Characters: Alistair, OFC Brinda, unnamed barn cat, Teagan Guerrin, Eamon Guerrin, Isolde Guerrin, OFC dog character Inis, OFC Dera, OFC Anet, OMC Robern, mention of others

Pairings: Eamon/Isolde Guerrin

AU Elements: See author's note for a contradiction regarding Isolde Guerrin's backstory and the date of her marriage to Eamon that I've resolved in line with Alistair's own canon account of his childhood in DAO, rather than in line with the wiki. Alistair's story has also been timeslid somewhat, for two reasons that both have to do with Connor Guerrin. The first being that Connor Guerrin, in DAI, seems like a teenager, and in DAO is clearly a child young enough to make a deal with a demon in a nightmare without really processing what he's doing (beyond that his father is deathly sick and he wants him to get better)—which to me reads "under ten years old." In addition, Connor's birth or conception introducing a change in Alistair's circumstances makes an awful lot of sense. As such, Alistair is sent to the monastery somewhat after 9:20 Dragon.

9:21 Dragon

Castle Redcliffe, Arling of Redcliffe, Ferelden

"Al, go ahead and wash up," said Brinda. "I've got it from here, and you'll want to look your best when the arl and our new arlessa get back. Thanks for all your help this morning."

Alistair looked around. The stable literally gleamed. They'd done more than muck out the stalls, bring in and groom every horse Eamon owned or stabled for inspection, and polish all the tack to a shine. They'd scrubbed each stable door too. There wasn't a speck of mud in the place. You could eat off of the floor, probably. Everything absolutely in order. Alistair ached all over, but it was a good ache.

"That's what I'm here for," he said cheerily. "to be personal stooge for all your overwhelming, smelly, and otherwise dirty tasks."

"One of these days we'll have to make that official," Brinda said through a yawn, stretching and pressing her hands to the aches in her own back.

Alistair kept smiling through sheer force of will, and turned away to climb up to his loft. It was true the apprenticeship in the stables Eamon had promised him over two years ago had never quite materialized. His lessons with Arnel had gradually petered out like Eamon had wanted. Alistair had adjusted to living in the stables and had stopped really trying to go for more than an hour's visit with some of the other servants in the castle proper. When Eamon or someone else wanted to see him, they usually came to Alistair in the stables.

But the old hostler, Verral—though he was a very kind old man and had had, as far as Alistair could tell, only the best of intentions—had never really been capable of taking on an apprentice in the first place. Brinda had taught Alistair almost everything he actually knew now of stable work, and the entire time he had been here, she had almost always been too busy to truly teach him everything he needed to know.

When old Verral had finally admitted to himself and everyone else that his age, health, and old wartime injuries kept him from doing his duties and gone to live with his daughter and her family in the village six months back, Brinda had slid effortlessly into the position she had been filling for Verral the entire time. But while she was always grateful for the half-educated help that Alistair could provide her with the more menial tasks in the stables, it hadn't seemed to occur to her yet that she could train him to fill the role she had filled for Verral before his health had begun to decline. She still seemed to think of Alistair mostly as a child—Arl Eamon's pet, the age of her younger brothers, who ought to spend most of his time playing with other children instead of working any actual job. She saw whatever help he gave her more in the light of chores than as preparation for a trade, and he hadn't yet got the nerve up to ask her if she might want him to learn to do a little bit more for her. What if she said no, and she actually thought he was rubbish with horses?

Instead, Alistair was more or less the errand boy for every tradesman at or around Castle Redcliffe. He took dictations, ran messages, delivered supplies, helped out where he could. He knew how to prepare a horse or horses and how to exercise one, but he also knew stonemason's shorthand, how to build a fire at a forge and how to make horseshoes and a couple of simple tools, how to cure a couple different illnesses in dogs, and what felt like half a dozen systems of measurement. He also had no idea of what he was actually supposed to end up doing with his life. Arl Eamon came by once or twice a week to eat lunch with him out in the stables, but since the day he had first tried placing Alistair with Verral, he hadn't said a word about Alistair's future. Alistair had the idea that Eamon didn't actually care what he did, so long as he stayed as far as possible out of the business and social circle of his legal guardian.

