This is the chapter with all of the feels, and you know how I can tell? I made myself cry multiple times writing this chapter. I just have a thing for heartwrenching innocent kids, I think. It was like when I wrote the Canas/Nancy/Hugh thing back in Anima’s Seal, but worse because LizZev is much closer to my heart than Canas. D: (sorry, Canas, you’re still cool) And yes, it’s extremely self indulgent, but hey, I hardly ever kill off my characters, even though I should probably. Unfortunately, my own feels only work on me once. If I read it in a year I’ll probably cry again. Also also I seem to have inadvertently set up a parallel to Dishonoured 2 here in a way.

Also for those of you wondering when I’ll ever finish WWADH a.k.a. the Awakening fic, since it takes place before this one… Soon? I’ve been trying, I’m still stuck on writing Kal’Hirol. I’d like to do that one next and finish it with November, and then I can start on Akuliina with December and finish all that by the New Year? Maybe? Tbh guys I’m flagging; this week has also been extremely busy (emergency last-minute Messiah performances tonight and Saturday! Whoo! also I took my car in to get the brakes repaired/replaced and found out there are more things wrong with it. Typical.) and I would like a break; I’m quite tired, not just of creating, but in general. Maybe clear some of those games out of my to-do list (and try not to write fanfics about any of them).

Part 2

Part 3

He woke to the change in Liz’s breathing beside him. The room was still pitch black, in the depths of the lengthening fall night. It was raining gently outside. Though he listened, he couldn’t hear if Armida had stirred in her room beside, so it wasn’t that which had awakened her.
He heard her inhale a little shakily and turned towards her. “Liz?”
“Mmph.” She was struggling with something, and losing the struggle, so he reached out to her, drawing her against him, wrapping her in his affection.
Her heart was beating fast and there was a faint tremour in her shoulders. “Liz, darling, what is it?”
She still had to brace herself before she spoke, and he waited patiently. “I had… a nightmare.” She paused. He could guess what was coming next, but he still waited to hear her say it. It wasn’t true otherwise. “It was of an Archdemon. It’s coming for me.”
“No.” It couldn’t be coming for her. Most Blights had hundreds of years between them, the next Archdemon couldn’t have been awoken so soon.
“Not literally. But I think… this is the Call of the Grey Wardens.” Suddenly she tightened her arms around him and buried her face in his chest. “That’s not fair!”
It wasn’t. It was so not fair. They’d only had a decade together, Armida was only seven, and he still hadn’t gotten his fill of light blue eyes to gaze into and sweet soft lips to kiss. And she wasn’t done living, wasn’t ready to give up all that she had earned and won, he was dead sure. “How long is it?”
“Not long. A few months, I’m told. Why is it so soon? I thought I had a few years more.” He felt hot tears on his tunic and tilted her head up, kissing her fiercely.
She responded desperately, twining herself around him, trying to meld into him, as if he gave her life by contact. If only he could, he would give her all of it.
At length, she relaxed, her energy spent for the moment, and he cradled her, caressing her as her fingers traced patterns in his hair.
“What are you going to do?” he asked. She’d known this would happen someday, and she never didn’t have a plan.
“I’m going back to Ferelden,” she said without hesitation. “I know I don’t have to. I can reach the Deep Roads from here. But I want to. To see home again. To see my friends, my brother.”
“There isn’t any way around it, is there?”
“Not that I know of. And it’s too late to begin looking now.” She looked up at him, her eyes piercing his soul even in the dark. “But I wouldn’t change what I’ve done with my life. To spend this time with you, working with you, living with you, raising our daughter… That’s far better than to have spent this long toiling in search of a remedy that probably doesn’t even exist.” She was putting a strong face on it, but he could see her despair around the edges. “Oh, I want more time! I want to grow old properly, I want to see Armida become a woman, I want to- I want- I want more time with you both!”
“I know,” he whispered, kissing her again. “Should we tell Armida?”
Now she hesitated. “I would rather not. What do you think?”
“She should know.”
“That her mother is dying? That she’ll never come back? She won’t understand, not really. She won’t believe it. And if she does…” She paused, and they could both imagine – their daughter, her rambunctious, rascally energy dimmed, her bright laughter silenced. “But it would be traitorous and cowardly not to tell her. Maybe you’re right.”
“We’ll mention it,” he said. “She knows we love her either way. And she’ll be distracted by a family journey to Ferelden.” He smiled, trying to lighten the mood at least a little.
“You’re coming, too?”
“Of course.” His smile faded again and he squeezed her gently. “My darling shining Liz is not going on her last journey without her faithful assassin. No more Commanders and Grandmasters. Just a Warden and her shadow. Like how it used to be.”
He felt more tears fall from her eyes. “How can I ever love you enough, my dearest?”
“You already do, my darling.”

