Disclaimer: Bioware owns all, except what I most humbly create. While, at times, I will take verbatim from the game, I mostly use the events of the Dragon Age games, expansions and universe as a loose structure around which to construct my re-imagined tale. If you are looking for a strict canon piece, I have no desire to offend, and so I warn you upfront!

When reading this tale, I hope you can easily imagine it being told by the very best of storytellers in Varric (from DA:2). In my version of events, Varric meets "The Hero" (my Elissa Cousland) in Kirkwall during the time period of DA:2. I mention this only so that readers can understand his connection along the way, and so I don't have to mention and rehash it again and again as I make my way through the tale.

A/N: Welcome to Book Three! (For those of you following the full tale, there are two previous pieces that may make much of this easier to understand - though, I suppose they aren't really "required" as such - but, feel free to read them if you wish!)

Muse tune: Lost in Paradise by Evanescence

Thanks to my Lady Beta, artemiskat for cranking this one out so I could get it posted tonight!

Happy Reading!

-Frayed One

Chapter One: First Night in Purgatory

The knight had fallen silent on the last few miles of their journey into Vigil's Keep, and Elissa found herself wishing for the woman's voice and persistent lines of inappropriate questions with regard to the King if only to distract her from the turmoil within her own mind.

The grounds were devoid of activity when they reached the stable at the edge of the exterior walls, and Elissa was mildly concerned about the lack of any sort of guard activity – though they had arrived much later than she'd originally intended.

"I can stable your horse for you if you like, Commander." Mhairi offered, reaching over to take the reins from Elissa's fingers as she drifted through the corridors of the dusty stalls.

It felt like she was walking through a waking dream. Everywhere she looked was a memory – and not all of them were pleasant, she thought, looking into the dark stall where Thomas Howe had very nearly claimed her virginity years ago. An insistent nibbling at her shoulder forced her to turn around, and she found herself face to muzzle with a familiar face she'd never expected to see.

"Nocturne?" Elissa asked, reaching her hands out to stroke the stallion's long dark nose with tentative hands – as though he might disappear once she touched him, "I can't believe Howe kept you…"

She honestly couldn't. Rendon had done a very good job of purging all memory of Nathaniel's very existence from Amaranthine after he left, packing most of his things away in boxes and sending them off to be stored who knew where. It was part of what made it so hard to continue to visit the Keep once he'd left for the Free Marches, in spite of her desire to maintain a friendship with his sister, Delilah. Every time she came there, every time she saw how little of him remained within those walls - it made him seem less and less real. It became more than Elissa could manage, and so she simply stopped coming along when her mother and father would visit. The horse neighed at her softly, pressing against her hands to keep her stroking at his mane as she smiled softly at the memory of the last time she'd ridden him.

"What a beautiful horse!" Mhairi exclaimed, stirring Elissa from her musing and setting her face back to stone lest she give away her warring emotions.

"Yes, he is." Elissa answered, stroking his face one last time before moving them out of the stable and up the short path to the gates of the outer courtyard.

"Is he yours?" Mhairi asked, prodding as usual for answers that Elissa did not wish to give.

"No, he belonged to a… friend." Elissa replied, her eyes drawn up suddenly to the flailing form of a man rushing forward out of the exterior courtyard of the Keep. "Though… I suppose, at this point – that would make him mine."

Elissa could see the darkspawn trailing behind him, and so drew her weapons – sensing the young knight do the same – but she could barely read the taint within them… it was faint and distinctly hard to pinpoint, as though it had been purposely disguised. It made it difficult to determine number and power even for her with her amplified abilities.

Other than their unusual blood qualities, they seemed no more than normal drone level darkspawn – and thus were easily dispatched by Elissa, Mhairi and the newly arrived Keep guardsman. The man was absolutely drenched in tainted blood, and emotionally distraught as he continued to bash away at the skull of one of the nearby darkspawn with his mace long after he had stopped showing any signs of life.

"Guardsman." Elissa said, trying to get the man's attention but getting no response. "Guardsman! You can stop now, I assure you – that one is unlikely to ever get up again." She lay a soft hand on his arm, turning him to face her slowly.

"It's you!" the guardsman said, eyes going wide in surprise as he found her face within the shadows of her hood. "The Hero of Ferelden! Oh, thank the Maker!"

"It's Elissa, just Elissa… or Warden-Commander if you insist on giving me a title." Elissa replied, making a mental note to throttle Alistair when next she saw him for ever coming up with that stupid name.

"Y-Yes, Commander." the man replied, clearly uncomfortable with using something as casual as her first name when addressing her.

"Can you tell me where the other Wardens are?" Elissa asked, reaching out through her tainted blood and finding nothing but the faint footprints of these odd darkspawn. "I saw no guards or activity of any kind on our approach, which seems odd even at this late hour."