Alistair stepped up into his loft. One of the stable cats was lying on top of his bed, getting the blanket all fuzzy so he wouldn't be able to lay his spare uniform down before he put it on. Giving its fleas ample opportunity to jump ship and into his mattress. Because of course it was. The cats liked the soft, warm blanket that smelled just a little better than the piles of horse blankets downstairs, and jumped up through the window from the woodpile behind the stable. Alistair had no idea how they knew, but sometimes he had as many as three up in his loft, and most of them would scratch him if he petted them wrong or took too long about it.

"Having a nice nap?" he asked the cat. "Hope my bed is nice and convenient for you. The one day I really have to look spotless for the new arlessa. I just brushed my blanket this morning!"

Brinda's laugh floated up from downstairs. "Cat problems again, Al? You could always try closing the shutters."

"I never know if there's a cat under the bed, though," Alistair called back. "They can't climb down ladders like squirrels, you know. If they aren't able to leave, they do worse than shed on my bed. I like them to be able to leave."

"And you like them," Brinda shouted up. "However much you complain."

"You're a terrible liar," Alistair told her, reaching out and rubbing the cat's ears. It closed its eyes, purred for about five seconds, then tried to bite him. "And you're just a pest, aren't you? Only marginally better than the rats and mice." Below, he heard Brinda leave, no doubt going to the little house next door that was hers now to freshen up herself.

Alistair sighed, left the cat to its napping, and began to strip off his sweat-stained, smelly uniform. He washed his face, hair, hands, and arms with water from the basin he had filled that morning, then dressed again in his spare uniform, hanging from a peg on the wall. Below, he could hear soft movements—horses eating. Drinking. Already beginning to mess up the spotless stable.

Brinda came back in when he had combed his hair and sat down at his table with the polish for his boots. He could just see her, down by the feed closet, looking in a little, tarnished oval mirror at her braid, checking to see all the ends were tucked in. Picking up a clean brush from the horse supplies to go over her uniform again. Alistair smiled and addressed himself to his boots.

"Never thought it would happen for him, you know?" Brinda said after a while. "The arl, I mean. I think all of us were sure he'd be a bachelor till he died. This new arlessa must be something special."

"I don't know," Alistair said. "Maybe he just figured it was about time there was an heir. Teag—Bann Teagan isn't married either, you know. I suppose the future of Redcliffe had to be taken care of somehow."

When Brinda replied, she sounded hesitant. "I guess a lot of us kind of thought that maybe . . ." she trailed off awkwardly.

Alistair tried not to sigh. He finished polishing his boots, folded up the cloth, and boxed up the polish again. He stood, crossed the loft, and climbed down the ladder to the main stable. Brinda was watching him. Alistair looked up at her—not as far as he had had to, once. "Funny business, that thinking. I get into the worst sort of trouble when I think. I've started trying to avoid it." He spun around for her inspection. "How do I look?"

Brinda's eyes were full of that pitying look that was really almost worse than judgment or scorn. She didn't say anything else about what a lot of them had thought, though, and he was grateful for it. Instead, she took him in head to toe like he had asked her, letting him change the subject. "One day, Al, you're going to be beating all the girls back with a stick," she told him, shaking her head. "Here, you missed a spot on your forehead." She whipped out a handkerchief and dipped it in a water trough, then came over and rubbed above his left eyebrow until she was satisfied.

He grinned up at her. "Thanks. You look good too. The new arlessa is sure to be very impressed."

"Let's go meet her then," Brinda suggested. "Knock her fancy Orlesian slippers right off."

.Bann Teagan lined the entire castle staff up in the entryway of Castle Redcliffe to greet the arl and arlessa. Alistair stood with Brinda near the blacksmith, groundskeeper, and kennel master. Teagan himself stood out in front, temporary master of the arling. He almost always came to look after things when the arl was gone for longer than a fortnight. Eamon and Teagan never left their people without help, if they needed it.

Arl Eamon had been gone a lot longer than a fortnight this time. It had been eight weeks since he had gone away, and he had been to Orlais and back in that time, to visit the new arlessa's family before bringing her back to Redcliffe.

Alistair knew a lot of people weren't happy that the new arlessa was Orlesian, though from what he had heard, she had lived in Ferelden, up in Denerim, for the past three years, staying with a married older cousin. Her family had actually governed Redcliffe when she was a little girl, before the occupation ended, and she had loved Ferelden so much then that she'd come back when she'd grown up, even though Orlesians weren't exactly very welcome.

