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"In any case, the hour is late. I should return to my quarters." Loghain said with a great sigh, standing. He winced at the apparent soreness in his knees.
"Getting old?" Blackwall asked with a small grin that Loghain returned.
"So much older than I ever expected to be," He said, setting down the bottle of ale on the table between them. No one else was moving about at this hour, the moon hanging high above Skyhold, so bright and full seeming like one could just reach out and touch it. After a brief hesitation when Blackwall thought Loghain was about to simply bid him goodnight, the other man leaned in close instead, pitching his voice low. His eyes had a wicked glimmer to them in the darkness of the barn, for a moment he looked the very image of the villain he was painted to be during the last Blight, before he had been conscripted to fight at the Hero of Ferelden’s side.
"By the way,” Loghain’s voice was low and private, something too quiet to even be carried on the winds that seemed to always reach the ears of certain little birds. “Warden Blackwall had much more gray in his beard than that and was about a hand shorter than you. Not to mention completely different eyes and a stupidly large birthmark on his neck."
Blackwall froze in place, pale. Like a prey animal trapped in a predator's gaze. He swallowed but his mouth was dry, mind in too much of a panic to focus on even formulating a proper plan for escape. Loghain didn’t break the stare - ice-blue eyes piercing in their intensity, one of the few traits from youth that had not been worn away by too many wars and too many friends buried.
"Cailan adored the Gray Wardens and Maric felt forever in their debt,” Loghain said, “Both made a point to know every single one that passed into Ferelden's borders." And Loghain, of course, had been ever at their side. The silence hung between them like a living thing before Blackwall managed to get his voice to work.
"... Did you tell the Inquisitor?" Blackwall asked, throat dry.
"No." Loghain said, straightening up. "I haven't told anyone."
"Why-?"
"Why?" Loghain echoed, looking away, looking into ten years into the past when the Hero of Ferelden stood over him and invoked the right of Conscription, shutting down any cries for execution. Facing down that same hero later and asking ‘why’, meeting that stare that could match Loghain’s own and hearing the reply of ‘figure it out’, which puzzled him to this day.
A puzzle he now felt he could see the shape of.
"Everyone deserves a second chance to prove themselves," Loghain said with a certain understanding, an almost gentle tone to his normally rough voice that hadn’t been heard by anyone since he told his daughter last not to worry for him. “If anyone should understand this, it’s me.”