A/N: I started this story for this year's NaNoWriMo, using my canon save from the game as my outline. The M rating is mostly for language. As always, Bioware owns everything; I'm merely playing in their sandbox. Massive thank-yous to so many people for reading, reviewing, and putting up with me in general since I started writing this on November 2, 2011: Brian, IntegraHawke, Lyall, Kris, Snarkoleptic, KnightofHolyLight, olivebg, Andy Lewis, fifespice, MorbidxxPassion, Talhiri, kaittybee, kdarnell2, Yuki-sama12, Meli, clutsy_gurl97, Anya Fira, Muirin, and Corker-and that's just the people that I actually know names or screen names for! You guys have all been amazing! 3

Epilogue

The Archdemon Urthemiel was slain just before sunrise on the second day of Solace, in the year 9:31 of the Dragon Age by the Grey Warden Lady Elissa Cousland, sister of Teyrn Fergus Cousland of Highever. For the first time in history, the Warden to strike the killing blow against an archdemon survived the battle.

The Grey Warden reinforcements from Orlais arrived two days later. The senior officers among them kept Elissa away from the rest of us for many days in debriefing, and the junior members that accompanied them oversaw the disposal of the Archdemon's corpse. In the end, it was agreed that Lady Elissa would take up the mantle of Warden Commander of Ferelden no later than the next First Day.

I remained in Denerim for many months following the battle, helping Elissa and our other companions to rebuild the capitol. Two weeks after the battle, the city was finally recovered enough that Alistair, bastard son of King Maric and winner of the Landsmeet that had taken place not a month prior, permitted Arl Eamon Guerrin to arrange for the lost prince's coronation. Alistair took his father's—and brother's—throne on the twenty-third day of Solace.

The reconstruction efforts continued through that autumn. Finally, on the first of Haring—the day of the Satinalia feast—King Alistair and Lady Elissa were wed, and she crowned Queen of Ferelden. In spite of the rude weather, the two toured the nation for the next several weeks. I accompanied them as far as Highever, and then I took ship from there and returned to Val Royeaux.

As for her majesty's actions after we parted ways: she and I exchanged letters at a somewhat regular interval for many years, though I fear the contents of most of those letters were pleasantries and idle chatter, and would be of little interest to this inquiry. What I do know is that as ordered by her Warden superiors, her majesty reported to the fortress at Vigil's Keep just prior to the first of Wintermarch, in the year 9:32 of the Dragon Age.

It was at Vigil's Keep that her majesty encountered the first of the sentient darkspawn. Her investigation of this new breed of beast took precedence over her original assignment of rebuilding the Order in Ferelden, though she did recruit some few individuals—including the son of the late Rendon Howe, who once held Vigil's Keep, and the apostate known as Anders. I do not know what motivated Elissa to spare the mage from the Templars that hunted him, but I do know from her letters that he proved to be a valuable ally as she tracked the leaders of the two new, warring factions of darkspawn.

After many months these new darkspawn laid siege to both the city of Amaranthine and the Warden's fortress, and her majesty was forced to divide her forces to protect both the townsfolk in Amaranthine and her recruits. Elissa led the defense of the city, while Anders and Howe oversaw Vigil's Keep in her absence. Both Anders and the Grey Warden known as Kristoff were presumed dead following the siege on the Keep; however, as you well know Anders later surfaced in Kirkwall.

Queen Elissa returned to Denerim for a time after the events in Amaranthine, and remained there for many months while Howe and the Keep's seneschal saw to the Order. Barely over a year after she first reported to Vigil's Keep, she received a letter requesting her presence in Orzammar. Her majesty confided little of the details of this trip to me, stating in her letters only that she was investigating a revival of golem research by the dwarves. She returned to Denerim again just in time for her birthday, which she shared with the Wintersend festival, on the first of Guardian, in the year 9:33 of the Dragon Age.

Whatever had happened in Orzammar, her majesty insisted on retiring from the Grey Wardens on her return to the capital.

I was in Denerim that spring, and it was the last time I saw the woman who had once been my closest friend. She left the city as a thief in the night on the twentieth of Cloudreach. My obligations prevented me from following after her, but shortly before Harvestmere I received a letter apologizing for her disappearance. She had returned to the capital again after making what she called a "pilgrimage" to Ostagar and the Korcari Wilds.

But one cannot be queen and expect one's travels to remain secret, no matter how much one wishes them to be. It is well known that her majesty visited the Circle Tower at Kinloch Hold following her trip to the Wilds, and she was seen again later returning to the Dragonbone Wastes near Amaranthine. Whatever Elissa was seeking on this pilgrimage of hers, she never confided in me whether or not she found it.

Over two years had now passed, and gradually the letters from Denerim became fewer and fewer. After the fourth year—9:35 of the Dragon Age—the letters ceased altogether. Everything else that I know is based on rumors that came out of Ferelden; that their majesties consistently failed to produce an heir, that tensions began to gradually rise again with the Dalish elves, and that King Bhelen in Orzammar had become a tyrant, dissolving the Assembly altogether.

At any rate, the last I heard of her majesty, Queen Elissa Cousland—"the Warden" as you insist on referring to her—she vanished from Denerim in 9:37 Dragon, while King Alistair was away in Kirkwall to meet with Knight Commander Meredith. I have since spoken to his majesty, and if Elissa left him any indication where she was going or why, he did not confide as much to me.

Leliana set aside her quill with a sigh, massaging her hand to prevent the cramps that always came with writing her stories, rather than telling them. She did not want to be doing this, but the order came from the Divine herself; who was she to argue?

The door behind her opened and closed, and the Seeker from Nevarra—Cassandra, Leliana reminded herself—peered over her shoulder at the tome on the table.

"You are certain this is everything? All you know of the Warden's activities during and following the Blight?"

"All that I can personally confirm, yes," the bard lied. Just because she was willing to help the Seekers find Elissa—to become a Seeker herself in order to do so—there was too much that she had been through with her friend to betray the deepest secrets they shared. She herself had no right to know some of the things that she did, things only the highest ranking Grey Wardens themselves knew.

Leliana understood why the Divine believed Elissa might be able to use her influence to prevent future bloodshed in the growing conflict of the Mage Rebellion. But she had no intention of betraying the trust of the woman who had saved them all, had saved her, by sharing what should not be shared.

Sometimes, she thought, a story is better defined by what is not told, than by what is.