People didn't understand that, how the arlessa could have wanted to come back to a country where almost everybody just wanted her to leave again. They figured she must have come on orders from somebody in the Empire, spying out weaknesses for another attack on Ferelden. "Why couldn't the arl just marry a nice Fereldan girl?" Alistair had heard, more than once, along with suggestions about various ladies that had come around trying to court Eamon that the speakers had liked. Alistair felt a little sorry for the arlessa. It wasn't like she could help who her parents had been, but from everything he had heard, it sounded like she could help where she lived and had, and had been through a lot for it. And everyone said Arl Eamon really loved her. Wasn't it better for him to marry someone he really loved than just any Fereldan noblewoman?

He heard a carriage pulling up outside, and those that had been far enough from Bann Teagan to still be whispering about the arlessa shut up. Brinda, beside him, squeezed his arm in excitement.

It was funny, Alistair thought. No one at Castle Redcliffe or in the village got half so stirred up over Eamon or Teagan as they were about the new arlessa. He supposed it was just the novelty. There hadn't been an arlessa at Redcliffe for as long as near anyone could remember. The last noblewomen here had probably been invaders, and that had been forever ago, now.

There were voices outside—Eamon's, softer and gentler than he had ever heard it, and a lady's, with a strange accent.

Then the door opened, and they all got their first good look at the Lady Isolde.

She walked in on Eamon's arm, still holding the corner of her gown in her hand from coming up the castle steps. Her other arm was wrapped around Eamon's, almost hugging him, and he was looking at her in a way Alistair hadn't ever seen him look at anyone. Like she was the most beautiful, precious thing in the world.

She really was very pretty, Alistair thought. Her hair was a creamy butter yellow, caught up in a gold net with amethysts worked in behind her head, with just one little curl dropping down over her forehead. She had very dark eyes and a little, tilted nose. And as she and Eamon moved toward Teagan, she didn't just walk, she sort of glided. It made him happy just to look at her.

"Oh, she's lovely," Brinda breathed from beside him. "Look at that dress!"

"Welcome home, brother," Teagan was saying to them both.

"Teagan. You've assembled a grand welcome," Eamon said.

"You deserve it," Teagan said. "Arlessa Isolde, your servants."

"Tea-gan," the arlessa said, with a funny emphasis on the last syllable of Teagan's name. She left Eamon, took Teagan's hand into both of hers, stood on tiptoe, and kissed him on both cheeks. "You did not have to go to all this trouble!"

"I most certainly did," Teagan said. He looked back over his shoulder. "Regan, Harris—help get the arl and arlessa's things from the carriages." Two castle porters bowed and moved past Eamon and Isolde to obey.

"Will you feel like meeting everyone, my love, or would you prefer to rest first?" Eamon asked his wife.

"I think I would like to speak with the cook and with the housekeeper," Isolde answered. "The rest—" she laughed. "I am afraid! I do not want to forget anyone's name. I will set up meetings over the next few days, so I can chat with everyone and remember."

"Will you say something to them, at least?" Eamon asked her.

Isolde hesitated. She looked around and bit her lip. She looked small and sweet and nervous, and Alistair thought she must be nervous, meeting all these people who didn't really want to like her because she was Orlesian. But then she stepped up and clapped her hands once. "Hello to all of you," she said. "I'm so glad to see you, and to finally be home. I look forward to getting to know each of you over the next little while. I hope you will be patient with me as I—as I readjust. I know I'll need your help, moving forward. But I am so happy to be here, married to Eamon, and I think that, when you know me, you will be glad to have me here."

She reached out to Arl Eamon, and he took her hand and bent to kiss her forehead. "Thank you all," Eamon said to the rest of them. "Dera, Anet, Robern, if you could remain behind, please? The rest of you may go. We will be around to speak with all of you in the next few days."

The household filed out of the entryway, moving back to their jobs outside or elsewhere in the castle. As they passed the arl and arlessa, several of them offered Arl Eamon a brief handclasp or the arlessa an insincere, empty congratulations. Brinda was one of the first to leave—and she offered the new arlessa a genuine curtsey when it was her turn, and looked back over her shoulder as she left the castle—but Alistair hung back, dawdling so that he would be near the end of the line, and most everyone would be gone already before he reached the arl and arlessa.