"There was someone right behind me a ways back," the guardsman explained, looking over his shoulder and back up into the outer courtyard. "He might have been a Warden, but I don't know… I-I heard screams and saw the people dying so I got out as fast as I could… b-but then I ran into these…"

"There are more spawn inside?" Elissa gasped, trying to keep the shaken man on track long enough to pry any useful information out of him that she could. "Have you any idea how many we're up against?"

"I don't know… hundreds maybe? I heard one of the Wardens saying they could barely sense them until it was too late… b-by then they were everywhere." the man explained, beginning to shiver as the light drizzle they'd arrived in turned into a full out rain.

"I need you to do something for me, guardsman… I'm sorry, I never got your name." Elissa said, trying to be as kind and encouraging as she could considering his fragile state.

"A-Aaron, Commander, it's Aaron." the man replied, starting to shiver harder in his light armor.

"Alright, Aaron, first – take this…" Elissa said, pulling loose her cloak and handing it over to the shaking man.

"B-but Commander, you'll have nothing to shield yourself from the rain… perhaps we can search in the stables for a blanket or something…" Mhairi insisted, eliciting a glare from Elissa in response to the suggestion that they should give the poor man a horse blanket.

"I'll be fine, Mhairi." Elissa hissed, wrapping the cloak around the man and fastening it at his neck. "Aaron here needs this far more than I, and Wade's armor is a great deal warmer than you'd imagine to look at it." Once she was done fastening the cloak, she patted the man's shoulders reassuringly and felt his shivering start to abate. "There! Much better. Now – I need you to go into the stables and take the horse in the back rear stall."

"Commander that's your…" Mhairi started in, again.

"Yes, Mhairi – I know that's my horse…" Elissa replied, glaring her into silence before turning back to the man and sighing and then finishing her request. "Take my horse and ride for Amaranthine as fast as you can. Rouse any guardsman you can manage, patrols along the way, bandits… I don't care – just get people back here to help us as quickly as possible. Do you think you can manage that?"

"Yes ma'am, I'll not let you down." Aaron said with a nod, smiling as he took off running for the stables.

Elissa watched him go for a moment, hoping that he would make it there safely. She was having a difficult time tracing the taint in any particular direction so there was no way she could determine if all of the darkspawn lay within the keep or if they had swarmed into the road behind them as well.

"Darkspawn launching a sneak attack… that takes thought, planning, actual… skill." Elissa muttered, mostly to herself though she did not pitch it low enough for the knight not to hear as she moved them slowly toward the open gates of the Keep's outer courtyard. "It's unheard of."

"Then what the guard said is right? You can't sense them either?" Mhairi asked, and Elissa could hear the fear in her voice at the thought that they would face a possible hundred strong army of the creatures at a substantial disadvantage.

"No, I can… but it's different than it should be, faint… almost like it's being hidden…" Elissa tried to explain, watching the woman's brow knit in confusion and not blaming her for the reaction - she'd looked at Alistair the same way once when he'd tried to explain without explaining. "It's difficult to describe to someone who doesn't know what it feels like in the first place. I'm sorry if I'm not doing a very good job."

"It's alright." Mhairi replied, sidling up to her where she leaned to peak through a gap in the outer fencing – counting the darkspawn lingering there in the courtyard. "I suspect if we make it through this, I'll know the feeling all too well soon enough."

"That you will." Elissa said, a quick low laugh offered in the near silence as they watched at least four drones and an ogre pacing about just inside the first set of gates. "This isn't a Blight… I don't understand how they can still be so organized…"

"You don't think there is another Archdemon already?" Mhairi gasped, eyes wide with fear at the very idea they could be facing another Blight less than a year after they'd ended the last one.

"No, if there was an Archdemon I'd know it…" Elissa said, realizing she was being cryptic but knowing she could reveal nothing else unless Mhairi survived her Joining and gained access to the full secrets of the Wardens. "But… something is leading them, that much is apparent – which is an equally - if not more - frightening thought."

She watched a little longer, tracking the patterns of the darkspawn moving inside long enough to learn their routines and formulate a battle strategy.

"Alright, it looks as though there are at least six drones and an ogre just inside those gates, pull the drones to you and I'll deal with the ogre." Elissa instructed, shifting in through the gate with the knight trailing behind her.

They battled through the outer courtyard, collecting the few guardsman who had managed to survive and dragging them along up the stairs to the secondary gates.

"Do you hear that?" Mhairi asked, and Elissa nodded – recognizing the unique hiss of a channeled spell being cast just beyond the closed gates.

"Get down!" Elissa yelled, watching the surviving guards scatter as she shoved Mhairi off to the side, barely managing to roll behind her quickly enough to avoid the main shower of splintering wood and flame that rained down upon them.

When she managed to get back to her feet, her ears were ringing from the impact and it took her eyes a second to focus on the Genlock Emissary standing at the rear of the group, grinning at them and starting to channel another massive fireball.

