Premise: Survival demanded sacrifice. Alistair was that sacrifice, to save a woman who did not want to be saved. Is there a chance for their love to live on or has despair won?

Pairing: Alistair/Cousland (Aliea... if you've read my other DA fanfics)

Misc: So pretty much just today, I posted that I had this idea... and now it's up. I had the 'skeleton plot' set up a month or so ago, but never really had much of an urge to finish it... until I read someone else's story with the same notion that Alistair died and his lover survived. And then, oddly enough the trailer for Dear John (which I DON'T plan to see... not a romance lover... unless action is involved) also pushed this story along as it had the Snow Patrol song Set the Fire to the Third Bar in it and I've been listening to that song all day and despite it not exactly fitting... it made me think about the need to write another story where a couple is separated in some way... this time by death.

Anyhow... to note, Aliea is in here as well. She's my main character, the one set up to be most like the story of character I'd want as a protagonist if I was working in that world's storyline. She's like my Luke Skywalker, I guess... Whatever. Anyhow... this is mostly just another 'AU' to what I consider Aliea's 'canon story,' which is technically the 'happy' ending (Alistair king, Aliea queen, Morrigan with the demon baby... ugh). Where 'Don't Let Go' was the 'what would happen' should Loghain be spared only to be sacrificed in the end, this is the 'what if' where Loghain is killed, Alistair is declared king... only to up and die on us. XD

Song Suggestions: All I can say is Set the Fire to the Third Bar by Snow Patrol since that was all I listened to while writing the majority of this.

Disclaimer: Once again, Dragon Age: Origins, its characters, and settings all belong to BioWare.

Survival Demands Sacrifice

"You… you… you idiot! Asshole! How could you?!"

Grabbing the demon statuette that she found in the room, Aliea Cousland swiftly threw hard into the wall… satisfied to see it shatter from the impact, seeing it lay there in the same broken mess that she felt to be in. But the satisfaction was fleeting at best, especially as she thought how it was like her now.

Falling to her knees, Aliea felt her misery tears at her heart again as it had for these last few days. She couldn't stand it. The rest of Ferelden would recover. They were saved. The Blight ended before it began… at a price that no one felt more sharply than she did.

"Why did you… why did you have to do it? Why did you leave me?" she cried out to no one, the words meant for a man not present.

For a man whose funeral was today.

"Alistair, you idiot!" she screamed at the floor, curled in a fetal position and hugging herself. "You bastard! How could you do this to me?!"

Met with only silence, Aliea continued to scream, inaudibly this time, hardly caring if anyone could hear her – and she knew everyone did. The gaping hole in her heart was too much for her to live with, sucking away all the life she still held. Her fingers were numb and cold and she gripped harder at her arms, willing to feel pain, life…

That was all life was to her anymore. Pain. Excruciating pain.

Her father. Mother. Ser Gilmore. Mother Mallol. Nan. Howe's betrayal.

And how many others only seemed to live in agonizing existences as well?

What was the point of life if all it was… was pain?

If that was the case… she preferred death to this.

The thought lingered in her mind. Aliea looked over to her sword flung across the room. She hesitated. Then she looked back to the broken statuette. Instantly a memory played before her eyes…

"Wow! For me? I… Wow!"

"Glad to know you like it," she had laughed as they sat by the campfire, long after everyone else had gone to sleep. She had a nightmare that night… and Alistair knew she did. Well… by then of course he knew. By that time, they had began to share their her tent, enjoying heated nights together… even though they were still learning how to please each other.

She hadn't planned on giving him the gift until the morning, as a surprise, but… seeing his concern for her… she just wanted him smiling and laughing, like the boy he was. It was why she was falling for him; he was like her father and brother… grown men that acted like children. Her mother and Oriana accused her of acting like a child as well.

She was glad that she had met Alistair… and that he had lived through Ostagar as well…

"Oh, I love it. But… you know… you make me feel terrible though with the gifts you get me," he spoke as he held the figure as if it was the most precious possession he owned. A timid smile then appeared on his face as he turned towards her and… he was just too cute. The sight made her quickly lean over to kiss his lips. He, just as swiftly, responded, a little too eagerly though as he accidental forced her to the ground. Had it been just a week ago, Alistair might have scrambled away with awkward apologies.