It had been eight whole weeks since he had seen Eamon. He had missed him.

In the hustle and bustle of the line, Eamon's dog, Inis, was the first one to actually see him. As Alistair drew near to the doors, her head came up, and she left her place by Eamon's side to trot over to Alistair, sticking her nose in his hand and licking his palm. Alistair smiled and scratched her broad, wrinkled head. "Hello there, girl. Been a long time, hasn't it?"

"There you are, Alistair," Teagan said. "I was wondering where you'd got to."

Then Eamon and the new arlessa were looking at him, and Alistair was hot all over. He bowed, still keeping his hand on Inis's head for moral support. "Congratulations," he said, a bit awkwardly. "And welcome back. Welcome to you for the first time, my lady," he added to Isolde. He looked up at Eamon. "I'm glad you're back, my lord."

"It's good to see you as well," Eamon said, folding his arm around his wife and beaming.

The arlessa was smiling. "But I did not know you had children as young as this in service, Eamon! What a charming boy." Then she actually gave her hand to Alistair. It was in a gold net glove that matched the net around her hair. Alistair bowed over it again, as he was clearly meant to. "Are you a page or a messenger in the castle, Alistair?"

Alistair released her hand, pleased by the arlessa's interest in him. "I suppose I do a bit of everything. Mostly I'm in the stables, though, my lady. Do you like to ride?"

Isolde shook her head. "Alas, no. I am not a great rider. But I enjoy a carriage to visit my friends, so I imagine we shall still see a great deal of one another, no?"

Alistair smiled at her. "I hope so, my lady."

"Do you have brothers and sisters, Alistair?" the arlessa asked.

It was a natural question, a really nice question from someone who hadn't actually planned to talk with anyone but the castle management staff today. She probably thought he was a person like Brinda and some of the maids—a boy from the village, working for the arl to support a large family. The trouble was, he couldn't answer without things getting awkward.

Alistair dropped his eyes. He shifted, gripping his Chantry medallion under his tunic. He could feel that Dera, Anet, and Robern, standing beside Teagan on Eamon's other side, felt uncomfortable for him. But he could also feel that they weren't going to save him. The arlessa had asked him about his family. "Um . . . none that I've met," he managed. "A half-sister in Denerim, I've heard."

Eamon spoke up then, in his curt, to-business tone that meant everyone should really just move on. "Alistair is rather a special case, Isolde. His mother was in service here when he was born. She died giving birth to him. His father, unfortunately, had already returned to the Maker. His sister was able to go to her own relatives in the capital, but we've raised Alistair here with us since he was an infant."

That did it. Alistair actually saw the moment the arlessa connected the dots—bastard—and drew the same conclusion that every single other person in his life seemed to draw. Her entire expression changed. Her eyes flicked to Eamon, then back to Alistair, searching for the resemblance, and suddenly they were cold. "You did not tell me, Eamon," she said, and her voice sounded crisp and brittle. "How kind of you to take on the boy."

So much for "charming." That took all of a minute and a half.

Alistair looked at Eamon. He wasn't smiling anymore, happy to be home in the arling he loved with his brother and his people and his beautiful new wife. Now he was stiff. His mouth was tight. He looked worried. Awkward. Alistair's heart sank.

I should have just left. Gone out with all of the others. Alistair cleared his throat. "Anyway, just congratulations. And welcome. Again. I should . . . probably get back to work."

"Yes, I think so," the arlessa said, now looking back at her husband. "I am glad I met you, Armistead."

"Alistair," Teagan corrected her, suddenly frowning like the arl.

"It's fine," Alistair said hastily, bowing to all three of them and beginning to move toward the door. "Bye, Dera, Robern. Anet."

"Goodbye, Alistair," Anet sighed.

"Supper later?" Teagan called after him.

But the arlessa forestalled him, reaching out to grab his arm. "Oh, but you must eat with us, Tea-gan, supper as well as luncheon. We have not seen you these eight weeks!"

Teagan turned to her to give a suitably polite reply, and Alistair made his escape, walking quickly. Almost running, really.

Bother, bother, bother!