She rushed forward, knocking him to the ground with a shoulder tackle to his midsection that interrupted his cast and then silencing him permanently with a sword through the skull, as the guardsmen and Mhairi finished off the scattered Hurlocks that had accompanied him.

The upper level of the Keep's outer courtyard was much the same as the lower, swarmed with several groups of drones and a small handful of guards who were struggling to survive. They gathered up the new men, and dragged them along – finding a small group of servants, merchants and guardsmen that had already barricaded themselves inside one of the guard towers.

Many of the men were tainted and would not recover, but Elissa had no time to deal with that now. She and Mhairi helped the men to fortify the tower as best they could, giving instructions that they should remain there and admit any other survivors they sent back until the main Keep had been secured.

Elissa wasn't sure what she had expected to find when she rushed up the stairs into the interior courtyard of Vigil's Keep, but she was greeted with a sight much similar to the lower floors of the Tower of Ishal back in Ostagar. Bits of bodies were stacked in towering piles all about them - skinned, mangled, eaten... blood ran thick and slippery on the floors.

"Unbelievable!" Mhairi gasped, edging slowly into the room – overwhelmed by the carnage around them. "The whole Keep appears overwhelmed!"

"I'll admit, the odds of us finding the Keep proper brimming with people that've no idea what's going on out here seems… unlikely…" Elissa replied, kneeling down to inspect a few of the bodies and noting there were no Wardens among them.

"For the darkspawn to have ambushed the Keep so effectively… I had no idea…" Mhairi said, continuing to mumble before turning her wide eyes back to Elissa as though she had some answers. "A-are they even capable of such a thing?"

"If you'd asked me that a week ago, I'd have said no…" Elissa said, standing with a shrug and jogging up the stairs to the door that would lead to the raised area where the portcullis lever was stationed and kneeling down to inspect the lock when it wouldn't budge. "Now… all I can tell you is that, yes… it appears they are capable." She pulled her lock picks out of her hair, seeing Mhairi take up rear guard behind her as she worked the lock, punching the wood in frustration when it proved unpickable. "It's jammed, or broken… either way we're not going through there. We'll have to go in on the other side and work our way around."

Mhairi led the way up the stairs on the other side, and Elissa caught sight of something blurring in the periphery of her left eye just as she reached the door - shoving the last of her lock-picks into her hair.

"Cover your ears!" Elissa yelled, putting her hands up quickly and watching Mhairi do the same just before five shrieks – one an Alpha – popped into view around them.

"Ach… what an awful noise!" Mhairi complained, slamming one to the ground with her shield then running it through with her sword.

"Yeah, hurts the ears and stuns if you're particularly unlucky…" Elissa explained, slicing through a Shriek in front of and behind her as she spun with her blades. "Found that one out the hard way in the deep roads. One of my companions swears he still gets headaches from that swarm."

The two women shared a small laugh as they finished off the remaining Shrieks before pressing into the next room.

Elissa staggered back once inside, holding an arm up to brace against the wave of heat that hit them as soon as they opened the door. She could make out the vague silhouette of a man through her squinted eyes, clearly a mage from the great blast of flame pouring out of his fingertips and the rather large ornamental staff on his back. He stopped casting when the darkspawn in front of him creaked and fell dead, joining an alarmingly large pile of both spawn and Templar bodies already covering the ground at his feet.

"I… uh… didn't do it…" the man chuckled, wrinkling his brow and tucking his hands behind his back sheepishly after shaking the residual heat away from his fingers. "Well… I didn't kill the Templars, at any rate… these darkspawn…" He kicked at one of the corpses with the toe of his boot. "I'll gladly claim those."

"You don't seem all that upset about the Templars being dead, for someone who didn't do it…" Elissa noted, sheathing her blades and moving a bit closer to the man – noting that Mhairi remained in a defensive posture behind her – clearly unsettled to be this close to someone unsupervised using magic.

"Oh, I'm terribly broken up about them dying…" the mage drawled, rolling his eyes and tilting his head toward one of the bloody Templar bodies as he folded his arms across his chest – drawing Elissa's eyes to his exposed biceps… no mage she had ever known had been built like that. "Biff there made the funniest gurgle when he went down."

"It's nice to see that humor is helping you to properly manage your grief…" Elissa deadpanned, trying not to laugh as she wondered whether or not Biff had been the man's actual name.

"Oh, I know… I know… most people certainly must enjoy a good kick in the head to start out the day…" the mage continued, stepping over the bodies as he made his way over to them. "Me, I'm just so picky…" He reached out and took Elissa's hand, laying a lingering kiss on her knuckles with a grin. "You may call me Anders, my dear lady. I am a mage – as you probably know by now, and sadly, a wanted apostate."

"Anders… Anders… why does that name sound so familiar?" Elissa muttered, tapping at her bottom lip and attempting to ignore Mhairi's diatribe about why apostates would be at Vigil's Keep. "Oh! I remember now! I traveled with a friend of yours awhile back – briefly – elven fellow named Finn, always fretting about keeping his robes clean."

