Rated for: Safety (because I'm a tad paranoid) M

Spoilers for: if you haven't finished the game

Other notes: More or less Kallian's POV this time – just because that was how the ending sketched itself out.

If anyone suspects the unconventional relationship between the four of them, Teagan, Alistair, Anora and herself, their whispered comments take care to steer clear of their ears. Or perhaps, Kallian thinks, Alistair and Anora have proven such a formidable pair that the nobles daren't whisper of their suspicions.

Certainly, when Anora gives birth to a son with black hair – both she and Alistair are blond – there are mutters and dark glares in Teagan's direction. But Teagan blithely ignores them, and Alistair makes no secret of his delight as a father – whether he truly is the father or not. Besides, the nobles have already learned that a happy king is one less likely to make such proposals as giving the lands of the next noble to annoy him to the Dalish elves – a threat not carried out, in the end, but a threat that was made nonetheless.

For herself, Kallian doesn't care if Teagan – as she and Anora suspect, though they never discuss it with their respective spouses – is Duncan's father or not. They have already discussed the potential issues of their peculiar relationships, and it has been agreed that any children will be raised as the children of all four of them. Confusing, perhaps, but the only practical solution in both short and long term. It would not, after all, do to have a 'political' marriage between the heir of Highever and the Theirin heir to result in the marriage of half-siblings.

Not a month after Duncan is born, Kallian, after a long, hard labour, is delivered of twins. But there are complications, and though the healers save her life, Kallian is bluntly told that she will have no more children, taint or no. Though the news saddens her – and in turn Teagan, Anora and Alistair – they are all grateful for the twins the Maker has blessed her with.

She names the boy Rogan – not only for his reddish-blond hair, but as a subtle tribute to Riordan and, though Alistair grimaces to hear it, Loghain. The girl she names Wynne, in honour of their now-deceased companion.

All three children are raised as siblings, growing to become fine youngsters, and then confident, respected adults.

Some twenty years after the Blight's end, Alistair and Anora abdicate in favour of 'their' son, Duncan. He quickly proves that he is every bit as formidable as his parents, and the nobles give a collective shrug of dismissal thereafter whenever a foreign ambassador is ingenuous to mention the curious fact that his parents are both blond, but his hair is dark as his namesake's.

A few months later Anora nominates Wynne as her choice to become Arlessa of Denerim. At the same time both Teagan and Kallian step aside from their roles as Teyrn and Teyrna of Highever, passing their mantle on to Rogan.

There is very little surprise when Kallian – still Commander of the Ferelden Grey Wardens – invites Alistair and Anora to take up permanent residence at Amaranthine with her and her husband. They accept, and it comes as no surprise to the Grey Wardens – who have been playing host to the couples trysts for the last nineteen years or so – when all pretence is dropped.

It is right, somehow, that the two Grey Wardens who saved Ferelden from the Blight should have some measure of reward. True, they have never truly lost one another after those first terrible months, but now they do not need to fear indiscretion weakening their rule.

Now Kallian can walk Amarinthine's stone corridors at Alistair's side, his arm wrapped snugly around her waist in a way that makes people wonder whether the gesture was first his, or Teagan's.

Now Anora and Teagan can dance through the rose gardens – chores are a good way of building discipline, and Kallian has never told anyone otherwise, though Alistair of course knows the real reason for their existence – Anora giggling like a girl half her age as Teagan flirts with her outrageously, for all the world as if they were young lovers courting.

Alistair and Kallian have ten years.

Ten good years.

The Calling comes at last, but Alistair and Kallian do not set out with heavy hearts. Instead, their farewells said, they travel with their memories to Orzammar, accompanied only by the ghosts of their companions.

The dwarves greet them like royalty – a far cry from the scenes that met them when they first came to Orzammar – and they find further contentment in just how far they have to travel to reach the untamed Deep Roads that are their destination.

When the fighting begins it's familiar, almost dreamlike. They have been transported back in time nearly thirty years, and though this time they will not be leaving again, it is right that this is so. No confusion of the mind can disguise the fact that they have aged, the edge of their blades, honed during the Blight, now blunted.

Still deadly, for all that.

The darkspawn do not take them down easily.

Once, Kallian had made Alistair swear that he would ensure she died rather than let the darkspawn drag her away and make her something too sick to contemplate. But the taint cannot heal that which the healers could not heal. She is truly barren – an unwitting victory, but a victory nonetheless – and perhaps they can sense it, for the darkspawn try as desperately to kill her as Alistair.

Try and try, and fail and fall.

But they are only two, and the darkspawn are many, and there is no Blight – the Deep Roads still beyond the control of the dwarves teem with a horde easily the size of the one that rampaged across Ferelden.

She doesn't know which of them falls first, only that they are suddenly separated, no longer back to back, and pain seems to erupt everywhere simultaneously. As the spear is wrenched from her spine, she crumples to the ground, a blow that should have crushed her skull instead glancing across her temple. A sharp projection snags in her skin, tearing, and the scream that rips from her throat as half her scalp is torn away momentarily silences the baying darkspawn.

Half-blinded by the blood pouring down her face, paralysed from the waist down, Kallian finds a dagger under her hand and twists, driving it into the foot of the nearest darkspawn with a savage snarl.

She thinks of the archdemon and the Blight they ended.

She thinks of all the darkspawn she and Alistair have killed on their way to this, their last stand.

She thinks of their children, and the Grey Wardens restored, and the golden future they have nursed from the ashes of near destruction.

And the last expression on her face as the world turns forever dark, is one of triumph.

AN: bleh…I think writing the first part of this mostly fried my brain and this part just finished it off. I've no idea how/when Alistair dies…presumably just before/as/after Kallian dies.

Right…I can sense at least one 'inevitable' question – why a subtle nod to Riordan and Loghain? Well…he was Anora's father, and he was a hero in his own right (until, for whatever reason, he betrayed Cailan etc.). The nod to Riordan should be fairly obvious – the guy grounded the archdemon so they could kill it (although he could have grounded the damn thing somewhere more accessible…honestly, getting two ending achievements was bad, I'm going to start screaming IRL on number three and four…)