Armida ran the length of the ship, pointing at everything, chattering as if everyone was listening to her childish observations, and laughing with excitement. Elizabeth felt the need to intervene when she began trying to climb the rigging like the sailors. “Come away, you rascal. That’s their job.” It was nearly impossible to keep Armida from climbing things – ladders, bookshelves, trees, cracked walls. Zev was proud and called her “my little fledgeling”, though if she was being naughty it was “little monkey”. Liz was… less enthusiastic, but she didn’t discourage it entirely.
“We’re going to see your home, Mama! You’ve been away from it for a long time, right?”
“Since before you were born, sweetheart.”
“Do you miss it?”
“A little, but not so much. I have you, of course!” And her gaze drifted to Zev, and Armida’s followed, and his heart clenched at the sight of the two of them, mother and daughter, two pairs of blue eyes looking at him. Armida’s skin was a shade darker than Liz’s, her dark brown hair with no hint of silver flowing free instead of neatly pinned up, but she was an innocent young mirror of her mother. If he could capture this moment forever, he would be… well, less unhappy without Liz.
“Ferelden isn’t so exciting,” he said, coming up to kneel beside them. “It’s very muddy, especially since we’re going in winter. You’ll soon miss Antiva’s sunshine and flowers.”
“Ferelden doesn’t have sunshine?” Armida exclaimed, horrified. “How did you live?”
Liz pouted at her husband. “It’s not that bad. There’s sunshine. Sometimes.”
He smiled at her. “Mostly in your smile.”
“Flatterer.”
“But Uncle Fergus lives there, and he has two boys. I’m going to get to meet them, right? Right?”
“Right, and you’ll drive them all crazy, you scamp,” Liz said. “Be gentle with the furniture or you’ll upset Aunt Helen.”
“Yes, Mama.” And she went running off to look at something else, Elra surreptitiously following her.
“Don’t climb that!” Liz called after her.
Zev smiled and kissed her cheek. “As long as she doesn’t fall overboard, she’ll be fine. Every day I wonder if she is like you were as a child. You look so similar. And you’re both tomboys.”
“I was a great deal more serious,” she said. “She loves life more openly. My father spoiled me, like you spoil her, and he loved to laugh, and my brother loved to laugh – still does – but somehow I never quite took after them in that way. I was more like my mother, I suppose.” She was quiet, and he didn’t know what she was thinking of.