"Ah, Finn… I remember him. Haven't seen him in years. He was a bit of a neat freak." Anders chuckled, finally releasing her hand and looking her over properly – wondering what sort of woman would be traveling about with random Circle mages. "You weren't here when we arrived. I'm certain I would have remembered a woman as lovely as yourself."

"What is it about blonde men with earrings that makes them unconscionable flirts?" Elissa chuckled, smirking at the cheeky mage who only shrugged in response. "Regardless… I don't care what you were before I walked through that door, I only care what you can do for me now. Outside of that, if you aren't a darkspawn, you're free to go if you have nothing to contribute."

"Pretty and pragmatic… a striking combination…" Anders smirked, drumming his fingers against his arm and looking as though he was mulling over his options.

"Come or don't come – the choice is yours." Elissa said, shrugging and releasing her swords as she started to walk to the other door. "I've bigger problems than a single apostate run amok and little time to wait while you debate your options. I think our chances are better together than apart, but…"

"I suppose I could help you with the rest of these darkspawn…" came the mage's voice from behind her – she'd baited him, and he'd taken it just like she knew he would – though she tried to hide her smile when she turned back to look at him over her shoulder. "I'm no Grey Warden, but I can't say I'm too fond of them. So… what say we deal with them now, and we can talk about what comes after… after?"

"Well, come along then." Elissa snipped, doing her best to look like a stern matronly type though the twinkle in the mage's eye showed he wasn't buying it.

"Are you sure about this, Commander?" Mhairi asked, her voice an intentionally audible whisper as she explained her disapproval moving through the door behind Anders and Elissa.

"If there's one thing I learned during the Blight, it's take your allies as you find them. If I'd second guessed everyone I came across who turned out to be valuable to me in the end – we'd likely all be lost to the horde by now." Elissa explained, trying her best to be patient and remembering a time when Alistair had been equally upset with the idea of traveling with unchecked mages.

In the next room they found a lone servant, weaponless and badly bleeding as he cowered in the back corner where he was menaced by a group of three large Hurlocks.

"Well that seems a bit unfair," Anders muttered as they made their way up the small staircase to the area where the group stood. "He hasn't even got a proper weapon."

He tossed a cone of intensely cold spray in the Hurlock's direction and Elissa watched their motion slow and eventually come to a complete stop. She walked up to one, moving a tentative finger forward to flick at its nose and hearing a tiny tink, tink sound from her fingernail against the ice.

"Interesting…" she said, raising an eyebrow at the mage as Mhairi tried to calm the terrified servant trembling against the back wall. "How long do you suppose they'll stay like that?"

"The longest I've ever seen is about ten minutes, with vigorous reapplication…" Anders replied, smiling at her interest in and approval of his skills, "But you haven't even seen the best part. Go ahead, take a proper swing at one – or simply tap it good and hard on the head with the hilt of your blade."

Elissa lifted up her sword over one Hurlock's head, meeting the mage's eyes quizzically for a moment – but then bringing it down hard at his nod. As soon as the blade met the frozen top of its head, the entire body shattered into pieces scattering across the floor like large chunks of snow.

"Blimey but that's cool!" Elissa said, shattering the second darkspawn with a spinning kick to its midsection and watching it explode as well. "You… I like you…" she said, pointing a finger at Anders who beamed at the praise before going over to treat the servant's wounds and send him off to find the survivors Elissa had stashed away in the guardhouse.

Elissa paced restlessly. She could still sense no Warden presence within the Keep and the gauge she had on the number of darkspawn was mediocre at best. She had also noted that they'd still encountered no Warden bodies among the numerous corpses, which - added together - gave her an ever-increasing sensation of unrest.

"Where to, oh fearless leader?" Anders asked, walking closer to where Elissa paced.

Most of her face stayed concealed within the shadows of her cowl, but he'd seen and heard enough already to know he was interested – though, to be totally honest, all Anders really required to be interested at this point was a general tolerance for magic users and enough alcohol not to care about the other stuff. In his mind, she was already half way to perfection.

"We're going to need to head up to the ramparts and then cross to the other side so that we can get to the controls for the portcullis that bars our passage into the keep proper." Elissa explained, continuing to pace as she pressed out to the edge of her Warden abilities to sense what was up there waiting for them.

"And… what?" Anders asked, looking at the two doorways they had to choose from. "You don't know which way will take us there?"

"No, that's not a problem." Elissa chuckled, realizing no one with her now actually knew her history with the place and thankful for the lack of that distraction. "The door we need is right here."

"Well… what then? Don't tell me… you want to take a moment with a certain handsome apostate in that closet over there…" Anders said, watching her green eyes flash up at his mischievously as she tried very hard to pretend she didn't want to laugh.

