Disclaimer: Bioware is the pond I live in. Characters, places and names in this are NOT mine. I borrowed them and I used them. Only the actual feelings described in this fic are of my own concoction.

"You use your heart as a weapon, and it hurts like heaven" -Coldplay

"Alistair will do it."

Those four words seem to hang like a poisonous mist in front of him. Full of spite, hurt and…yes, regret. Regret for the man he was, for what was being thrown aside, for what was happening and had happened. Regret even for his daughter.

His daughter. He would miss her he decided. He thought about her childhood. He had missed much of that. One day she was a small child and he left for Denerim. The next day she was a young woman and he had just returned. He should have been around more. He should not have imprisoned her for speaking out, no matter the cost to his pride. But she hadn't known what he had about Cailan and Eamon.

The elf's eyes narrowed in pity, rethinking perhaps? No. She knew this was what he would have done. After using her people to fund his civil war? Maybe he should have turned elsewhere for the money. He really didn't blame her for anything.

He thought about everything he and Maric had gone through. The constant fighting in the last years of the rebellion, the feelings for Rowan and hers for his best friend and, in turn, Maric's for the Orlesian elf, Katriel. Had he done the right thing in telling Maric about her? Was he right to have let the King do that to the woman he loved. Maybe, maybe not. If only he had allowed her to return after whatever she had gone to do, maybe she would have confessed everything; then again, she knew what he was doing. She knew he had ordered her to be killed. It was what she would have done, right?

And that was how he actually came to Rowan. The woman he had loved. Yes, he loved his daughter and her mother, but it hadn't been the same. He thought about that night in the Deep Roads. He thought about her wasting away before his and Maric's eyes. He thought about the strained relationship between Maric and her at first that turned into genuine love.

Then his mind turned to his parents. The mother that he barely knew now. He only had impressions of her hugging him close, murmuring in his ear as he had done to his own daughter. Her face just before she had been killed, screwed up in rage and pain, pleading for him to run. His father who had died days after meeting young Maric, lost and confused in the forest so many years ago. His father being knighted minutes before his death by the now-dead king. Finding the memorial years later with the old Chantry sister who had helped raise Cailan in his mother's stead. He missed them all so much. Maybe he would be seeing them soon.

By now, the sword was swinging close. It seemed to be moving in slow motion towards him.

He decided that maybe he should have ignored the ratty Howe. He was a terrible conspirator and wanted everything they worked towards for himself, not willing to share. He had been glad when the Wardens had killed Howe. Did that make him a bad person?

Overall, he was willing to say he had been a terrible person. Maybe he didn't deserve to die in honour like this, slain by an honest man to avenge another honest man. But then all of his achievements flooded back. Standing with Maric as he reclaimed his stolen throne; winning the terrible, bloody battle at the River Dain; meeting his dead wife; watching his daughter become queen; the arguments he won to save Cailan countless times in the beginning of the Blight. Those moments had to count for something, right?

He knew his beloved Ferelden and her people would be in good hands. He knew either his daughter would assume sole control of the throne or the blood of Maric would return to it. The look in the elf-Warden's eyes as she spoke the name of Maric's other son meant one thing, love. And that, he was certain, counted. Counted for much. Oh yes, Ferelden was safe. These young people would find a way for the country to come through its hardships.

He had looked after Ferelden for so long. Yes, he was leaving her. But that was something he could never regret.