It wasn't my intention to scare you." Cousland replied. It was an earnest reply. From a terrible, terrible man.

"I know. You're just naturally-talented." Alistair drolly stated as he felt some of the tension in his body loosen. Why was he doomed to to be the only person in the world Aedan Cousland could talk to? "So, we know the Archdemon's here and not there with the big, angry army that just so happened to pop up south of Ostagar last month. What do we do now?"

"Well, foremost will be checking in on the most Junior member of the Order, who should be collecting darkspawn blood with the new recruits we picked out. He'll also have the report on all on the darkspawn movements near those witches' tent, so we'll have to exchange reports with both him and…her." Cousland spoke with a level of contempt that could've made Alistair swore that the Archdemon was back at camp instead of here.

"Who, the head scout?" Alistair sat up with one hand on a raised knee, trying to stay neutral.

"Yes, that devil of a Loghain-loyalist cockpleasing woman that calls herself the head scout. She's been scouting out the logistics of the main force. The whore." Cousland spat. Why this made the woman in question a 'whore', precisely, was anyone's guess. "In addition to her, the large one should bring us up to date about the camp and if the three recruits have their darkspawn blood yet. Or their heads for that matter." The older warden placed a closed fist to his face, digging the thumb into his cheek. "Afterwards, we will need to speak with Loghain, if the greasy old bastard is willing to listen, and finalize the battle plan. After that, it will just be The Joining and waiting for Darkspawn to attack."

"Back to camp then?" Alistair stood up.

"Of course." Cousland turned his back to the mass of Darkspawn and set off back to the wilds. "We must gather our party before venturing forth."

Alistair laughed, for a moment forgetting everything about their mission, the darkspawn, the archdemon, The Blight and every evil that seemed to surround him like a candle at midnight.

Aedan stopped in his tracks, standing underneath the shadow of the nearby trees. He looked back over his shoulder at the lighter-haired warden, dumbfounded. "What…? Was it something I said?" A rare bit of uncertainty from a man usually so direct and imposing.

"Oh, it's nothing." Alistair folded his arms and looked up towards his forehead, as if he were in on some joke that only he understood. The silver of his splintmail armor shone brilliantly underneath the high sun, a reminder that it was still only midday.

He stepped into the shade of dead trees that Aedan was under. Different colors always seemed to meld a little bit better with each other in the dark.

Alistair placed himself back at his comrade's side. "Come on, my serious evil friend. Let's go save the world."

They had a long, long journey ahead.