"Tempting… but, no. What is it with mages and closets?" Elissa laughed, thinking back on the time that she'd found Godwin hiding in a cupboard during the whole debacle at the Circle Tower. "I'm trying to get a read on what's up there before we go charging in but… it's difficult. These darkspawn are different than those I'm used to."

"Different how exactly?" Anders asked, genuinely curious as she seemed intently focused on tracking whatever was above them – holding her hand out to press it flat against the wood grain of the door and closing her eyes to more easily direct her energy.

"It would be hard to explain it to you even if I could. Sadly – the Wardens aren't the sharing type when it comes to trade secrets… kind of a hush-hush lot we are." Elissa said, winking at him as she pressed open the door to the stairs and breezed past him. "But… I tell you what, my pretty little mage, if we survive this and get to the part where we talk about what comes later, perhaps I will get to explain it after all."

"Challenge accepted!" Anders replied, beaming as he bounded up the stairs behind her - listening to the disapproving sigh from Mhairi who brought up the rear.

Elissa's read had been all wrong, and it nearly cost the small group dearly when they found themselves surrounded by a large group of drones and one Alpha Emissary on the narrow rampart wall. The rain streamed down, soaking everything and making it even harder to see what was going on.

Elissa spent all of her time focusing on the Emissary, knowing that just his ability to cast made him a priority even when you put the whole Alpha status aside. She'd just assumed that it would make him an equally important target for everyone else, so spoiled by having fought alongside her former companions for so long they all knew exactly what she wanted without her ever having to ask – but, Mhairi seemed content to completely ignore the ugly little brute in favor of the little peon grunts who shouldn't have taken up as much of her time as they were anyway.

She tried not to get frustrated, reminding herself Mhairi was new to this and she'd only met Anders a few moments before – but found herself seething by the time she managed to finish off the Emissary, thanks to a particularly well placed Glyph of Paralysis she reminded herself to thank the mage for later.

She knew better than to unleash her temper now, the fighting and the unease that came with being thrown into a situation with which she was uncertain where she should have been in charge had woken the beast that lived within her and she struggled to keep it under control until she could find a way to discretely take one of the potions Avernus had given to her.

She found the perfect moment on the way down the stairs, drifting to the back of the group just long enough to toss one back and willing it to do its job and quickly before she snapped off the pretty little knight's head for no reason other than testing her patience.

"Well, there's your lever." Anders pointed out, smirking at her.

"What, you aren't going to pull it?" Elissa asked, rolling her eyes that he'd actually stand there and wait for her or Mhairi to do the heavy lifting.

"Was that an invitation, my Lady?" Anders snickered, silencing quickly when both of his female companions glared over at him before Elissa grabbed and tugged the rusted switch roughly to the side.

The portcullis ratcheted up slowly, the old mechanisms inside it working hard against the long period of disuse between that moment and whenever Rendon Howe had last used them. Elissa began to stroll toward the door they'd tried to enter from the other side when she caught the movement and sound of a large pack of darkspawn rushing forward from inside of the Keep toward them.

"Watch yourselves!" Elissa cried out, pulling loose her swords and watching her companions ready themselves as the Emissary leading the group on the floor began to channel some sort of spell.

She prepared to toss herself over the side, hesitating when a lone dwarf appeared from the doorway on the opposite landing, yelling a profanity laced taunt down at the darkspawn and drawing their attention just long enough to set off whatever explosives he had planted down in the entry way.

The blast was massive and the shock wave sent all of them to the floor, Mhairi scurrying over to try to help protect Elissa's head from falling bits of the walls and darkspawn with her shield. They pulled themselves up slowly afterward, ears ringing from the echo of the blast.

"Well, I suppose that's one way to deal with them." Elissa yelled, poking her fingers about in her ears and trying to get the ringing to stop as she looked down and noted not a single darkspawn had survived the blast. There was no sign of the dwarf either, and Elissa wondered if he'd managed to survive himself, as she made her way to the door that would lead them down the stairs and up into the Keep proper.

"Looks like they tried to bar the door." Mhairi yelled, all of them struggling to hear each other over the ringing, until Anders cast something that seemed to fix it.

"What?" Elissa yelled, covering her mouth and chuckling when she realized she was still yelling and didn't need to. "What was that?"

"Uh-uh." Anders said, shaking his head as he helped them clear the tables and chairs away that had been blocking the door. "You have your secrets, I have mine. Perhaps, as you said, we will trade them later."

Elissa laughed, popping down the stairs at a decent pace and hoping that they would keep up with her. She could sense something in the entry room ahead but, just like before, could make little sense of the patterns in it. The not knowing made her nerves all twitchy and she didn't like it. It pressed her to move faster to find an answer or a solution – and she found herself wishing that Alistair were there to help her to puzzle through it.

"Emissary!" Elissa yelled as they burst through the doors and found themselves facing six drones and the single caster.

