Title: A Different Awakening
Characters: F!Amell, Mhairi, Anders, Oghren Kondrat, OC: Marcus, Teagan Guerrin, Alistair Theirin, Rylock
Words: 3,180
Disclaimer: I own nothing of the Dragon Age universe but my games and strategy guides. This is just me making a mess in the sandbox.
Summary: Six months after the defeat of the Archdemon, Elena Amell receives news of her promotion to Warden-Commander and is ordered to go to Vigil’s Keep. Of course her efforts to retain the Vigil, rebuild the Wardens, and survive the future are unaided by the child growing inside of her.
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Elena Amell rested a hand on top of her swollen belly as the wagon carrying her and her belongings rocked its way towards Vigil’s Keep. She could see its towers in the distance now and a feeling of dread settled over her, straightening her spine and causing her to slide a hand back along the seat towards where her staff was laying across the packs in the back.
“Something is wrong,” she whispered.
“Did you say something, Commander?”
Turning her head, Elena looked down at Mhairi, the recruit who’d come to retrieve her from where she’d been living in Rainesfere. Teagan Guerrin was one of the few who knew that she carried Alistair’s child as they had both told him after the defeat of the Archdemon when Alistair had called the younger Guerrin to his office. He has asked the other man to protect her then, as they had planned, because she couldn’t stay in Denerim and refused to go back to the Tower.
Plus, given his past with Eamon and events with Isolde, neither of them trusted her staying in Redcliffe.
Before she’d even met the young woman walking next to her wagon, Teagan had come to her home.
“Apparently you’ve been officially proclaimed Warden-Commander of Ferelden.”
“I can’t say I didn’t expect it, Teagan. They want me to rebuild the Wardens now I imagine.”
“According to the young woman they sent, you will already have a few waiting for you but that is the assumption I made as well. That isn’t my concern, though. What are you going to do about the child?”
“The same thing I’ve intended to do since we left Denerim.”
“Maker preserve, Elena, I’m not my brother!”
“I know that, Teagan, and I’m very grateful for it. That’s the only plan I have anymore, though, with this thrown at me.”
“You could refuse.”
“I could.”
“But you won’t.”
“No, Teagan. I’m not ready to refuse the Wardens and run just yet. That won’t happen until the Tower tries to come for me, because they will.”
“Well then, just…just be careful, Elena.”
“Of course. But think, after the Archdemon, surely we’ve earned a break. Everything will be fine, Teagan, you’ll see.”
Elena lifted her head away from Mhairi’s direction and nodded towards the Keep ahead of them. “Does it not feel like something is wrong?”
“No, Commander.”
“Hmm. Marcus, stop the cart, please.” As the plainly dressed man pulled the horses to a stop on the side of the road, he reached out to grab her arm before she could get down from the wagon. Elena turned back to look at him and said quietly, “I fully intend to return you to your Bann, Marcus.”
“And I fully intend to follow my Bann’s orders as a sworn man of the Guerrins to protect you, m’lady,” answered the man just as quietly. “Even if that means joining the Wardens.”
Pursing her lips, Elena silently cursed Teagan then growled, “Grab your sword then, Armsman, and follow me.” Marcus nodded sharply and released her arm, allowing her to slide carefully down from the wagon. She then marched to the back of it and pulled down her staff, leaning it against the wagon as she dug for another object specifically packed near the back for easy access.
The lightly armored coat she pulled out was the product of a collaboration between the blacksmith Wade and Alric, the Tranquil proprietor of the Wonders of Thedas. Alistair had had it commissioned specifically for her with the cloth enchanted for protection first and then given to Wade so he could add dragon scales to it as armor. Not just any dragon scales either; specifically scales taken from the hide of the Archdemon itself.
According to the speech Wade gave her upon presenting it, the cloth was enchanted to be stronger as well as have a chance to turn aside attacks and give a boost to her magic. Other than adding armor and a slight resistance to fire, he claimed he couldn’t know what properties the Archdemon’s scales added to the coat. It was light, though, far much more than it should be and every time she put it on, Elena felt an odd lurch in her belly. Like the soul of her child knew she was wearing its former hide.