The dwarf-built walls of Vigil’s Keep rose tall and strong over them, the gates open wide. Zev looked around with interest. He’d heard all about this place, about its rebuilding and its besieging by the darkspawn, about the drama and intrigue that had swirled within its walls, but he’d never actually seen it before. It was proud and solid, a mix of dwarven engineering and Ferelden style, and he tried to ignore the feeling that he was being trapped inside.
He was never truly trapped anywhere. He was over forty and still one of the most agile Crows in the business. If he was attacked – or if Armida was attacked – he could scoop her up and get her out of there, through a window, over a wall, somehow.
But he wouldn’t be attacked here. Nate Howe was the Commander, a good friend of Liz’s, and she had many other friends here. Maybe Alistair or Oghren would be around again, or even those he’d traveled with that year after the Blight: Rain, Sarah, Hannah. It was a little strange to be relying on her reputation rather than his own for once. Being the Grandmaster brought him fewer benefits in Ferelden. But he’d lived under Liz’s protection before, the last time he was in this country.
“What do you think, fledgeling?” he asked Armida. She was so bundled up in coats and scarves and mittens that her little nose barely poked out above them, and she still complained of the cold, completely unused to these temperatures. Liz seemed to enjoy it to some extent, somehow, getting excited about the light dusting of snow on the ground. Yes, Antiva never had snow ever, but still… crazy Fereldens.
“Big!” was Armida’s pronouncement. “Also very grey. They could have painted it. Or put in more plants.”
“I’ll let Nathaniel know,” Liz said dryly. “There he is. Hello, Nathaniel!”
Nathaniel Howe was a tall man with a large nose and an attractively unkempt look, greying around the temples, with a warm smile for Liz, an adoring grin for Armida, and a friendly, curious look for Zev. Zev had one for him, as well. “Elizabeth! It’s so good to see you. When you wrote that you were coming to visit, I could hardly believe it. And so this is your daughter.” He bowed and shook Armida’s hand gently. “A pleasure to make your acquaintance, my lady. I’m Nathaniel.”
“Pleased to meet you, Ser Nathaniel,” Armida chirped. She remembered her manners that far, at least. “So my mama used to boss you around, right?” And there her mouth went.
Nate chuckled. “It’s entirely possible there might have been some bossing, yes.” Elizabeth raised an eyebrow, which only made him laugh more. “And you are Zevran. Good to meet you, at long last.”
“And you,” Zev said. “Call me Zev. May I keep calling you Nate?”
Nate winced. “If you absolutely must. I would prefer you didn’t.”
“Good, then I can really annoy you.”
“Why do you want to annoy me?” Nate muttered, confused. Truth be told, he definitely seemed someone who fit the name Nathaniel much better than Nate, now that Zev could speak to him in person. But that just meant it was a challenge.
“Why didn’t you paint the castle?” Armida demanded shrilly. “It’s so grey.”
“My lady raises an excellent question,” Nate said. “Shall we go inside and discuss it further?”
“Where’re the others?” Liz asked.
“They’re out on patrol. Don’t worry, they’re not going to miss you. They’d kill me otherwise.”