There was probably no reason to worry. Eamon had never once given voice to any breath of a confession that there was any basis whatever for the rumors of why he was raising Alistair in Redcliffe. There was no reason for the arlessa to get upset. The story he had given her was the same story he had given Alistair and everyone else for as long as Alistair could remember, and it was a perfectly plausible story.

Alistair closed his eyes. It felt like he was burning up. Choking. He gripped his mother's medallion in his hand until the contours felt like they cut into his hand.

She looked at me like I was some kind of . . .

He didn't know a word for how that look when she had realized what he was had made him feel.

Mother.

Maker.

Anybody.

No one ever, ever believed the story Eamon had given Alistair and everyone else for as long as Alistair could remember. The older Alistair got, the less he believed it himself. Every few months, it sounded a little more like a story—a story about some other arl and some other bastard boy. Because Arl Eamon was a good man; he was there for his people, responsible, solid. Just. He treated his servants well and fairly, even remarkably so, occasionally sharing meals at table with them and often talking with them like equals. But Arl Eamon wasn't charitable. He didn't raise his servants' children. He had never once shown the slightest interest in any other orphans anywhere. Just Alistair. He'd taken Alistair on. He'd seen Alistair educated. He planned for Alistair's future, saw Alistair had everything he needed, and spent far more time than one of the most important nobles in Ferelden actually needed to spend with Alistair. And everyone who knew anything about Eamon knew exactly how odd all of it was.

He was staring at the ground between his knees, clutching at the woodpile at the back of the stable with the hand that wasn't holding his amulet.

"Al?"

That was Brinda, back at work. Like he should be. Alistair looked up at her, but she was blurry for some reason.

"You're crying," she said, coming over to kneel beside him. "What's happened?"

Alistair shook his head. He still didn't have the words. None that he could tell her anyway. "He won't tell her," he said dumbly. "He won't tell me. He won't tell anybody. I don't . . . I don't know who I am."

Stupid, he was stupid, and he was just confusing her, he could tell, but Brinda didn't ask him to explain. She just wrapped her arms around him and hugged him, rocking him back and forth like he was just another of her little brothers. Like his mother might have done, if she'd lived, and if she hadn't been too embarrassed at having a bastard to love him.

"He just lies and lies, and I don't know why, but everyone knows he's lying. The arlessa knows he's lying, and she isn't pleased, and I know I've gone and ruined everything, but it isn't my fault. It isn't my fault . . ."

"'Course it's not," Brinda soothed. "It's not."

"Why doesn't he tell the truth? Why won't he just tell me the truth?"

A/N: If you've been reading this series, welcome back! If this is your first installment, welcome! (Now I sound like Alistair.) This is the fourth volume of the series, but you can start here as well as anywhere. This particular collection has a sort of amorphous focus on growing up—particularly on changing circumstances and first loves. Earlier volumes deal with the first experiences of childhood and character introductions.

There are ten characters in the series proper—a collection of ficlets about ten characters in the Dragon Age series so far across their lives, featuring several different styles and no real cohesive plot whatsoever, and resembling a symphony with a multitude of different instruments or an art gallery with several different art styles more than anything else. I've written over thirty-eight ficlets and over a hundred thousand words so far, and we're still ten years out from the Fifth Blight.

This particular volume leaves out poor Estral Lavellan; imagine her growing and learning up in the river lands and in the forests of the central Free Marches. We'll get back to her at age twelve or so, but everyone else I've introduced so far will have a moment here.

A word to those unfamiliar with how I'm working on these: I follow canon fairly closely, sometimes borrowing from expanded universe material like The Dawn of the Seeker or The Calling, but sometimes canon interferes with the story I want to tell, and I abandon it. I'll list AU elements at the beginning of every chapter along with the character tags and pairings, but for this part of the series, this is what you need to know:

1) Alistair was not sent away from Castle Redcliffe in 9:20. This change was to solve what I see as the problem of Connor Guerrin. The most logical time for Alistair to have been sent away from Redcliffe was when Eamon's wife was feeling most insecure about his place in Eamon's house—when she had just conceived an heir or when her heir was newborn. Alistair knows Connor's name and knows about him. But if Connor was born in or around 9:20 Dragon, that would make him ten years old in 9:30—and he just seems a bit younger than that. So Alistair's been time-shifted. Just a little. A benefit of this is that he'll have spent the majority of his childhood with Arl Eamon, which makes sense on a number of levels.