As she finished buckling the coat on and grasped her staff, Elena called out, “Let’s go!” and started walking up the road towards Vigil’s Keep. Marcus was quick to catch up, now wearing a lightly armored coat like hers but one more fit to a soldier with Redcliffe’s tower on the front with his sword belted around it. It took a little longer for Mhairi to reach them given her heavier armor and by the time she did, Elena could sense the darkspawn ahead of them.
“Darkspawn ahead of us,” she warned then held up a hand as Marcus moved to draw his sword. “Not yet. They’re still some distance away and probably won’t have sensed me yet given their preoccupation with the Keep. We probably won’t meet any until we’re right outside the gate.”
Her words proved to be true. As soon as they caught site of the walls, a genlock turned and spotted them, shouting something in the guttural language the darkspawn had before it charged at them. Marcus and Mhairi drew their swords but Elena beat them both to the attack by lashing out with a stroke of lightning that took the genlock on the forehead. The wild energy tore through its corrupted body and it fell to the ground dead as the others noticed them.
“Maker,” breathed Mhairi and Elena sucked in a short breath herself, resisting the urge to touch her belly. She wasn’t sure whether it was the child or not but her magic had gotten stronger as the child grew within her. Before it would have taken several lightning strikes to kill that genlock instead of just the one.
She had to be careful or she might kill those around her with magic she wasn’t used to controlling.
As the rest of the genlocks rushed at them, she shouted, “Don’t ingest the blood!” Then she gripped her staff and brought down another bolt of lightning that struck one before bouncing to two other genlocks around it. Behind her Marcus called out, “Clear!” and she nodded, silently thanking Teagan for sending a soldier with her, then pushed on forward into the Keep’s courtyard.
By the time they made it into the actual interior of the Keep, Elena for working hard to fight some mild hysteria. She had known her magic was strong from using it around Rainesfere but those had been simple spells and minor healings, no battle magics or anything complicated. Now she had taken out several darkspawn, including a charging ogre with a single fireball, with little effort and could sense that she had just barely dipped into her mana pool.
She tamped her hysteria down, though, and resigned herself to the thought of working hard on control of this new magical power of hers once all of this was over.
And then Marcus opened a door for them to find several dead templars and a mage she knew. She nearly started laughing right then and there at the sight of him then sobered as she wondered if she had known these templars, if one of them was Cullen.
“Anders!”
The blond mage whirled, his eyes wide, and then recognition set in. “Amell! Fancy meeting you in a place like this! How’d you get out of the Tower?”
Elena smiled gently, remembering a younger her and a tryst under a library table with a much younger version of the man in front of her. Before Alistair, that had been the most memorable of her encounters with anyone. “One of the legal ways,” she answered, preferring not to go into details about Jowan or her alternatives then. “How did you get out this time?”
“Been out since Uldred went crazy. They let me loose before the Tower fell and I ran.”
“Loose?” queried Marcus, eyeing Anders cautiously.
Anders flashed a rakish smile and answered, “Year of solitary confinement. Anyway, so, Amell, how about we go on our separate ways and you don’t say anything to the templars about me?”
“Why don’t you join us instead?” countered Elena. When he flashed her a dubious look, she pointed out, “Anders, you’ve escaped the Tower at least seven times and the templars have dragged you back every time. How long do you think it will be before Greagoir and Irving get fed up with you?”
Hazel eyes narrowed at her. “What’s your point?”
“My point is I’m Warden-Commander of Ferelden now and I’m free from the Tower.” Taking a step towards him, she lowered her voice and continued, “I remember talking to you about being free to be who we are in the Tower, Anders, not chained and locked away. This is as close to that freedom as you and I will ever get.”
Anders pursed his lips at that then commented, “Quite the recruitment speech, Amell.”
“I thought so. And maybe I also want an old friend at my side again, not dead somewhere in a ditch because a templar got angry with him.”