Not tonight. Instead, they both laughed before they shared another kiss, more passionate one, still on the ground.

"Don't feel terrible," she whispered as the kiss faded and they instead stared at each other beneath the starlit sky, her fingers trailing over his lips and jaw. "I'm still in love with the gift you gave me…"

"Oh? What was that?"

"Oh you fool!" she gave another laugh, slapping a hand against his shoulder. "The rose! How could you forget?!"

"I… well… but I just picked it…" he admitted, his face contorting with confusion.

"So? This thing was in an abandoned chest… and it's what you said that makes me love the rose so much," she admitted as her hands slipped around his neck and she pressed another yearning kiss to his lips. "How could I not love it? How you said I'm practically an impossible beauty in all this darkness…"

"So if I keep with all the compliments… I'll know that I'm in your good graces," Alistair chuckle, his nose nuzzling against her cheek, drawing up a wave of light laughter from the woman beneath him. Eventually, he pulled away and looked down at her, a smile of blissful delight on his lips.

"What? What is it?" Aliea had to ask, shifting up onto her elbows to regard him with curiosity.

"Just… and I'm not just saying this, you're beautiful and I love you. I do. I'm so glad I can share moments like this with you…"

She returned his smile before granting him another kiss. "There you go again, but… I feel the same…"

"Good to know…"

"So… why don't we share another type of moment together," she suggested with a hungry voice before pulling away with a smirk… a smirk he mirrored as he quickly stood and pulled her up, the demon figure still in his hand.

"Your wish is my command…"

How was it possible that they were ever so possessed by a young and idyllic love, naively unaware of everything raging around them to share instance like that? She almost couldn't believe them and moments like that seemed so long ago. Years, not weeks and months. Even the recollection of speaking to Alistair about their engagement seemed so far away…

Rage filled her again and she grasped the amulet around her neck and threw that at the wall too. It shattered as well… for a second time. The guilt didn't fill her heart that Aliea knew would come eventually. They found the amulet of Alistair's mother, mended by Eamon… and he lover gave it to her, telling her that she was his family, all that mattered to him… and how he hoped that the impossible could happen for them: that maybe children wouldn't be void of their lives.

They would be now.

She wouldn't have her king at her side 'til the end with maybe that 'impossible' heir or two scampering about. She hated thinking about how within minutes, she watched everything she hoped for die in a whisper. She didn't care that she lost her chance to be queen; what did power compare to love? But she cared that her love wouldn't be king because he should be. He was Maric's son. He was supposed to be king. Her king, the only man she ever wanted to spend her life with… all because he didn't want to give Morrigan the child she asked for in exchange for the absence of sacrifice…

Why couldn't she have died with him? Why did Wynne and Leliana hold her back? Why did she have to live?

Why did she? What was the point?

Slowly, Aliea turned and stared at her sword where to lay on the seats in her room. She stood, but moving as if pulled by strings and moving silently and softly, as if a sudden movement or slightest sound would break through the haze that came over her. She stood before the sword, picking it up as she unsheathed it and stared at the blade. How many men died on her blade? How many darkspawn did she strike down with it?

And not once did she contemplate that she would fall on it herself…

Until now.

"Um… Aliea… we should head out now if we're going to Alistair's funeral…"

Shocked and startled, Aliea dropped her sword and spun around to face Leliana as she stood in the doorway.

"Uh… yea… all right," she whispered with a nod and reluctantly dragged her feet towards the bard, trying to tell herself she couldn't die yet. Not while there was everyone else and even her brother had returned. She tried.

She didn't succeed. She couldn't grasp why she wanted to bother living.

"And Aliea… please…" the redhead started, but waited until the blond woman reached her… then Leliana's arms were thrown around her, embracing her with concern and comfort – comfort though that Aliea's empty soul could not touch. "Don't try to join him… not yet. Please? I know it's hard, but… you'll get through. You have to get through. We're here for you…"

"But not one of you is Alistair," Aliea mumbled, her voice cold and even, her body not responding to the embrace she was still locked in. "How can I get through when he was the one that gave me reason to continue living?"