She pointed this time, in her mind clearly designating it as the primary target, but – once again – Mhairi ignored the directive and started to engage the closest drones as she entered the room. This left Anders wasting his mana healing all of them when Mhairi would lose one that would run over to smack at him, or she would get overwhelmed by drawing the full force of the drones down upon her when she was unprepared.

Luckily, Elissa was well versed in fighting enough at this point to avoid taking very many blows of her own so she did not add to Anders' difficulties – though, she did find herself spending half of her time tossing distracting blows at whatever had gone after him in the hopes that perhaps she could kill it quickly and get Mhairi refocused on the actual target faster.

When they finished off the group, Anders needed a moment to recuperate and consume a couple of lyrium potions – which Elissa gladly gave him.

They found another member of the surviving Vigil staff in the next room, blocking the vicious blows of two Hurlocks and another Emissary with what appeared to be the lid of a wooden crate.

"Mhairi, take out the Emissary first!" Elissa instructed, certain that this time she had been perfectly clear with what she wanted – but watching as the knight stopped and smacked at the two Hurlocks first – the action giving the Emissary just enough time to cast a paralysis spell on Elissa.

As she dangled there in the air, spine wrenched backward painfully and unable to move, she counted all of the ways that she'd like to inflict bodily harm on the woman once she got free from the spell. When she hit the ground again – she hit it running, venting all of her fury on the unsuspecting Emissary who'd turned his back to her after catching her in the spell.

She landed on it hard, her body weight knocking it to the ground and she used the momentum of the motion to pop its head off against her blade. The action sprayed a great gush of blood forward against Mhairi's shins, and she jumped out of the way looking both disgusted and fearful as a panting and furious Elissa stood to face her.

"Did you not hear me specifically say to take out the Emissary first?" Elissa asked, wiping off her dripping bloody blades and sheathing them just to stay her hand from striking out against the woman in her fury.

"I-I did but… I only thought that I should disable the other two before they could harm the servant." Mhairi muttered, uncertain what to do in the face of this.

"You're lucky all he got off on me was a paralysis spell. Emissaries are dirty little bastards with all sorts of nasty tricks in their arsenals." Elissa continued, crossing her arms and glaring at the woman – watching the motion of Anders tending to the survivor out of the corner of her eye. "When I give you an order, you follow it – regardless of what you might think is the better option."

"I-I'm sorry, Commander… I didn't think…" Mhairi replied, swallowing hard.

"You didn't, and that's a problem. This is no test, no training exercise with a safe word should you get in over your head. These things can and will kill you if given the chance." Elissa lectured, pacing in her frustration and watching both Anders and Mhairi watch her in trepidation – having long since sent the poor servant on his way. "General rule of thumb, for future reference, casters are always priority."

"So, you think magic is dangerous?" Anders asked, his own temper peaked in response to her behavior. She'd seemed so open to him before.

"Magic is dangerous, Anders – it's the user that makes the difference." Elissa explained, realizing how she'd sounded. "Look… I'm sorry for yelling, and we can argue magic theory and the proper treatment of mages until the cows come home, once we've cleared the Keep… but I need to make this point very clear for now… so are we good?"

She looked from one to the other, nodding when she was confident they had accepted her capitulations and her orders for the moment, then pressing forward into the next room.

They rescued another survivor in a lengthy battle with an Alpha Emissary and an Alpha Hurlock, which went much better than Elissa had anticipated now that all of them were on the same page in the whole "take the caster down first" directive, then made their way forward to the large central chamber of the Keep's labyrinthine entry way. Elissa stopped them just outside the door, the noise alone making it clear there was a great battle of some sort going on inside.

"Is it another Warden?" Mhairi asked, creeping closer to the door with Anders to try and hear what was going on inside.

"If it is I can't sense them." Elissa replied, preparing to kick it open. "Ready?"

With their nods she busted open the door, charging through to find a swarm of darkspawn trampling across a slew of fallen drone bodies, beat down on a lone dwarf. Elissa laughed out loud when the familiar red head popped over the balcony for a brief second and tossed a wave in her direction – feeling at ease for the first time since she'd arrived.

Once the rest of the bodies had fallen, Elissa crossed her arms and looked up at the smiling dwarf who leaned across the balcony to look down at them.

"It's about time you showed yourself!" Oghren quipped, unable to hide the joy in his voice at seeing his old friend once again. "When these critters showed up I told them just you wait 'til the Commander shows up and you'll all be spittin' teeth out your arses!" Elissa and Anders erupted into laughter at that though Mhairi simply glared in disapproval. "Followed the screaming trail of blood and guts, and sure enough, here ya are!"

"Oghren, you old dog! I can't believe you're here!" Elissa replied, her laughter trailing off as she looked up at him with genuine affection.

"Doubting your eyes, huh? I get like that after the fifth bottle or so…" the dwarf chuckled, taking a pull from his flask and offering it to her – which she accepted with a grateful smile. "I came here thinking I might look you up, try my hand at becoming a bona fide Grey Warden."

