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The first time Anora Mac Tir walked down the aisle, it was a splendid affair. Her gown had been the brightest white and she wore the jewels of the late queen whilst being escorted by her father who graced everyone with a rare smile. No expense had been spared for the wedding of King Cailan to his betrothed. The children of two of the most powerful men in recent memory. Everything had been glorious and she walked with her head held high like a soon-to-be queen should.

The second time Anora Mac Tir walked down the aisle, it was in a gown that had been procured for her and she was being escorted by two sour-faced guards to her reluctant groom. Still, Anora walked with her head held high because her pride wouldn’t let her cower like a kicked dog.

She had been a queen who bowed to no one. She wouldn’t bow now.

She was visited by Fergus’ sister, Serra, a few days after her hasty wedding. She was being heralded as the ‘Hero of Ferelden’ for her efforts in saving them from the Blight. Anora half hated her and half admired her in equal measure but at the moment seeing one of the most crucial people in her downfall made her stomach turn, good intentions or not.

Anora was surprised that she hadn’t exchanged her Grey Warden armour for the elaborate gowns of the court. Even now Serra Cousland dressed simply in a blue and silver gown, the Grey Warden’s colours, with the wreath of her family sown onto it. With her own upcoming wedding and coronation, Anora wondered how long it would be before she wore Anora’s crown. The crown she had stolen and placed on the head of Maric’s bastard.

“I wanted to see how you were faring.” She offered, shutting the door to her small tower room, her prison cell, gently behind her “Given the circumstances…”

The servants say that Lady Serra had fought Arl Eamon against her execution. They said that the two had argued long and bitterly into the night before the new king had to intervene. They say that she was the one who suggested the marriage to her brother as a way of removing her from the throne permanently. They say she was the reason Anora still lived instead of facing a traitor’s death.

Anora turned her head to look out the window “Get out.” She replied, her voice as cold as ice.

What Serra Cousland hadn’t given her was freedom. She’d simply substituted an executioner’s block for a gilded cage.

They left for Highever just before the official coronation of King Alistair Theirin. Anora was grateful for that one measure of kindness from her new husband. He had excused himself on the basis of returning to his home and beginning the long process that would be repairing the castle and rooting out what remained of Arl Howe’s men.

Anora didn’t love Fergus Cousland, she barely even knew him. Although, she supposed, she could be married to far worse men than the new Teyrn of Highever.

“I think you will like Highever, my lady.” Fergus had told her as they rode. He still walked on eggshells around her, as if she would turn on him at any moment. She didn’t blame him for his hesitation. She had heard what had happened to his previous wife and his son. No one deserved that fate especially innocents.

“I believe I will.” She replied cordially. The wedding may have been what neither of them wanted, but she wouldn’t hold it against Fergus. She wasn’t so petty as that. Neither of them had wanted this and yet they were stuck with each other due to the decisions of others. “I remember visiting with Cailan when I was a child. From what I remember, Highever was outdone only by Denerim.”

As they crested the hill, Anora got her first glimpse of her new home. It was not the castle she remembered from her childhood and she hadn’t expected it to be. Arl Howe had done his damage and the castle still bore the scars of battle and fire from the terrible night that Arl Howe had turned on the Couslands. She wondered how many bodies Fergus had watched being carried out of his home, how many of them were friends and servants he had grown up with and how many he blamed himself for.

Fergus fell silent as he looked upon his home and Anora felt a stab of pity for him. He didn’t speak much, her new husband, but she could feel the weight of his grief and hatred. She wished she knew the words to say to help ease his pain but she couldn’t find them. Her father made Arl Howe a close confidant in his brief reign as regent, to Fergus he was probably as much to blame as Howe and she was the last living embodiment of Loghain Mac Tir.

“Fergus?” She ventured, hoping that she might be able to break him from his memories. He seemed to start at her voice, coming back to reality again but his emotions still were visible.

“Let’s continue on.” He said, kicking his horse back into motion.

Her marriage bed was a sham if there ever was one. Everyone in Highever knew that she and Fergus slept apart and he rarely if ever visited her chambers after dark. Whenever he did he had either bolstered his courage with wine or beer, as if he was walking onto a battlefield rather than going to his wife, or he couldn’t bring himself to actually lie with her. The night of their wedding had been the only time he had spent the night in her chambers and even then it had been out of duty rather than desire.

Anora supposed that she couldn’t be too upset or angry at her husband, after all, Highever was a castle filled with ghosts for Fergus Cousland.

Still, the longer she stayed at Highever, throwing herself into helping Fergus with the rebuilding that was needed and the hiring of new staff to replace the ones either killed or dispersed by Arl Howe, she felt an ever increasing need for company. Despite being surrounded by workmen and the new servants which slowly began to flood into Highever, Anora felt utterly alone. It was almost like she was back in her prison cell again. It seemed her new life would be no different than the one she had left behind save the lack of preening nobles and court politics.