"He died so you could live, Aliea. He wouldn't want you dying for him…"

"And I didn't want him to die for me either!" she snapped jerking out of her friend's arms and glaring. "Why should he die and I live?! What is the point of it?! Why?! Why?!"

"Aliea… please. We need you. Ferelden needs you. So please… live… cherish what you had with Alistair, but… don't let those memories ruin you…"

She wanted to tell her that the memories already had. They had drained the life from her being, lost in them, wanting them to come back… and knowing they never would.

She had it with hope for something better, for the heartache to fade away as something better entered her life… and find herself locked in a cycle of vain hope.

No… she had a new hope… the hope for death.

She would leave one day, when her friends weren't expecting it, knowing that they'd stop her from taking her life. So she would leave… and she would join to Alistair, the man that loved and hated more than anything else…

Several Months Later

The arrival of the visitor came as a shock to Arl Eamon Guerrein.

But what else could be expected when that visitor was none other than Aliea Cousland?

For nearly a year no one had known of the whereabouts of the last Fereldan Grey Warden. She had simply disappeared. Even Fergus had no knowledge of where his sister had gone. All her companions had gone to find her… but there had been no luck amongst any of them. Thus many had lost any hope to know even what became of the woman… except to acknowledge that she had probably succumbed to the loss of the second son of Maric as no one could ignore how obvious it was that the two loved each other deeply.

So it came as a relief to the arl to see the woman still alive and standing in his study.

At least until he saw… she was alive… but not well.

She seemed to be no more than a shell of herself, a hollow corpse. Her skin was no longer the healthy ivory the man had recalled her to have during the Blight; now it was a sickly, ashen pale seeming to hang from the woman's bones as she was unhealthily thin now. The brilliant green eyes he recalled were now glazed over and empty, no life within them. Even her once shining, light gold hair hung in dull clumps around her face.

Death had encased the woman almost utterly…

Almost…

There was still a certain spark of life about her and Eamon imagined that it was due to the bundle in her arms.

"Aliea… I… I am uncertain how to greet you," he stated as he stood once the knight that had escorted her in left them. "I want to say I'm glad to see you, but… now I worried and…"

"I'm sorry, Eamon," the woman returned swiftly, but in a voice that trembled and held barely any strength, nothing like the Warden he once knew that spoke so eloquently and with such purpose. "I'm sorry about everything. But I couldn't take it. I wanted death and I couldn't do it around everyone I knew and… I still failed.

"And I couldn't take it being around people either. If I saw a man… I thought of how I could find no comfort in the arms of one. If I saw a woman, I wondered if she knew my pain. And… worse yet… if I saw a couple, I envied them, despised them, feeling my heart shudder and crumble knowing that I can't have that with him anymore…

"And I especially hate children. I can't stand the sight of them. I want to beat them to death because… because…

"I know I can't even take care of mine…"

Eamon simply gulped and nodded, feeling utter pity for the poor woman, realizing that as disgusted as he was to hear her words, she was more revolted to speak and think them. He wished that Alistair had been spared and that Aliea had remained alive as well… otherwise if the situation was vise versa, he hardly imagined it couldn't be any better.

But he wished things could be better, realizing that Aliea did indeed carry her child in her arms and he knew better than to imagine that the father was anyone other than Alistair.

"Aliea… stay here then, we'll see that you're taken care of. You and your child both," he replied, striding around his desk to stand before her, resting a hand on her shoulder, trying to restrain the shock in feeling how limp her skin was and how easily he felt the texture of her bones.

How had the woman even had the strength to birth the child?