He stood there quietly for a moment then rocked on his heels as an explosion – one of the dwarves they’d seen earlier, obviously – shook the Keep. Looking down at her, he said, “I’ll help you through this and think about it, Lena. That’s all I can promise.”
Elena smiled. “That’s all I want, Anders. Now…I believe we have some more darkspawn to kill.”
If Anders was one kind of surprise, finding Oghren was another. As soon as the darkspawn he’d been fighting were dead, he wiped black blood from his face and grinned up at her.
“Glad to see you finally decided to join the party, Warden.” He then leaned forward, peering at her, and laughed. “Got yourself a nuglet in the oven too! Whose is it?”
“Nuglet?” queried Anders then he frowned, looking at her again. Elena felt his hand grip her arm lightly and healing magic wash over her, inspecting her before he exclaimed, “Andraste’s flaming knickers, they let you come here with child!”
Marcus grunted and flicked blood off of his sword as he growled, “We weren’t exactly expecting darkspawn on our arrival.” He then looked to her and said, “M’lady, we need to keep going.”
“We do,” agreed Elena, pulling her arm away from Anders. When he grabbed her again, she laid a hand over his and met his eyes with a hard gaze. “I am a Warden first, Anders. And I am not yet at the point where I’m willing to lie down and let other people do my job.”
An emotion she couldn’t describe flashed across his face then he nodded sharply before growling, “Fine. But after this is all over, you’re letting me examine you.” She merely nodded her consent, knowing that despite all of his attempts to escape the Tower and his carefree attitude that he was one of the best healers in Ferelden, and he released her.
By the time they reached the top of the Keep and found a talking darkspawn there, Elena was nearly shaking with angry realizations. The Wardens in the Keep – her Wardens – were not anywhere to be found, except for the few dead ones. And the number of the dead was far too few to be the amount that had been there according to the information she’d pulled from Mhairi. So her only conclusion was that the darkspawn were taking them.
Taking the Wardens that were supposed to be hers to command and protect now.
She perhaps enjoyed taking apart the darkspawn calling itself The Withered a bit too much because of that. It had seemed rather surprised when her final Crushing Prison had choked the life out of it. When its corpse dropped to the floor, Elena breathed a sigh of relief before turning to the older man The Withered had captured, who had introduced himself as the Seneschal.
“Varel, Oghren, try to get together all of our survivors. If there are any injured, take them to the main hall – Anders will meet you there. Mhairi, Marcus, you’re both with me and we are going to comb this Keep from top to bottom and root out every darkspawn possibly still lurking. I want none of their taint left in this building in a few hours. Understood?”
Various comments answered her and Anders responded with one particularly jaunty salute before he disappeared. As she turned towards Marcus, he asked, “Shouldn’t you rest, m’lady?”
Elena shook her head slightly and answered, “I’ll rest when I’m certain we’re safe and right now I’m not sure of that. Now draw your sword, Armsman. We’re going hunting.”
By the time they had finished combing the Keep and Anders had healed the last of the wounded, one of the surviving soldiers in the Keep came bolting up to Elena with the surprising news of seeing the royal banners coming towards them. It had taken her exhausted mind a moment to catch up with what had been said then she growled, “Alistair,” and made for the gate with Marcus on her heels. Anders, Oghren, and Varel joined her along the way and she came to a stop in the courtyard as the King came up the hill with a crowd of templars behind him with the rest of his entourage…and her wagon.
“Commander, I believe you lost something,” commented Alistair with a grin as soon as he saw her. As he waved for the man driving her wagon to move past them, his eyes flickered over her and lingered on the swollen belly hidden under her armored coat before rising to meet hers again. “We marched as soon as rumors reached us of the Vigil being attacked.”
“The darkspawn have been pushed back from the Keep,” said Elena shortly, all the while thinking, Why did you come here? “Your Majesty shouldn’t have marched here yourself. Isn’t the Queen with child now?” It was harsh of her, perhaps, but it was a reminder to both of them of what they were now.
