Wrote a short story tonight about Liz’s search for personal identity. Haven’t forgotten about WWADH, just been busy finishing up work before the December break, choosing, making, and sending presents (and Christmas cards), and playing Bioware games (ME1 and Jade Empire!).

I could have put this story in the main fic at some point, but I figured the chapter outlines were full enough and didn’t need another two pages of filler. So here: a short fic set at an undefined time (anytime after the Noble Conspiracy Assassination Attempt, really).

 

Heraldry

I wandered into the dining room and paused. Elizabeth was sitting at the table, parchment and quill in hand, and a look of intense concentration on her face. For once, her hair was not pinned up into its usual neat buns, but hanging in twin braids down her back. It was longer than I had thought.

I walked quietly up to her. “More budget problems?”

She jumped. She must have been concentrating very hard indeed if she missed hearing me. Or maybe I was getting better at being stealthy. “No…” She tried to hide whatever she had been working on, but I was too quick for her and swiped it off the table before she could pull it away.

I frowned quizzically at it. “Are you making your own heraldry?”

“…Maybe.”

I grinned at her. “Normal people just pick one, you know. Those are the Cousland laurels, I can see, but why is there a… a sheep with wings in the middle of them?”

She finally stood and snatched the sheet back from me, braids swinging. “It… was supposed to be the Amaranthine bear with the Grey Warden griffon wings. It was a stupid idea. Forget about it.”

She was flushed bright red, and I took pity on her. “I’m sorry, Elizabeth. Sit down. It’s interesting.” I pulled out the chair across from her and sat, and slowly, she did the same. “You can’t decide between them?”

She contemplated the sketch thoughtfully, then crumpled it up and threw it into the fire. I started but I was too late to stop her. She wasn’t a very good artist, and as she said the design had been pretty silly, but that was no reason to destroy it permanently. Besides, parchment was expensive. “No… I can’t decide.” She looked at me directly for the first time this evening. “I did not choose any of it – Cousland, Warden, Amaranthine. Cousland is was I was for the longest, what I loved the most, what made me most comfortable… but they’re all part of my identity now. I don’t wish to exclude two-thirds of myself just because I’m sentimental over the distant past.”

Which was a nice way of saying that she still wasn’t wholly committed to being an Amaranthine, but she was trying to break down the mental barriers that prevented her from being one of us.

Although, frankly, Elizabeth would never be just ‘one of us’. She wouldn’t be able to be confined to simple definitions. She was too unique for that. Which made the age-old cry of the young, ‘who am I?’, all the more poignant for her. I’d wrestled with the question for many years, myself. But I was ten years older than her and had ten years more answers, even with most of those years spent training in the Free Marches. I rather liked the current definition of myself.

I tapped idly on the table. “You’re definitely not belonging solely to any one of those parties. But you could still pick one to put on your shield. Or all of them. Just have different shields.”

To my credit, she chuckled. “Dependent on my mood? ‘Hmm, today I feel like identifying as a Grey Warden!’” She shook her head. “It would drive Garevel crazy.”

“That man deserves to be driven a little bit crazy,” I protested. “Just slap Amaranthine on there. Good public relations. The general public won’t appreciate the nuances of your character like your friends do.”

“It’s not that simple,” she said, frowning. “I have come to love Amaranthine. Very much, even. But… still… imagine that one day you woke up, and you had been adopted into the Couslands.”

“You’re adopted?” I asked facetiously. “No wonder you’re so much smarter than Fergus.”

She raised her eyebrows at me. “Nathaniel.”

“I’m sorry. Go on.”

“Would it be so easy to cast aside the brown bear of Amaranthine and take up the laurels? Even just for appearances? Especially given the history of the last few years?”

I thought hard about that one. She was very serious, with her reference to my father’s crimes and death. “Maybe not. I see your point. Still, if I had been adopted… that would make it easier, wouldn’t it? Many ladies get married and adopt the last name – and consequently, heraldry – of their husband. That might have happened to you, once, before you fell in love with a Crow.”

“Hm. I certainly hope he doesn’t suggest I adopt Crow heraldry should we marry,” she said, semi-seriously, and I snorted. “But you’re right too. Some legal procedure would probably have relieved me of this dilemma.”

“You’re beautiful and all, Commander, but I don’t think your lover would approve of you marrying me to take my name and emblem,” I joked solemnly, and she looked startled for a moment before smiling reluctantly.

“You never know,” she said in kind, and I grinned at her. She finally broke down and grinned back. “He would probably enjoy a threesome-” and then she broke off and blushed adorably, putting both hands over her mouth, looking consternated.

I laughed outright. “My, my, Commander. He’s such a bad influence on you, and he’s not even here!”

“Shut up!” she protested through her hands, now hiding the rest of her face as well. I wanted to childishly tell her that she started it, but I held my tongue and let her compose herself.

“Queen Anora’s edict isn’t official enough for you?” I asked, when she had taken a deep breath, the flush slowly fading from her pale skin.

She looked away. “A lot of people said it was ‘just’. I felt like it was forcing Amaranthine on me, and me on Amaranthine. I know it’s not the first time such things have happened, and I… don’t feel that way anymore, not now that most people seem to have accepted me, noble and freeholder alike. And administering here, arlessa in all but name, has been very good for me. But at the time, it was very sudden. It’s one reason I took a year to train myself.”

“But that was then,” I said. “What’s keeping you from embracing it now?”

She hesitated.

“I know that being a Cousland has long been a source of pride for you,” I went on, “and you’re loyal to your family beyond almost everything else, but fortunately there’s an alternative, isn’t there? You might not have become a Grey Warden willingly either, but isn’t it a source of pride to you too?”

She looked down at the table, casting her eyes into unreadable shadow. “Not the way it is to Alistair.”

“Being a Grey Warden is not Alistair’s sole domain,” I said. “And just because he’s a super-fanboy shouldn’t keep you from being proud of it in your own way.”

She smiled, though her eyes were still cast down. I tried not to look at the silver faintly threading through her hair, although the braids made her look almost like a little girl.

“So if you can’t decide between your birth family and the family you are struggling to identify with but feel you must for political purposes… you can always choose to be a Warden and be neither, because Wardens are Wardens first and beholden to no socio-political entities, and yet both, because you fight for the safety and freedom of both lands. Of all lands, even.”

She looked up at me, and her look was grateful. “You’re very persuasive, Nathaniel.” Now it was my turn to withdraw, afraid of comparisons to my father – in the Landsmeet he had always been very influential, because of his persuasiveness. But her look didn’t change. “I like what you said. I might do that.”

I let out a sigh I hadn’t realized I was holding. “I’m glad to be of service, Elizabeth. Though in all fairness, the sheep was rather cute.”

She blushed again, and her eyes flashed, but she couldn’t hold back a giggle. “I’ll get you back for that, Nathaniel Howe.”

I mock-bowed. “Anytime, Elizabeth Cousland.”