"Eamon… didn't you hear me? I can't take care of my baby. I only cry when I see her face, hear her coo, feel the warmth of her skin… I can't do it. She won't ever know her father except in stories and I don't want to live through that. Especially if she grows to certainly have her father's face and I'm left with that torment…"

"Aliea… at least you will have each other and she can learn of her father from your lips rather than another's. And you can take comfort in knowing that Alistair never left you…"

"Don't say his name. I don't want to hear it. The fool refused to take the chance for us to live… the both of us and then died on me, left me to pick up the broken pieces he left behind… How did he think that I could take my life without him? I lost my parents, my old life, and at the time… I still didn't know that my brother lived. I lost my chance at a normal life and… Eamon… I just can't do this. As much as I love my daughter – Alistair's daughter – I hate her. I hate that she is the daughter of the one man I love and hate. I can't raise her…

"I lived long enough to birth her, but… I can't for much longer. Don't tell me I can. You see me. I'm hardly alive.

"I just want to die, Eamon. I don't want to live without Alistair anymore. I have to try to join him…"

"Aliea… I…" He wanted to say something, to dissuade her, but the woman had always been a stubborn being and he knew that nothing he said would make her change her mind, make her see things any other way. And… she was right…

He didn't imagine that she could have much longer in her state, even if others cared for her. The will was gone and he could see that it was past a point that she could find the will to live.

"I'm sorry to ask it of you, but… can you give Alistair's child a home? Either with you or someone else. Give her to Fergus if you must, I know he'll care for her. I would have gone to him, but… I can't let him see me like this. Not after everything he lost. He lost more than I did. At least… at least I have a child.

"She shouldn't even have her… she shouldn't even be alive…" Aliea muttered beneath her breath before – almost repulsively – holding the child out to Eamon. "Take her," she spat even as the elder man felt his body go numb and cold as he saw the insides of her arms, slashed and covered with the several dark scabs of clean, purposeful cuts. "Take her. I don't deserve to hold her. I tried to kill myself how many times. I tried to go without food and water as long as I could and… I couldn't do it. All because she had to be the damn grandchild of Maric. I couldn't take the notion of killing the last chance Ferelden had for Calenhad's line to live on…

"So take her… I don't deserve to hold her… to be her mother…"

Reluctantly, he took the babe – a beautiful girl with soft gold hair and round cheeks – into his arms, wishing he could be lost in awe as he should be to hold Alistair's child, knowing he never could quite picture Alistair as a father as well as knowing that this was Maric's grandchild, as Aliea said. It seemed like a lost hope was long gone and left only as an idea to be laughed at.

But the joy in this moment could not be found, not as he thought on how the child was fatherless… and about to be abandoned by her mother…

"What did you name her?" he whispered softly, his eyes on the sleeping child, just as the woman before him began to turn away.

Silence was all that greeted his words. To that, he turned back to Aliea, seeing her wide, almost too large eyes – now that her face was so thin – staring at him with shock.

"I… I didn't name her. I… I told you… I don't deserve to be her mother…"

"You would only say that if you regretted what you tried to do to a child you loved as you should," Eamon assured. "Aliea… I know that you had to have gone through great pain. I can see why you wanted to die. Why you might think that killing your child would be more merciful to her instead of growing up an orphan if you never made it here… or if she grew up to see you as the shell of your former self.

"You didn't want to go through that sort of pain and you didn't want your child to inherit that pain.

"So don't let her lose the chance to at least be given a name by the mother that loves her…"

"Eamon, I… I don't want to. I can't. After what I did, I… I don't know what to name her. I always thought that if there would be a child between Alistair and I… he'd be there to name the babe," she admitted after stumbling over her words, her startled eyes shifting from Eamon to the bundle and back.

"Then name her for him… whatever name you think you would have agreed upon," he advised, handing the child back to her… whom she shakily took back in her hold. However Eamon helped support the child, worried that Aliea was too shocked and scared to keep a steady hold on the child.

She stared down at her baby. Her green eyes for a moment began to shine, but the glimmer was lost as her eyes began to tremble and the tears began to well up. She shut her eyes, letting the tears flow freely as the sobs wracked her thin body.

Swiftly, he took the child back into his arms, but did his best to lead Aliea to his desk, sitting her in the chair and kneeling waiting for her response.

It came soon as she rubbed her bony hand against her eyes.