2) Ilsa Tethras is not an alcoholic.

3) Like Alistair, Cullen Rutherford has been time-shifted. He was born in 9:05 Dragon instead of 9:11, making him some six years older than the wiki estimates. I made this decision because, in all three games, Cullen is animated to look much older than he is speculated to be, and in addition, I found it unbelievable that Meredith would make a twenty-year-old Templar of only two years' experience a captain, as would be the case in the first act of DA2 if Cullen were actually born in 9:11.

4) Cullen is the third-born child in his family instead of the second-born, making his brother Branson his elder as well as Mia. I changed this for better conformity with quasi-medieval or Renaissance family norms for someone in Cullen's social class; as the second-born son, he would have more freedom to choose his own career than he would as the eldest son.

5) As a result of my other decisions about Cullen's age and position, his timeline has shifted some four or five years behind the wiki summary. In this particular fic, that means that instead of joining the Templar Order at age twelve, he joins at age seventeen.

6) William Cousland is still teyrn of Highever well into young Cousland's childhood, with Bryce Cousland and Eleanor teyrn- and teyrna-in-waiting into her adolescence. I had to have a grandparent somewhere in here. For more on my history of the Couslands, see Chapter 9 in the first installment of the series.

7) Finally, in the vein of something that may or may not be AU and relates directly to this chapter: Canon is somewhat contradictory when it comes to Isolde Guerrin. We don't get a canon age for her or for her son Connor in DAO. The wiki seems to put her at around Eamon's own age (which is 36–37 in this chapter), with Isolde having a crush on Eamon when her parents governed Redcliffe prior to Maric's victory in 9:02 Dragon and—far from spying for the Orlesians—actually passing the resistance intelligence as a result, and marrying Eamon some six years later in 9:08 or 9:09 after some time residing with a cousin in Denerim. This, however, would mean that Connor (who, whatever his age, is definitely still a child in 9:30 Dragon) was not conceived until many, many years into Isolde's marriage to Eamon, and probably not until she was in her mid-thirties at least. This would seem to fit some details—hints in-game that Isolde is past her prime, the facts that Connor is an only child and that Isolde finds it very difficult to have a second child, even when circumstances motivate her to try.

The problem is that, if one follows this interpretation of events, the backstory Alistair gives on himself in DAO doesn't make nearly as much sense. Alistair's version of events definitely implies that he was alive for Eamon's marriage to Isolde, that he witnessed the backlash to it, that there was a change in his circumstances at Redcliffe as a result, and that there was something special about Eamon's love for Isolde that made the normally practical, responsible man disregard politics and, eventually, duties previously assigned. Alistair, though, was definitely born late in 9:10 Dragon. If Eamon married Isolde during Alistair's lifetime, at a time Alistair can recall, that places the marriage as happening much later than the wiki would have it. If the marriage happened later, as well, Connor's conception and birth becomes an even more probable catalyst for later events in Alistair's life, and I've already stated that I believe that theory the most likely explanation of the change in his circumstances in middle childhood that Alistair alludes to in DAO.

I liked certain elements of Isolde's backstory in the wiki, but overall, I found the version one can extrapolate from Alistair's own account of his childhood much more persuasive. As such, in this version of the story, Isolde's parents were indeed governors of Redcliffe before Maric's victory, and Isolde indeed had sympathy for the resistance as a child and a strong love for Ferelden itself—strong enough that at some point she chose to live in Ferelden instead of Orlais, and before her marriage to Eamon. But she herself has been considerably aged down from what you would extrapolate from the wiki's account. She was maybe five or six years old in 9:02 Dragon and never had a crush on Eamon during the years of the Fereldan resistance or passed information to them, returned to Orlais for the rest of her childhood and early adulthood, and then returned to Ferelden to reside with the cousin. Eamon's love for her becomes that of an all-but-confirmed, aging bachelor for the one woman that could persuade him to leave his single state, despite the political reasons that might exist for him not to marry her. Connor's birth happens within a fairly normal interval after their marriage, but it remains completely possible that the couple struggled with infertility afterward or that Isolde's potential death bearing a second child was related to bearing the child later in life.

If you want to debate details or have anything to say about the fic, leave a review or PM me. I'm always available to my readers!

Best Always,

LMS