Better Via Worse

Kill Me, Dragon Age, characters of your choice

I… I’m sorry, okay?

The Landsmeet is still, each gaze fixed on the two men who circle each other. The clash of blade on blade echoes down the long stone hall where Maric’s son and Maric’s friend fight before his empty throne.

Amell watches, breath harsh, hands clenched into fists. They had persuaded the nobles – clever words and strong arguments and the evidence of what Loghain had done. It ought not to have come to this, even if Alistair had wanted it. The mage is… lost, now, unsure and not quite understanding this duel: who’s winning, why they fight. It is not how matters would have been settled in the tower… but Amell chooses to have faith. Surely, with all the months on the road, the many darkspawn that had fallen to his blade, the passion for vengeance blazing so brightly, surely Alistair will triumph. They are in the right, after all.  

Alistair does not think. He grins as he forces the traitor back, his blood singing at last, at last, for Duncan as he strikes. He was born for this, he feels it in the pounding of his heart and the righteous joy that thrills through each sword stroke. He could fight like this forever, with the certainty of victory closer with every blow. Loghain barely defends himself – has he finally realised, has he finally seen what he has done?

Beside the mage, Riordan shakes his head. He knows battle, and he knows the inevitable. The lad is strong, and young, and not unskilled… but he is emotional, untempered. Mac Tir fights with the simplicity of long practice, as easily and economically as he breathes. He gives ground and weathers the boy’s rage as he might a child’s tantrum, with a sad, patient curve to his mouth. His fellow Warden had been outmatched the moment his fingers closed about his sword, and that means -

The end is swift, no more than one small opening and a blade thrust into it; a sword clattering to the ground, a body following, the spreading blood, a final gasp. The victor turns, his gaze passing over the nobles and the two Wardens who stand together, the blood still dripping from his sword. “The matter is almost settled,” says Loghain Mac Tir.

“But-“

“We have heard enough from you,” he silences the mage, and spreads his arms wide as he addresses his peers. “Think of all the wild claims we have heard this day – look at the ‘evidence’ presented to you! You have believed – you have been made to believe – that I, Fereldan’s most loyal servant for many years, would do these things! There is no truth here, only the workings of a blood mage who has ensnared your will.”

There are mutterings about the hall as the nobles stir, looking at each other, testing the freedom of their thoughts. Magic. All of them know what horrors may be wrought by that demon-touched force, and… the word of their hero. The magic of an apostate Grey Warden. It is an easy thing to weigh, after all, even before the mage starts to back away.

“Now, my people,” Loghain says, turning his back on the three bodies that lie on the stone, “we go to war. Fereldan will handle Fereldan’s problems, as we have always done – we need no foreign aid, no apostate magic, no Grey Wardens to save us!”

The cheers are almost deafening.