"Rose… we would have named her Rose," she spoke with an unsteadily whisper, weak for her weeping… something she probably did to often. "Alistair said I was like an impossible beauty in an world that was ugly and dark, just like that rose he found that shouldn't have been there. He would have said that our daughter would be the same.

"And I would have wanted her to be named that as well… because we'd see her as the embodiment of the love we shared… just like the rose he gave me…"

"It's a beautiful name, with a beautiful meaning for a beautiful child," he assured, shifting to take a careful hold of the child in the crook of his one arm as he rested a hand on Aliea's. "And only you could have given that to the child. NO one else, so…

"Aliea… please… you love the child, don't you? Then stay here for her. Try to live for her, can't you?"

"I don't want to Eamon… please don't make me…" the woman sobbed, bowing over as her fist gripped at her knes and her eyes remained clenched shut.

"Aliea…" the arl continued to try to persuade the woman to stay, knowing he could not live with himself if he didn't."I know Alistair felt as though everyone who was supposed to be there for him turned their back on him. His father, sister, brother… myself. If he ever had a child, he could never leave the babe, no matter the consequences…"

"Eamon, please… I said…"

But he went on. "I'll never tell her that you left, if you do, but will you be able to die in peace if you turned your back on his daughter now?"

"Eamon… don't tell me this…"

"Don't do it to your child… to Alistair's child…"

Her eyes opened and turned to Eamon, life finally returning to her eyes, but remaining sad and hopeless.

"All right… I'll stay. I don't know how long I'll last… but… I'll try. I'll try to live… for Rose…"

Ten Years Later

She didn't live though. Eamon had hoped she would, thought she would… but…

Eventually… Aliea went on to join Alistair…

She had gotten better at first. She ate, rested, took better care of herself. But the look of slow death never left her form, which was why the woman continued to keep her presence secret from those that loved her, too terrified to let them see her like this. But… there were times life emanated from her as she finally accepted her role as Rose's mother. She did love the girl with all her heart… just as she dreaded the child's presence. She never mistreated the child, but the tears told Eamon that Aliea was suffering in her child's presence… before fresh cuts were found on the woman's arms.

The constant loss of blood and impenetrable sadness that enveloped the woman eventually did her in.

And she left.

But not before her daughter's first birthday and not without giving her last words of love to the girl.

And today… Rose Theirin was ten-years-old.

She was a beautiful, strong, brilliant girl. She was the soft sunshine gold hair of her mother, but the warm brown eyes of her father, with a face that was just as expressive and in nearly the exact same way. She loved history and especially the tales of her grandfathers Bryce Cousland and Maric Theirin… as well as listening to the one bard that had experienced firsthand the adventures of the girl's own parents, Alistair Theirin and Aliea Cousland. She was a spirited child, eager to have and create her own adventure, making every mundane aspect of life more exciting in her imagination. And, following her lineage, Rose wished to be a gifted battle maiden, already having started to learn the basics in wielding a blade while she continued to wonder whether to focus on strength and learn the best tactics with a shield, like her father… or improve her agility to wield two deadly blades as her mother before her.

Eamon found himself fortunate to have been the guardian of Rose, as he had been for Alistair. But Rose was a more promising child than her father, perhaps because she did not live the same existence as Alistair.

She lived as her noble born status granted her and there had been no need to hide her parentage after her mother drew her last breath. Isolde did not react harshly towards the child and instead welcomed her as the arl and arlessa had a second child of similar age to Rose, and a girl as well, Gwyneth. And the girls were like sisters to each other… though the servants obtained much chagrin to their mischievous stunts.

Looking down at the young girl as she walked next to him, Eamon wished such could remain.

But it couldn't, not now that the girls were ten and the year would see to many changes.

Gwyneth, like her brother, was destined to be a mage. She had now left to pursue her fate at the Circle Tower.

And Rose… she also would no longer live at her childhood home.

She was the sole grandchild of King Maric, his own blood heir. She was the rightful heir of Ferelden's throne.