Late that evening, after Armida had been put to bed, a few of Liz’s Wardens convened in Nate’s office, what had once been Liz’s office. The mood was much less merry than it had been through the evening and at dinner. Zev leaned against the wall in a corner by the door, trying to stay out of the way. This wasn’t about him.
“I can guess why you’ve really come,” Nathaniel said, hands folded sombrely on his desk.
Liz nodded. “It’s difficult to be subtle about it.”
Sarah Amell-Tabris looked around with wide eyes. “Wait, about what? Why is everyone so quiet?”
Rain Tabris-Amell squeezed her wife’s hand, and for a minute no one spoke. No one wanted to say it out loud.
“I’m hearing my Calling,” Liz said, and Sarah’s big brown eyes opened even wider.
Alistair looked away, grimaced. “It hasn’t started for me yet. I’m just waiting now, now that you… I’d hoped…” He took a deep breath.
“Me too,” Liz said. “But that’s the hand I’ve been dealt.”
“And your daughter is so young…” Nathaniel said.
Oghren drank some more, as he’d been doing even more frequently all evening. “Eliza’s too sodding young. Look at you, you’re what, thirty?”
“Thirty-eight.”
“’Snot right. You ought to be shaking up the world another few decades.”
Liz managed a smile, especially for Alistair. “There was a time I didn’t expect to live another week. That someone would die to kill the Archdemon, and it would probably be me.” She turned her gaze to Zev, who remembered that time painfully well. They’d been so young. “I’ve come a long way since that night on the eve of the march to Denerim… I can’t complain about twenty extra years.”
“I can,” Oghren muttered. So could Zev. But he said nothing now.
“Don’t be too morose, please,” she said gently, and the dwarf lifted his head at her touch.
“Sorry, Eliza. Just can’t… can’t believe it. Won’t believe it. You’re not done yet.”
“My dreams tell me otherwise,” she said, resigned. “Too late to fight it now.”
She’d spent her whole life fighting. It seemed impossible that she wouldn’t fight this too. But she was afraid to sleep now. His brave, strong Liz sat up all hours of the night, postponing the moment when she’d have to close her eyes and face her monsters. And all he could do was hold her while she struggled in her dreams, and hope that she could feel him in the Fade.
“Does she know?” Nathaniel asked.
“Armida? She knows that I’m not well… She knows that I will leave her soon.” Liz shook her head, holding back tears. “I couldn’t bear to tell her I’m going to die. I know I ought to. I don’t know if she’s figured it out on her own.”
He laid a hand on her shoulder and squeezed, and she touched it with her own hand.
“This is getting too sodding sentimental,” Oghren complained gruffly, but there were tears in his own eyes. “Is it always like this when Wardens go?”
“Dunno,” Alistair said, sniffling. “All the Fereldan Wardens are so new. Elizabeth’s the first one- first one to go. I bet it is, though.”
“We went about it wrong,” Nathaniel said. “We should have kept it to the feast and not had this last- this reunion. Hannah and Sigrun had the right idea, to just go to bed. I’m sorry.”
Sarah went to throw her arms around her, but Liz put her away gently, lifting her chin the way she did when she was holding onto her pride and emotions. “Don’t be. I wanted to… to talk to you all again, without pretending that nothing’s wrong. Without avoiding this difficult conversation. Just don’t start a group hug, or I won’t be able to bear it.”
“Too late!” Alistair cried, taking it as an invitation and bear hugging her. Sarah was right behind him, and Oghren. Rain and Nathaniel were a little more reserved, reaching out to touch her arms where there was a space.
She was crying, inside that cocoon of warmth and love. There was no way she wasn’t. She was clinging to them, upset that they’d tipped her self-control, but grateful that they loved her so much.
Alistair, tears wet on his face too, looked over at him and raised an arm to invite him in. “You should join. Come on.”
Zev smiled and raised a hand in declination. “That’s all right. I can do that later. With fewer clothes involved.”
The mood instantly lightened a thousand-fold. “Good idea,” Oghren said. “Let’s do that now.”
The others broke into sniffly giggles. “Absolutely not,” Nate said sternly. “We’ve already seen you nude far too often.”
Liz finally escaped and slipped to Zev’s side, resting her head on his shoulder. “Thank you, my friends. The future of the Fereldan Wardens is in good hands.” For how much longer for each of those present, Wardens for twenty years or almost twenty years, no one could say. But for tonight, that didn’t matter.