"He was here when I left." Mhairi whispered to Elissa, clearly not picking up on the vibe that should have made it blatantly obvious that not only did her Commander know this dwarf, he was a good friend. "I can't believe the other Wardens didn't kick him out."

"Hey! Look! It's the recruit with the great rack and not much else going for her!" Oghren snipped, causing Elissa to snort a bit of alcohol as he echoed, almost exactly, her earlier lament on the knight to her brother.

"Yes, a prize for the Wardens to be sure…" Mhairi replied, rolling her eyes.

"I know, I know… I'm too good to be true, right?" Oghren replied, sharing a wink with Elissa and patting himself on the chest. "Hey… where'd you find a mage? Is he your boyfriend chesty? Should I leave you two alone?"

"Oghren…" Elissa warned, though her smile wasn't too disciplinary as she climbed the stairs to hand over his flask, knight and mage in tow.

"Wow… a dwarf that smells like a brewery…" Anders said, waving a hand in front of his face as he got within range of Oghren whom, Elissa admitted, was very drunk. "You never see that anywhere."

"Huh. A mage comedian…" Oghren retorted, not missing a beat. "I thought those normally died young."

"It is good to see you again, old friend." Elissa said, dipping down to plant a kiss right smack in the middle of his forehead – which he wiped away in feigned irritation a moment later.

"I find that hard to believe…" Anders muttered to Mhairi, watching the joking pair in front of him.

"As do I…" Mhairi replied, agreeing with the mage for the first time since they'd met.

"So, what'd the old pike-twirler have to do to get'cha here?" Oghren asked as they walked along the hallway that would lead them to the next part of the Keep.

"Pike-twirler?" Anders asked from behind them.

"You don't want to know…" Elissa assured him, patting Oghren's shoulder to silence him as he started to explain. "And, to answer your question, Alistair didn't do anything… it was more of an explicit and vaguely threatening directive from the First Warden."

"Wait, wait, wait… Alistair as in King Alistair?" Anders asked, feeling as though he'd missed part of the conversation somehow.

"That would be the one." Elissa replied, laughing lightly.

"So you actually know the King?" Anders asked, unable to wrap his mind around it.

"You could say that." Elissa chuckled, continuing to be cryptic – watching Oghren start to open his mouth and silencing him with a glare. "Not a word, dwarf!"

"I'm missing something, aren't I?" Anders asked, feeling like he was the only one in the room that didn't get the joke.

"She's to be the Queen you idiot." Mhairi hissed, glaring at him and hoping he felt appropriately bad for having flirted so much now.

"Riiiiight. The bloody Queen of Ferelden is down here fighting in the trenches with a bunch of nobodies!" Anders snorted, shaking his head.

Mhairi started to respond, but stopped when a fallen figure at the bend in the hall caught her attention – sending her brushing past Elissa and Oghren to drop on her knees at the man's side.

"Rowland!" the knight yelled, leaning forward to inspect the vicious gash across the man's midsection as the others fell in behind her – Elissa kneeling down at the man's other side.

"Mhairi?" the man muttered, trying hard to focus on the faces in front of him.

"Commander! Rowland was a knight recruited from the King's service in Denerim just like me…" Mhairi explained, moving back to give Elissa time to inspect the man's wound before she waved Anders in to give his opinion. "We must do something for him."

"He's beyond healing magic…" Anders said, shaking his head and backing away when Elissa's nod showed she agreed with the assessment. "Maybe a shot of whatever's in the dwarf's flask for the pain?"

"Stop joking! This isn't funny!" Mhairi yelled, her emotions getting the better of her as tears started to well in her eyes.

"C-commander…" the man sputtered, a fresh bubble of blood dripping down his chin.

"I'm here, Rowland." Elissa said, moving closer and taking both of his hands – pulling his focus onto her. The taint had infected him fully now, he would not last much longer before he died a painful death or worse, turned into a mindless ghoul. "I'm sorry I didn't come sooner."

She was sorry, so incredibly sorry. All of these deaths were on her head and she knew it. She'd put off coming here over her own personal fears instead of doing her duty as her father had always taught her to do and now these poor people were paying for her mistake with their lives.

"We only had a moment's warning before they were on us, Commander." the man explained, his eyes bleary and unfocused – swimming with the tendrils of the taint. "The Seneschal ordered a counter-attack, but they came out of nowhere! There's one with them… a d-darkspawn who talks… his magic is powerful."

"A talking darkspawn?" Oghren said, drawing Elissa's eyes up to his own and noting the confusion there. "The poor lad must be delirious."

"It took the Seneschal up to the ramparts… I heard it talking about it." Rowland hissed, curling in on himself in anguish. "Augh. There's something in my blood! It hurts!"

Elissa pulled one of her hands loose, reaching to her thigh to unsheathe her dagger.

"What are you doing?" Mhairi hissed, reaching over to stay Elissa's hand with a painfully tight gauntlet at her wrist.