Anora had not been at all keen to agree with Eamon to declare the girl as her heir. He knew she refused because she had gained her throne because Alistair had died on top of Fort Drakon and did not want to admit that – as if by some sick sense of humor – he never lost the throne as he had already fathered an heir. But whatever arguments she gave, they could not hold ground as the woman refused to marry and had no heir of her own.

Thus she conceded and today… Rose Theirin would be declared as Ferelden's princess and future queen.

But for now, there was time before the girl had to make her appearance and Eamon took the girl on a last stroll through Denerim. It wasn't going to be easy for either of them to accept that they would not see each other as frequently as they were used to, so for her sake… he'd spend what time he could with the girl. And Rose had never been one for the crowd, to be the focus of an audience. Today would be the last chance she had to be an almost unknown entity as the public only had whispered rumors to tell them the Theirin line had not died off.

They were both fairly quiet during the stroll. Rose wasn't the excited child she normally was, ignoring weapons stands and armory, and only silently scanning the books of the 'Wonders of Thedas' shop. She only asked for a solitary pastry with icing when she grew hungry and – as customary for these walks – a small bouquet of roses.

Roses she would lay at the commemorative statue for the Grey Wardens.

Immediately following his death, only Alistair's likeness had been planned to be immortalized. But with Aliea's sudden disappearance, many wondered if her effigy should be commissioned as well. With the uncertainty that remained for those two years until Eamon had to see the woman die, it wasn't until he introduced Rose to the Landsmeet that it was decided, for the sake of the last of Maric's line, that both parents would garner memorials.

So here they stood, the sculptures of Alistair and Aliea both as if ready to face another fight, side-by-side.

"Mama and Papa were great warriors, weren't they Uncle Eamon?"

He gave a weak smile down to the girl and nodded. Ever since she had become used to referring to the Teyrn of Highever as 'Uncle Fergus,' she adopted the affectionate designation when regarding the man that had raised her. "Very much so. They fought together superbly. They seemed invincible with how strong and fast they fought together…"

"I wish they had been," Rose murmured, laying the roses at the base of the memorial. "I wish I knew them…" She tilted her head to look up to the arl, the sad curiosity in her brown eyes that he knew to expect when she thought of her parents. "Would they have liked me if they knew me?"

"Your mother loved you, Rose. She tried to hold on to life for you," he said, knowing he only stretched the truth by a smidgen. She might have been reluctant to remain alive and in her child's life at first, when only hopelessness and despair inhabited her soul; but he could see how the woman had hoped to see more of her daughter's birthday's after the first. "And your father would have loved you. You're much like him and the woman he loved more than his own life. He died so that your mother would live. It's only providence that he died to save you as well… something that he would have done as well had he known he was about to be a father."

She gave a bright smile before turning her eyes up to gaze at the stone faces of her parents. "I know… you've told me before. I just wanted to hear it again. Especially today…"

"Don't worry, Rose… you'll make them pound one day. No need to worry that you won't…"

"But I can't be a Grey Warden like them, can I?" she said, her eyes still gazing upwards as she spoke a question she had heard the answer to several times.

"You'll be the Queen of Ferelden one day, Rose. That will be your duty to the country. You will honor their sacrifice that way… and by remembering the sacrifice that Wardens must make to ensure our world does not perish…"

"I'll never doubt that," the girl nodded before turning her face back to him. "Uncle Eamon… can I…"

"I'll wait over there," he interrupted, already knowing the request. He walked away to a place he could still see here, but not discern what exactly she would do and be unable to hear her. He didn't need to worry that the child was at all about to do anything harming. She was not the hopeless wreck Aliea had become after Alistair's death.

And Rose deserved some alone time as she took the chance to speak to parents he knew heard her but could not speak to their daughter…

"I'm going to be made Princess today, Mama… Papa," Roses began once she knew Eamon could not hear her. She wasn't ashamed of the words she'd speak, but… she just needed a chance to say whatever she wanted with no ears to hear… except those that she did not see, but hoped did hear.

This was the one place she felt her parents' presence the strongest… it was the one place she knew they could hear her.