Another day, another castle. This one was older and less grand than Vigil’s Keep, yet Liz’s eyes lit up even more gladly to see it, and so did her maid Elra’s. “Ah, Highever, dear sweet Highever! How well I remember you!”
“I remember walking past it once,” he said. “It was weather almost like this, too. You needed defrosting in the village inn.”
“Mm. And Huan wanted to sleep on the bed, Maker rest him.”
“Huan the dog?” Armida asked. “Can I have a dog, Papa?”
“You already have a dog, fledgeling,” he said. “At home in Antiva.” And a monkey from Seheron, and an Orlesian ferret, and a Tevinter parakeet.
“Yes, but he’s not a big brave Fereldan doggie!”
“Mabari,” Liz said. “They’re called Mabari.”
“Maybe Uncle Fergus will have some puppies,” he said, and Liz gave him the Look that said ‘you’re spoiling her‘. “They’re said to be extremely intelligent, and loyal no matter what. If I recall well…” with a smirk at Liz, “they’re worse trouble than your monkey. You think you can handle it?”
She straightened, lifting her chin in an exaggerated imitation of her mother. “Of course I can! I’m Armida Arainai!”
“That you are, sweetheart.”
“Of course, there’s always the possibility that Uncle Fergus doesn’t currently have puppies,” Liz put in gently.
“Darling, we’re in Ferelden. There are Mabari everywhere.”
Liz rolled her eyes and gave up.
“And here’s my long-lost sister,” Fergus said, meeting them under the gate. He looked old, a lot older than Liz now. “Took you long enough to get here.”
“My apologies for deciding to start a family,” Liz retorted. “Armida, this is your Uncle Fergus.”
“Pleased to meet you, Uncle Fergus!”
“And you as well, young lady. You look even more like your mother than I’d imagined. Thank goodness. Bryce! Nate! Where are you boys?” There was the sound of scampering feet, and two boys, one of them almost a young man, appeared around the corner of the Great Hall. “And here’s my lads. Bryce, my oldest; he’s about fifteen, and Nathaniel, he’s about twelve. A little older than your girl, but – boys, here’s Cousin Armida. Go show her around, would you?”
“Yes, Father,” Bryce said, bowing. “Please come with us, Lady Armida.”
“Don’t let her climb the good furniture,” Liz warned them.
Armida ran after them with a peal of laughter, her little boots flashing in a way that told Zev the boys would have their hands full.
Fergus frowned, looking after them. “Is that- is she carrying knives on her belt? You let your seven-year-old handle knives?”
“They’re not real,” Liz assured him, and the two of them shared a significant look of some kind that he couldn’t interpret.
“Yet,” Zev put in, and Liz swatted his shoulder as he smirked.
“Fair enough, with a bloody assassin for a father,” Fergus said shooting him a look. “Now let’s go have some tea. You’re late, Helen’s been waiting.”
“What was that about?” he asked Liz quietly as they followed her brother inside.
“When Oren was about Armida’s age, he wanted a sword as a souvenir from the Blight.”
“Ah.” She didn’t have to say any more.
“Fergus… looks so much like Father used to look,” she mused.
“A little more grey in your hair and you’ll look like Mother, so don’t give me that,” Fergus called over his shoulder, and Liz pouted.
They were introduced to Helen and served tea and sat down in nice chairs by a fire.
Fergus looked very directly at Liz. “Now, us Couslands aren’t known for subtlety, so I’m just going to come out and say it. You’re here because you’re not well, aren’t you?”
Liz looked a little surprised, but she nodded calmly. “I’m dying. I don’t look it, yet, but I know it as a Grey Warden. I… wanted to see home again, to show Armida a bit of Ferelden before I go. We went all over Denerim and Amaranthine City and Vigil’s Keep already.”
Fergus’s eyes narrowed. “And that’s it? You’ve just resigned yourself to this fate?”
“This fate was my doom since I became a Warden,” she told him, nettled by his disapproval. “There’s certainly nothing I can do to change it now that I’ve already begun to feel it. Only make the most of the time I have left. To know that I’ve had a much longer and fuller life than once I ever thought I’d have.”
Fergus fixed his sister with an unimpressed look. “That’s not your true feelings. Maybe you can hide it from your husband, but you can’t hide it from me.”
“Actually, she can’t hide it from me either,” Zev put in, irritated that Fergus thought him so blind.
Liz’s shoulders rose and she snarled. “No, I’m furious, and I don’t know why or who to blame. The Blights, the Archdemons, the ancient Magisters, the Wardens?” And that was a surprise – she was rightly proud of being a Warden, hadn’t complained about being forced into the order in years. “Should I blame the Maker Himself? What made this necessary? What made this right? It’s a good thing it’s tradition to go monster hunting when it gets to this stage, because I need to kill things.” Helen drew back, horrified, but Liz didn’t seem to notice.
Fergus side-eyed her. “What about Zevran?”
“Blame the one who gave me something to live for? No. Never.” She reached out and gripped his hand, and he squeezed it.
Fergus sighed, some of his true feelings breaking through, making him look much more old and tired. “I always thought I’d die before you. With my recklessness being equal to yours, but your swordplay superior to mine – yes, I can admit it now – or even just someone deciding that Teyrn Cousland was doing a shit job of ruling Highever…”
“You almost did go first,” Liz said quietly. “But you returned from the dead.”
Fergus offered her a sad smile. “Then maybe you will too.”
They all knew that wasn’t going to happen. “Maybe.”
There was a crash from outside the room, and a shout. Liz started to her feet. “What is she up to now?”
In the hall outside, Armida was hanging upside down from the top of a door by her knees, brandishing her little wooden knives at her cousins. “Haha! Got you!”
“Well struck, my lady,” Nate said, while Bryce rubbed his arm with a pout.
“How did she even get up there?” Fergus muttered, while Helen gasped.
“Armida-” Liz began, then stopped. There was no need to intervene; just children playing. And the boys weren’t being rough with the younger girl. “Don’t hit them too hard. Save that for the sparring ground.”
“Assassins don’t use the sparring ground, though?” Armida said. “We strike from the shadows. Hyah!”
Zev chuckled. “Best not to yell a warcry, then. But surely you’re joking, my little monkey? Mama and I fight on the sparring ground all the time.”
“Oh. Right.”
“Come on, then.” He scooped her up around the waist and set her gently on the floor again. “Go ask your cousins to show you how to fight Fereldan style.”
“Oh, please, would you?” Armida asked, clasping her hands together.
It seems Bryce and Nate were no more immune to big blue eyes than he was, because they acquiesced startlingly quickly.
Fergus watched them. “She’s so much like you.” And Zev couldn’t tell which of them he was talking about. “She’ll be safe here while you’re away.” He looked at Zev. “I assume you’re going with her to Orzammar.”
“I am.”
Fergus said nothing, only patted his shoulder in about the first and only gesture of camaraderie Zev had ever received from him.