Alistair flinched only slightly at her jibe and not enough to be noticed by anyone but her. “She is and is hoping for it to be a boy, as well,” he answered. “As to my being out, one always needs a breath of fresh air every once in a while. Given that you seem to have everything under control, we’ll be heading back…”
“Not before dispensing justice!” snapped a female voice and one of the templars strode forward. She pointed a gauntleted hand at Anders and continued, “This mage is a murderer!”
“Murderer?” repeated Anders, looking around in confusion. “I’ve never murdered anyone, Rylock!”
The woman glared at him and Elena could see the slight madness in her eyes. “What happened then to the templars that reported they were bringing you back to the Tower?”
“They died fighting off darkspawn!”
“A likely story,” snarled Rylock before taking a step forward. “I hereby take this mage into my custody!”
Elena straightened and said firmly, “Anders has volunteered to join the Wardens.”
“I have?” exclaimed Anders and she turned her head to stare at him. “Oh, yes, I have. Got to, uh, save the world, y’know.”
The templar started to open her mouth and Elena snapped, “I will evoke the Right of Conscription if you continue, Ser.”
“Your Majesty!”
“If the mage has volunteered, the mage has volunteered, Ser Rylock,” said Alistair. “And if the Commander says she’ll invoke the Right if you challenge her, then she will invoke the Right. I should know, I traveled with her through the Blight. Now…I believe we should get out of the Commander’s way.” He then nodded to Elena, smiling slightly, before he turned and left. Rylock and her company stood there for a moment, the woman staring angrily before she turned to follow.
As they left, Oghren grunted and asked, “So…nuglet’s the boy’s then?”
“Oghren,” growled Elena, not particularly wanting to talk about the subject, “weren’t you going to go back to Felsi after we killed the Archdemon?” She apparently hit a nerve because the dwarf went quiet. Part of her felt bad about prodding what was obviously an old wound…but he had just done the same for her. And a particularly sorer one given the high possibility that one day she was going to have to leave everything she knew.
Angry with herself now and even more exhausted, she turned to head back into the Keep and bumped into a tall body that she just knew was Anders. “Examination?” she queried.
“Examination then bed,” he answered. “I think everything else can wait till morning.”
“Agreed. Varel, see to the last of things, please. Everyone else…find a bed and get some rest. We’ve got a lot of work ahead of us.”
She didn’t have a clear memory after that of where she went but when Elena refocused on her surroundings, she was in a nice apartment and Anders was struggling to unbuckle her coat as she sat on a plush bed. As she gave him a confused look, he said, “Varel said that these were meant to be your rooms. Apparently they were that old Howe bastard’s when he was still alive.”
“What a pleasant thought,” she murmured, “sleeping in the same bed as Rendon Howe. I killed him, you know, in the Arl of Denerim’s estate.” As he cursed, Elena reached for the buckles for Anders lightly slapped her hands away. “I could have you thrown in the dungeons for that.”
His hands paused in what they were doing then Anders jibed, “And lose the pleasure of my company?”
That pause brought Elena back to herself a bit and she lifted one hand to touch his face, saying, “Solitary. Oh, Anders, I’m sorry. They should never have done that to you, not for wanting to be free.”
“Hush, Len. It’s in the past. Besides, I’m to be a Warden now and have my freedom, aren’t I?” He grinned at her then finally loosened the last of the buckles, pushing the armored coat back to reveal her long sweat-soaked tunic. “C’mon, let me get this off before I look at you.”
Exhausted as she was, Elena pretty much let him do most of the work then lay back on the bed, her hands rising to frame the sides of her belly as he put the coat away. Then she felt Anders larger hands come to rest on her belly and tears welled in her eyes before rolling down her cheeks.
“Andraste’s flaming knickers, the King is the father, isn’t he?”
“Oh, Maker, Anders, don’t say anything. Don’t..”
A wave of soothing magic rolled over her and Anders softly said, “Your secret is safe with me, Len. Now rest. I promise I won’t let any templars get you in your sleep.”
Elena could only nod and let exhaustion take her moments later.
