Epilogue

Empty Rooms

The desk waited for her, looming larger into view as Rosie gingerly stepped into the quiet room. There was no glass of brandy sitting upon the table beside the fireplace, no book with pages tumbling free left on the stuffed chair. She took in a deep breath to try and steady her nerves, when the smell struck her on the jaw.

Out of everywhere in the palace -- the bedrooms, the stables, the pantries, every room that turned vacant and cold -- here she found it. Peppermint.

Drawing her finger against the desktop, stripped bare of all essentials for fear of unsavory eyes seeing them, Rosie let her nose trail the scent. She slipped into the chair turned to the side as if it...as if it were waiting for someone to return. Memories flooded her mind, pounding against her weary brain so exhausted from the torrential downpour that it winced at even the happy ones dredged to light.

All of maybe five years old, she sat propped up on a few tomes in order to see over the desk. A quill in hand, her tiny fingers traced all the periods at the end of sentences in the parchments left upon her father's desk. She was so proud of it, as if she was doing the same hard work her Dad did.

"Spuddy?" his voice rang out from the fireplace where he'd been stoking the flame himself. "What are you doing?"

"Work." Her voice was steady, clear, before age hammered in regrets and questions, when it was simple. I wish to do this, so I do.

He'd laughed. He always laughed. "What kind of work? Important, I bet. Here, let me have a look."

With a hand gripping onto the back of his chair, he'd peered down over her tiny shoulder at the blots and stains she'd gotten all over his job. He could have scolded her, perhaps he should have. No doubt he'd been up all night rewriting the mess or having to assemble various advisors to decipher what the young princess destroyed.

But did he?

Never.

"See Daddy!" she snatched up a few pieces of parchment in her fists, the ink puddles dripping off the sides while thrusting them to him.

"I do, kiddo," his easy smile made her smile too. Picking one of any number out of her hands, he'd lifted it to his nose to inspect the lines she scribbled all around. After clearing his throat, and dragging a finger down it, he winked, "It's good work."

Pride. Blessed Maker, but he taught her how to feel that, to have her heart swell with joy at making him proud. It could be for a silly little nothing, like making a mess of his missives, or forming an alliance with the dwarven kingdom and growing it to the point other nations were looking to Ferelden. To her dad it was all the same.

"You're gonna be a great Queen one day, Spudkins," he smiled, laying his work flat to let her keep doodling.

"I know," she barely paused in her work, the quill etching its way back and forth over the vellum while her tongue stuck out. Even at age five she took it serious whether it was warranted or not.

He stared down at her while she worked, those hearth brown eyes always keeping watch even as she graduated from messing up his missives, to homework, to creating her own royal orders across Ferelden. And through it all the pride in his eyes never vanished. Even when she'd pull away in teenage rebellion, even when they'd argue about what was best for her or the country, even as age clouded him from her, the pride remained.

Rosie glanced back, her breath catching in hope, but no comforting shadow hung behind the chair save her own. She wiped at her cheek to clear away the never falling tears, when the smell returned again. Peppermint as brisk as a new-fallen snow during Satinalia. Using her nose, she picked at the small drawer right in the middle of the desk and tugged it forward. Bottles rattled, the ink growing dull and thick from age. Rosie moved to pull one out to inspect it when a red and white candy rolled into view.