The morning came for their departure. Liz went into Armida’s room and kissed her cheek, stroking her forehead. There was a look deep in her eyes that tugged Zev’s heart as he leaned against the doorframe.
Armida stirred groggily and opened her eyes. “You’re going away today, Mama?”
“Yes, I am, baby. Far, far away.” Liz kept her voice steady through sheer willpower. But she hadn’t called Armida ‘baby’ in years. “Papa’s coming with me. You’ll be safe with Uncle Fergus for a few weeks, all right?”
“You’re wearing your wood armour,” Armida said, and smiled sleepily. “You haven’t worn that in a long time. It’s so pretty.” She sat up and hugged Liz tightly. “Be safe on your mission, Mama. I’ll be waiting.”
“I know, baby. I love you, very very much.”
“I love you too.” She kissed Liz’s cheek, and for a moment, it was clear Liz didn’t want to let go – couldn’t let go.
He shouldn’t be standing on the sidelines, watching like this. He stepped forward and wrapped his arms around both of them – both the girls he loved. And to think once he questioned what love was. Funny, what fatherhood did to a man. “I’ll take good care of Mama, don’t you worry, sweetheart. She loves you, and I love you, forever and ever.” There was always the chance he might not come back, either. This wasn’t a picnic. “You be a good girl, all right?”
“Yes, Papa. Yes, Mama. I love you both. Have a nice trip!”
He stood and gently drew Liz away, and she came with him. “We will. Sleep well, sweetheart.”

The journey to Orzammar was quiet. They were only waylaid by bandits once, and not by darkspawn at all. The dwarves at the gate recognized her, or her name and title, and when they learned her purpose there, they treated her with all honour, giving her a room to stay in at the Royal Palace itself. They dined with King Gotrak Harrowmont, son of Pyral Harrowmont. She was polite but distant that day, and he could guess she wasn’t in the mood to interact with people.
Her nightmare that night was worse than any before, and he didn’t know if it was because they were closer to the darkspawn, or closer to her doom, or both. All he knew was that she thrashed and cried out and didn’t respond when he tried to embrace her. Even her skin seemed paler, and she was sweating feverishly. She was suffering, and he was helpless. It was a feeling he hadn’t felt since… since before the march to Denerim. She would have died then, if not for a miracle offered by Morrigan. There would be no miracles this time.
She woke with a cry, almost slapping him in the face, and he seized the moment to pull her close. “You’re all right, mi amor. You’re safe with me.” For now. “It was only a dream.” A dream with terrible portent. “They can’t get you.” Yet.
“Zev,” she gasped, hopelessly, and he kissed her, kissed her hard, trying to keep the demons at bay one more time with his love, a love that was so strong, yet so weak against that darkness.
They ended up making love, with her on top of him. He found it hard to concentrate, had to focus on her sensation, even as he memorized her one last time – no, he couldn’t think of the word ‘last’. It was the last time, he knew, there would be no more after this, but he denied it, just for now, filling his mind instead with her. If he started thinking that way, he’d start to cry, and then she’d start to cry, and then they’d just cry and hold each other and not actually have sex, and they’d already done that a dozen times in the last couple months. So he focused on her, on how she felt around him, on giving her as much pleasure as he could, now that he knew her body inside and out. She was beautiful in every way, even more beautiful than she’d been as a sweet naive young woman, even – especially with all her flaws. Her scarred skin was satin-smooth under his touch, her honed muscles firm beneath that, the silver trickling through her dark hair shone in the dim firelight, the wrinkles still only just beginning to form on her face at the corners of her eyes and between her dark brows speaking to how much she’d lived and worked and laughed with him. But her light blue eyes were the same as forever, and he could melt in those like a bird in the sky. She traced his markings, on his face, his chest, his abdomen, ran her fingers along his collarbone and his ears, and he caressed her breasts, her hips, all her hollows and curves, thumbed delicately at her nub, listened to her gasps and moans as if he’d never heard such music before.
She tightened around him and cried out in ecstasy, her voice rich with a thousand different emotions, yearning, despair, hope beyond hope, but mostly her love for him that he reflected back to her, and he held her close, kissing her, feeling her beating heart and her warm breath, his own heart too full for words.

