When Fate Summons (a Dragon Age fanfiction)

I Fall to Pieces

There was a heavy rain falling as they approached the vast doors of Orzammar. The guards at the doors were looking distinctly miserable, hunched over in their armor as the raindrops pinged off their back and shoulders.

As Thora approached, one of the guards looked up. "What can I do for you?" Then his eyes widened, and he elbowed his companion sharply. Both of them fell to one knee before her. "Forgive me, Paragon," said the first guard. "I didn't recognize you. This sodding skywater!"

"At ease," Thora said crisply. "Please stand." When they had done so, she said, "I assume there will be no problem with my companions and me entering the city?" The guards looked over the group. One clearly recognized Oghren, his lip curling as he stared at the red-headed dwarf.

"He'll have to leave his weapons behind to come in," the guard said. "He's still under sanction from the Assembly—if he gets into any more fights, he'll be thrown in jail, Grey Warden or not."

Thora looked over at her friend. "What do you think?"

"Aw, Tapster's," Oghren moaned piteously. "Never mind," he said, sighing. "Someone out here's gotta have some ale that doesn't taste like a nug pissed in it." He shouldered his blade and wandered off.

"Anyone else feel like staying behind?" Thora asked. Xandros caught her eye, and she nodded at him. At home in the forests and fields, even in the human settlements, Xandros in the dwarven cities tended to be a miserable fish out of water. "Keep him out of trouble, please," Thora said, nodding at Oghren, who was already starting to bellow at one of the surface merchants. Xandros nodded and set off hastily after Oghren.

The rest of them entered the city, bypassing the Hall of Paragons and walking into the great cavern.

Jens grabbed Sigrun's shoulder as he looked high up in the air to try and find the ceiling. The big man had expected to feel like a giant in Orzammar, and he did when he looked down. But he hadn't expected to feel like a dwarf when he looked up. It was a dizzying feeling, but one that made him feel oddly closer to his little friend.

The guard stationed just inside the door bowed deeply before Thora. "Paragon, you are expected. With the King's compliments, do you require an escort to the Palace?"

Thora grinned. An escort to her earliest home? She thought not. She said as much to the dwarf, who bowed again in assent, moving aside for her.

"Alistair, Morrigan, will you accompany me?" Both nodded. "Sigrun, you mind showing the rest of these gaping yokels around the city?" Jens, Dirnley, and Anders all looked a bit shame-faced, but she didn't blame them. The sight of Orzammar was awe-inspiring, no doubt about it.

Grinning, Sigrun led the way, the three humans trailing behind her.

Thora led the way through the Commons and into the Diamond Quarter. The guards at the Palace made way for them, and she walked straight to Gorim's office—a room she still thought of as her father's, despite Endrin having been gone for over a decade. The door was opened for her before she even had the chance to knock, and Gorim came forward, smiling, albeit somewhat nervously.

"Gorim, my friend, I've come with news that I'm afraid—" she began, but he raised a hand, cutting her off. Of course, Gorim the efficient would already know, she thought. He was such a better king than either of her brothers would ever have been, she reflected, not for the first time.

"My lady, your daughter has been here," he said, watching her closely.

Thora swallowed hard. It was at least part of what she had hoped to hear, but she hadn't realized until now just how much she had counted on Gorim to have her daughter. "'Has been'?" she echoed. "'Has been'? Gorim, why didn't you stop her? Why didn't you keep her here? Why didn't you--?" The increasing stridency of her voice was cut off when a warm pair of hands closed on her shoulders.

Alistair turned Thora around, shaking her slightly. When she looked up at him, he said, softly but firmly, "Before we fly off the handle, let's let Gorim finish, shall we? Whatever he did, we both know he had a good reason for it." He waited until she nodded, her eyes clearing of the panicked glaze that had fallen over them, before letting her go.

Gorim watched this exchange and wished Anawyn were here to have seen it, seen that whatever was wrong between her parents had come a long way toward being repaired. He felt his usual wistfulness that he couldn't be at Thora's side, where some part of him still felt he belonged, but he knew she would never have responded to him that way. Her eyes never turned trustingly to him the way they did to the human at her side. Gorim sighed, hoping somehow the two people before him could find happiness together.

"Gorim?" Alistair prompted, and the dwarf King saw the carefully controlled tension in the human monarch.

Taking a deep breath, Gorim said, "She came here with an old woman and another young girl. Your daughter, my lady?" he asked of Morrigan. One eyebrow raised, she nodded briefly. Gorim saw Alistair's features tighten as well, and felt an intense curiosity to know how it had come about that Alistair should have two children of nearly the same age with these two very different women. He was sure there must be some story—and equally sure it would be a long time, if ever, before he heard it. "I had the opportunity to speak with Anawyn privately," he went on, looking back at Thora, "and I told her I could keep her safe. When she refused, I told her I could keep the other girl safe, as well."

"She didn't accept that offer?" Alistair asked quietly, painfully.

"No," Gorim said. "She told me she had a duty, that she had given her word as an Aeducan, and she bound the House to her word."

Thora drew in a shocked breath. "She did that? Did she know what that meant?"

"She knew enough to bind the whole house to her duty," Gorim snapped.

"What duty?" Morrigan's voice was sharp.

Gorim shook his head. "She didn't say. She seemed quite protective of the other girl, and I thought perhaps it had to do with her. But Anawyn was very clear that the three of them must be allowed into the Deep Roads—"

"THE DEEP ROADS?" Thora shrieked, losing all control of herself. "Gorim Saelac, how could you let my baby go off into the Deep Roads with the most powerful witch in Thedas?" She seemed about twice her usual height as she advanced on him, her eyes flashing.

"My lady," he said with his usual calmness, standing his ground unflinchingly. "You have every right to be angry—"

"Angry? By the everlasting Stone, Gorim, angry?!" She waved her arms around in the air, looking for words.

Gorim held up his hand. "You know that when faced with the word of an Aeducan, there was nothing I could do but accede. A child she may be, but she is ... her mother's child, no doubt about it," he said, shaking his head.

"She is that," Alistair said, grinning. He grabbed Thora by the arms, pulling her back. "Love, you know as well as I do you wouldn't have wanted Gorim to hold her against her will," he said into her ear as she struggled against him. "It sounds like she has a task to perform, and we have no choice but to trust her."

Thora swallowed hard. She knew Alistair was right, she knew Gorim wouldn't have let Anawyn go unless she was dead set on going, but the thought of her child down there in the Deep Roads, with the darkspawn, without her ... A ringing rose in her head, and she felt Alistair's hands gentle on her shoulders, leading her to a chair and pushing her into it. Dimly she heard Gorim again.

"I gave them safe passage, Your Majesty," he was saying to Alistair, "and sent word to the Legion of the Dead. It was the best I could do in the face of her determination."

His voice sounded louder as the ringing receded from Thora's ears. She raised her head and looked at her erstwhile Second, one of the few people she trusted implicitly, filled with contrition at having distrusted him so thoroughly in this instance. Gorim's eyes met hers, his look sympathetic and forgiving, and he said, "I gave her your old dagger, my lady, with the healing runes in the handle. And she said to tell you that she was trying to be worthy of you." He looked at Alistair. "Both of you."

Alistair's eyes shone with unshed tears as he said thickly, "She never had to try." His fists clenched at his sides. "Let's go after them," he said, turning to Thora and Morrigan. "Let's not waste any more time."