When I Look at You (a Dragon Age fanfiction)

Nobles

The next day they prepared to go meet the nobles gathered for the Landsmeet, which was coming up all too rapidly. Leaving Oghren, Zev, and Grenli to keep an eye on Anora—as much to keep her at Eamon's as to keep her safe—Una and Alistair, with Leliana and Wynne, went out into the streets of Denerim.

Sergeant Kylon nodded cordially as they went by, and Una wished he had standing to speak in the Landsmeet. At least the people knew the Grey Wardens were trying to do the right thing. She wondered if there was a way to give the people more of a say in their own governance. Surely the people of Denerim wouldn't have chosen Rendon Howe as their Arl, and shouldn't they have had the right to speak up about it before the arling was given away as a prize?

Something to think about at a further date. For now, she had to make headway with the nobles before she could think about changes to the way the country was governed.

"Copper for your thoughts, love," Alistair said softly.

"Just thinking about the future." She smiled at him, but his answering smile was distracted.

"I wish I felt better about it. Are we sure we can't leave Anora on the throne?"

"Look what she's done with it," Una said. "For all her big words about what a great queen she is, look what's happened since Cailan died. If she's not strong enough to stand up to her own father in defense of her throne, what will she do if Ferelden is attacked from outside? She may understand politics, but she can't—or won't—fight. I think she's made that very clear."

"Yes, I suppose you're right. Still ..."

She stopped, reaching for his hand. "You can fight, Alistair. You know what the right thing to do is, when you trust yourself, and you do it, at whatever cost to yourself. And you're a lot smarter than you give yourself credit for. So you don't understand politics because it wasn't fed to you in your cradle. That's what you have me for."

He nodded, swallowing hard. "I know you're right, it's just ... to have been told my whole life that this was entirely out of my grasp, out of the question, and now to be told that it's my duty ... it's hard to change my point of view that fast."

"I know." She squeezed his hand. "And I wish I could give you more time ... but I've given you all the time we had."

Alistair pulled her close, clinging to her with all the desperation of a man who is afraid of what the future will bring, and Una held him, letting her own certainty comfort him. "All right," he said at last, letting go. "Let's see these nobles of yours."

They took Leliana and Wynne with them and went straight to the Gnawed Noble, where Una assumed the greatest concentration of the Bannorn would be located, all of them drinking their worries away. Hopefully it was early enough in the morning that they wouldn't have gotten too far into the process.

She had no idea how well-known it was that she had survived the slaughter of her family, or that she had become a Grey Warden, but both by virtue of her parents' popularity and because her height made her memorable, she imagined she would be easily recognized. So she capitalized on that; she let Alistair and the others precede her into the room, and then she closed the door of the inn firmly behind her, with a click she was fairly certain could be heard throughout hte common room, and then she took her helmet off and shook her hair around her shoulders, and stood there waiting to be recognized.

It didn't take long. First the conversations closest to the door ceased, then the whispers rippled across the room, and then there was silence.