Still, lying alone in her bed each night Anora found herself longing for Cailan. She had never loved him. Not truly. Not as a wife should have. He certainly loved her and it warmed her heart. He was always affectionate with her, prone to grand shows of how much he cared for her. He, unlike Fergus, was almost impossible to remove from her chambers and he seemed to never tire of sharing a bed with her, often trying to coax her into revealing more of herself to him. Anora was sure that Cailan’s love for her brightened her even when she was in the foulest of moods. He didn’t deserve his fate and that would be the one thing she’d never forgive her father for.

Perhaps, if he had lived, she might have tried harder to love him as something more than a close friend. Now she would never know and instead she would lie alone wishing that she could feel his warmth pressed against her back.

Unexpectedly, her chamber door squeaked open and she raised her head to see Fergus illuminated from behind by the torches of the corridor. She sat up immediately, wary even after all this time of the man she had been forced to spend her life with. He so seldom came to her that she half suspected he had a motive other than her own emotional needs and she was sure that it probably was. It was probably a cruel thing of her to think but she couldn’t help herself after years of trying to determine the motives of others in court.

“Fergus?” She’d started calling him by name now. They were husband and wife now, if only in name, and if she was to find some manner of peace in her situation at least a friendship with Fergus would be preferable to cold indifference.

His name seemed to start him back to reality. For a second Fergus looks as if he is reconsidering his actions and retreating with what little dignity he had. This wouldn’t be the first time nor the last that he would reconsider doing his duty as a husband despite the apparent unspoken moto of Couslands always doing their duty.

“I…” He began, pausing to consider his words “I was wondering if I might share your bed tonight.”

It is the first time Anora can remember him ever seeking her out of his own volition and not out of need to do his duty or the whisperings of others influencing him. She’s just as startled as he is nervous. After a moment of silence, she shifts on the bed granting him access in a silent acceptance but she isn’t sure whether it is out of duty or loneliness on her part.

Things are easier between them both after that.

Anora started swelling with child only a scant year after her hasty marriage. She almost didn’t believe it at first. She’d never experienced a full pregnancy before, each of her children dying inside her after only a few months. Instead she had to sit with her jealousy as other women of the court grew large and paraded their children before her and Cailan watched them wistfully. Anora almost dared to hope that she would finally get her chance at motherhood after so many rumours of her apparent infertility.

It was only after she had missed her bleeding for the third time that she felt secure enough in going to Fergus with the news Although she regarded her husband with a small measure of fondness, especially as he had seemed to warm to her more and more, she was afraid of his reaction if she lost yet another child. Cailan had accepted it with some kind of grim acceptance but Fergus had already lost a child before and she didn’t want to wound him further.

Anora almost wondered when she had become so concerned with Fergus’ feelings.

He was in the main hall when she found him, overseeing the last bits of repair on the formerly battered castle. When she told him there was a long stretch of awkward silence as he stared at her. He looked as if he had seen a ghost or perhaps she was some foreign creature rather than his wife of almost a year now. He rushed to her and picked her up, causing her to let out an unladylike squeak in surprise, and he twirled her around before placing her back on her feet again as if she weighed nothing. Anora’s cheeks turned pink as Fergus beamed at her and it seemed ten years had been erased from his face in his happiness. She preferred that look on him. He swooped down and gave her a small peck on the cheek and she swore she could see something in his eyes when he looked at her. Some small glimmer of something that she couldn’t quite name.

“That’s wonderful news, Anora!” he said. It was the first time she’d heard him refer to her by her name publicly instead of calling her “my lady”.

The more she grew with child, the more Fergus seemed to dote on her. Fatherhood came as easily as breathing to him, it seemed, and she was not surprised at that. He had been through this before albeit with a different woman but he had vital experience where she had virtually none. He seemed to know how to treat her when her stomach churned at the smell of foods which had been her favourites or found herself weeping for the most ridiculous of reasons.

“Damn this child.” She murmured one morning over her chamber pot as she emptied the remains of her dinner from the night before “They make pregnancy out to be some miracle but this is like torture! I think I would have preferred execution.”

Fergus had laughed at that even as she had scowled at him, brushing back her sweaty golden hair as the urge to wretch came again, and simply replied “Trust me, it will be worth it in the end.”

Fergus had become her anchor as her pregnancy progressed and the more she lent on him. It was comforting to know that he didn’t mind her increased dependency on him and she almost hated that she needed to be dependent on anyone. Still, as she had come to realise, there were far worse people she could have ended up with than Fergus Cousland.