She knew her father… to a point. And it was the same with her mother. She saw them in the Fade, but… they were distant, only watching her. They were a bittersweet presence, happy to be together… sad to be apart from her. It was sad for her too. She could tell that her father was a man of laughter and undying support; she would have had fun with him, amusement strengthened by his love, love that would always be there to encourage her when she needed it to. Her mother had a strong presence, strong and stubborn, yet… light too. Rose could sometimes hear a distant laugh when she acted like her father was said to be and knew her mother was amused to see the man she loved in the girl. She always wondered what it would really be like to have them standing with her…

Which was why she knew they could hear her here… because she was standing with them…

"It's sad though. Gwen isn't at home anymore and… I guess Castle Redcliffe isn't my home anymore either," she went on, her gaze lowered and hands clasped behind her back as she shifted her weight from one foot to the next. "So I won't see Uncle Eamon or Auntie Isolde much either. Uncle Fergus said he might be able to visit me more often though. And he promised today that I'll get your sword, Starfang, Mama. I hope that's okay. And I hope I can be as good as you were…

"Uncle Fergus tells me that I'm doing as good in my studies as you did, Mama. And Uncle Eamon say that I'm as good with history and lore like you, Papa. I guess I should stop worrying, like they tell me. But…

"I'm scared. I'm scared to be a princess.

"Eamon said that's okay because you were scared too, Papa… scared to be king. But you got strong and said you'd be king when the time came… and he says I'll be strong to. And Uncle Fergus told me that you didn't like life at court, Mama, but… you wanted to be there with Papa and you said you would be queen…"

Her voice trailed off, as the tears she held back began to flow and she tried to wipe them away.

"I… I wish you were queen, Mama. And that you were king, Papa. Anora scares me. She doesn't like me, I know it. But I have to learn to be princess, Uncle Eamon says… and I only have eight years to learn. He says that I'll be Queen as soon as I'm an adult. I guess that's why Anora hates me. Because she's not really queen anymore. She's my regent after today. That worries me, but… I've been told I shouldn't be, because… I'm all that's left of Calenhad's line. She can't get rid of me…

"But… I wish you were here, not because I'm scare, but… I wish I really got to know you as my mama and papa. I know I'd like you and I just wish I could know that you would have liked me. I wish I could have spent time with you like Gwen got to spend with her mama and papa. I hate thinking that though because… it gets lonely then. And makes me sad… like now," she mumbled past the strong waves of tears, the sleeves of her dress gaining dark splotches where they gathered her tears and her eyes and cheeks red and swollen.

"But… Mama… Papa… I promise… I'll be fine. I won't let Anora ruin things for me. I'll be queen and I'll make you proud," she whispered, strength returning to her voice and her arms falling to her sides as she looked up again, ignoring the tears that continued to flow. "I'll be a legend too one day. So that you can smile proudly especially when… when we finally get to meet…

"I really want to meet you, Mama and Papa. I do.

"I love you… I wish you could be here today… I wish we could really be together right now…

"I know you love me too, so I don't wanna make you sad. So… I have to make you proud first and…

"Then I know we can be happy together."

Endnote: Neh... sorry if it was cliche to throw the daughter in. Like I said... it's like 'Don't Let Go' if Loghain wasn't spared and Morrigan's offer went unaccepted and Alistair died. So Rose and Alistea are pretty much the same person, different circumstances. Also... sorry about the name. I wouldn't have used it if it I didn't think it really did fit.

Well... I hoped you liked it... but I hope not to the point of begging for more to this storyline. It might be interesting to see what goes on as Rose lives with Anora and grows as a princess and may or may not end up having to fight Anora for the throne, as well as whatever legend she ends up forging of herself, but... there's no pressing desire for me to continue and I'd think this might be too confusing with my other stories, since most of the characters are named the same either in story or in my mind (if you didn't read 'To Survive,' you wouldn't understand why Eamon's daughter is named Gwenyth instead of Rowan... it's explained in the endnote of Chapter Three of that story).

Let's just say I like 'To Survive' and that's all I wish to focus on... so yes... the random thought for a one-shot is done so I'll be returning to working on 'To Survive's' Chapter Five soon...

R&R