"I'm offering this man a mercy few in his condition are lucky enough to receive." Elissa explained, thinking of the many individuals they had encountered who had suffered similar fates.

"It's okay, Mhairi… I'm not going to get better…" Rowland said, his words enough to have the pretty knight release Elissa's arm, though she glared at her still. "It was an honor to have met you, Commander. I only wish I could have fought at your side just once."

"The honor was mine." Elissa said, smiling softly before she leaned in to draw her blade across the man's throat – allowing him to lean into her shoulder as he pulled in his last choking breath. "I'm clearly not worth knowing."

She sat for a moment, the cooling body leaning on her shoulder as she stared at the bloody wall behind him. She settled him back finally, gently laying his head to the side and giving him the appearance that he was merely sleeping off a drunken night there in the hallway. She punched the wall then, anger and sadness warring for control as she pushed herself to standing once again, sheathing the dagger back at the side of her thigh.

"This isn't your fault." Anders reassured her, reaching over to lay what he thought was a comforting hand on her arm.

Elissa snatched her arm away from him, not even bothering to look back as she stomped off down the hall in search of something on which to vent her frustration.

By the time the others had caught up to her, Elissa had already barreled ahead down the hall leaving a trail of headless corpses in her wake. Out of the group, only Oghren didn't seem to be phased in the slightest by the vicious silence within which she now carried herself – executing darkspawn after darkspawn with bloody precision.

"Is she… alright?" Anders whispered to the dwarf, pitching his voice low and watching Elissa cautiously in case he needed to run if overheard.

"Are you kidding?" Oghren snorted, tossing his battle-axe back on his shoulder. "Just stay out of the way and keep your mouth closed. All this means is we get wherever we're going in record time."

The dwarf was right, it took very little time and even less effort on the part of everyone but Elissa to have them charging up the stairs that would take them to the battlements where the dying knight had directed them to find the talking darkspawn.

Elissa didn't even bother with stealth or observation, striding angrily toward it as it rattled off some diatribe she couldn't have cared less about to its minions. She vaguely noticed its distinct armor and heard it mutter something about taking the Warden alive before she shoved her blade through its approaching minion and engaged it directly.

Elissa trusted that the drones would be taken care of by her companions, focusing all of her energy and anger in on the speaking darkspawn who was clearly the one calling the shots.

"What sent you?" Elissa hissed, blocking a blow with her crossed swords and shoving it off balance against the edge of the nearby ballista. She'd lost lives, lives of people under her care – under her protection, and something was going to answer for it.

"The Withered is telling you nothing, Warden-Commander." the creature cackled, watching Elissa's eyes go slightly wider when it used her proper title though she'd never laid eyes on it before. "Oh yes, we are knowing of you…"

Elissa slammed it back against the wood again, knocking loose its blade and shoving the point of hers through its shoulder right at the joint – twisting it once inside to ensure it was as painful as possible.

"I'll ask you one more time…" Elissa sneered, leaning in close to it – her nose inches from the skeletal remains of what had been its nose. "Then… off with your head."

The creature hissed, reaching up to take the blade in its hands and pulling it further into its body with a grin. Realizing she would get nothing, Elissa made good on her promise – dipping back quickly and slicing her other sword across to remove its head – closing her eyes as the blood sprayed across her face.

When its body fell limp to the ground, she knelt down and tore loose a swatch of purple fabric from its armor – using it to wipe most of the blood from her face and a good bit from her swords before sheathing them and returning to the group.

"Anything?" Oghren said, wondering if the creature had given her any useful information before she'd taken its head.

Elissa shook her head in response, working her way over to where Anders and Mhairi knelt treating the injured Seneschal.

"How's the patient?" Elissa asked, her temper evening out a bit though the muscles flexing in her jaw showed the skittish mage that she was still riding the edge of her tempestuous moods.

"Minor injuries all things considered." Anders replied, meeting her eyes with a half smile as she helped the man to his feet.

"It is an honor to finally meet you, Commander." the Seneschal said, offering her a light bow.

"Why do people keep saying that even though it was my hesitancy to come here that lead to this disaster?" Elissa said, shaking her head.

"Be that as it may…" the man replied, seeing the subtle head shake of the dwarf who stood behind her and the looks in the others' eyes and gleaning enough to know that challenging her on that belief was not a good idea at the moment. "I suspect I at least owe you my life."

"How about you tell me what you know about this mess and these talking darkspawn, and we call it even?" Elissa said, shaking the man's hand and watching him look out over the road where she saw a flash of movement herself. "Looks like that rider we sent came back with someone after all." she noted, watching the rest of the group move in at her sides to get a look.

"Those are the King's banners!" Mhairi gaped, clearing her throat and trying not to look quite so excited when Elissa glared at her.

"Well… best we go say our hellos then…" Elissa replied, popping back down off the edge and leading the group back down to meet them at the stables.