They took a rest at a crossroads, drinking deeply from their water. She was more dazzling in combat than ever, fierce and valiant and headstrong as she’d been twenty years ago, her sword Starfang blazing with the fury of a thousand thunderstorms. All her doubts and troubles and regrets were behind her; all that was left now was the heady rush of battle. He laughed at her, twirling his knives. “You’re too good. This whole ‘suicide by monster’ thing isn’t working out.”
She laughed at him too. Her skin was definitely paler, her eyes beginning to look sunken, but for now she was still his Liz. “Then we need harder targets. Let’s go find a broodmother to kill.” Her eyes lit up with determination. “Let’s find one that breeds trolls.”
He laughed, half in disbelief. “You never do things by halves, mi amor. Why not go find the next Archdemon, while you’re at it? Save the world from a Sixth Blight?”
She smirked and shook her head. “Even the darkspawn don’t know where the next Archdemon is. I might be half darkspawn by this point, but that doesn’t help. Besides, if I screw up, then there really will be a Sixth Blight, and then where will we be? Back at square one, only without me to save Ferelden and Thedas. Come on. There are darkspawn that way and I’m not tired yet.”
Maker damn it, he loved her. He loved her to the end and beyond.

When the end did come, it was quick.

He returned one afternoon when the air was just beginning to think of spring, when the crocuses were out in force and the snow was half gone. Starfang was slung over his shoulder, brought back to slumber until a future wielder should come to bear it. And there was a small dark-haired figure waiting for him over the gate, who disappeared when she saw him. A few minutes later she appeared in the open gate, running to him and flinging herself into his welcoming arms. “Did you miss me, sweetheart?”
“I missed you a lot, Papa! Bryce and Nate are nice but it would have been nicer if you and Mama were here too.” She looked down the road. “Where’s Mama? Is she coming?”
She didn’t fully understand yet, and he felt his heart break anew. But even now, he couldn’t give her the cold, harsh truth. “Mama’s not coming, sweetheart. She went to fight the monsters like the brave hero she is.” Not was. Is. And forever shall be. “She sent me back to take care of you, because she- she loves you with all her heart.” She doesn’t need me anymore. She’s free.
Serious blue eyes considered his words, and he caught his breath yet again at how much of her he could see in her. No, even without her, he’d never be alone.
“She’s being awesome somewhere else for the good of the world, right?”
He was wrong. She did understand, she knew, he knew, that she was never coming back. She’d seen the sword. And yet she was pretending, for his sake, with a courage far beyond her years. And that broke his heart too, even while it healed it.
He smiled. “Absolutely.”
“Okay. Then we’ll be awesome too, until she comes back.” She reached up, he knelt down to her, she planted a childish kiss on his cheek, and ran off back into the castle.
“Until she comes back,” he murmured, smiling.