Chapter Text
It’s rather difficult to keep faith in a righteous cause when you’re absolutely miserable.
Rhiannon Theirin tries to keep her and her husband Alistair’s longevity in mind when she’s having a taxing day, but today the thought does nothing to drive her forward. She’s spent months on the road now, traversing from city to city, country to country, all in search of a cure that may or not exist. Her travels have taken her further than she’s ever been away from Denerim, from Alistair. She’s so far west that the landscape has shifted from sand and punishing sun to misty coastline with towering waves that rival the swells on the Storm Coast.
Most of the time, she can find one tiny spark of hope to keep her going, but today was a particularly bad day. From the moment she’d awoken things had gone wrong; her horse lost a shoe, the farrier she’d found tried to scam her, and bandits attacked her not long after. And then, as if the Maker thinks she doesn’t have enough to deal with, a sudden downpour has plummeted from the heavens, drenching her and her horse to the bone. While it’s usually more efficient for her to find somewhere to camp, tonight she makes an exception when she sees the lantern-lit sign for the Dread Halla Tavern through the deluge. In spite of her misery, she decides the storm is for the best; if she has to eat another meal of nug roasted over a campfire she may well lose her mind.
She ties up her horse at the hitching post beneath the eaves of the inn, thankful that he’ll at least be out of the rain but wishing he’d be out of the cold as well. As quickly as possible, she unloads his saddle bags and lugs all of her gear inside the hopefully warm inn.
The inn doesn’t disappoint in terms of warmth. Several fireplaces around the perimeter are filled with a gleefully roaring fire, but the rest of the establishment has a dour mood. Excellent, she thinks, at least she’ll fit in.
The tavern is truly a gathering of the most miserable people in Thedas. Not a soul pays her any mind as she trods from the doorway towards the bar, a trail of wet footprints behind her. They also ignore the lone halfling bard sitting in the corner of the room, perched on a wooden stool with a mandolin. Her music is pleasant, but it does nothing to lift the spirits of the miserable souls that are either staring into space or into the depths of their ale.
Rhiannon bellies up to the bar, her heavy saddle bags leaving a puddle where she stands.
The grizzled barkeep looks up from the metal flagon he’s polishing and grunts at her, a single brow raised.
“Stew,” she replies, “and ale.”
He grunts again and turns away, getting to work on her order. Good. She was nowhere near capable of having a real conversation with another being tonight.
A minute later he returns with a bowl of piping hot stew and a stein of beer. Rhiannon wordlessly plunks a few silvers onto the counter. The man glances at the coins, grumbles in assent and sweeps them off the rough wood into his palm.
With some difficulty, Rhiannon hoists her gear over her shoulder and manages to bring it along with the beer and stew to a lone unoccupied table in the middle of the room. As she sits down to tuck into her meal, her stomach betrays her, growling loud enough that she should be embarrassed but she’s far too grouchy to be. Bracing herself for what she expects to be a terrible meal, she takes a spoonful of the stew and puts it into her mouth. It takes everything in her to not moan aloud; her expectations for the food’s quality were below the Deep Roads, but to her pleasant surprise the stew is perfectly spiced and warming her from the inside out.
It warms her so much that it manages to drag her the slightest bit away from her sour mood and she begins to listen to the bard’s song.
The woman strums her mandolin, her voice sweet with a hint of longing.
“Some call you Hero, and some call you Queen
but to me, you're the last rose of Lothering."
It’s a small miracle that Rhiannon is able to gently place her spoon back into the bowl rather than let it fall from her hand. For a brief moment she thinks she misheard the woman; after all she was only half paying attention.
“It's nights like this when I miss you the most
The air is so cold out here on the coast
But I'll silence the Calling, I'll do it for you
Pray the Maker is willing, I'm coming home soon”
Andraste preserve her. Rhiannon’s heart squeezes in her chest as the bard sings a tale that she knows all too well.
“The crackling campfires, my memories play
Of you stumbling over your words just to say
‘They call you the Warden, the Maker of Kings
But to me, you're the last rose of Lothering.’
She remembers the thrill that ran through her when her fingers touched his as he gave her the rose. The very rose that is in her bag, the petals preserved and sealed in resin onto the back of her gilded hairbrush.
She remembers how his heart pounded beneath her palm their first night together.
She remembers how anxious he’d looked at his coronation, fidgeting in his ceremonial grab with a single rose pinned over his heart. How the nerves vanished when he saw her walking down the aisle towards him.
And now she’s crying into a bowl of stew in a tavern in the middle of nowhere. Fantastic.
Rhiannon is convinced that this woman is a mind-reader at the very least. Over the years many songs and epic poems had been composed about the Fifth Blight and the love that bloomed despite it. Alistair and Rhiannon almost always found them to be either generic or cringe-inducing. It’s not as if any of the composers or writers were there to experience any of it alongside them, but retellings and rumors tended to embellish their story beyond recognition.
The bard finishes with a final verse about roses blooming in Lothering and Rhiannon is the only one in the tavern that bursts into applause. The noise seems to surprise the woman, who looks around at the unexpected noise to find a lone woman with red-rimmed eyes clapping. She smiles brightly and gives a short bow towards Rhiannon.
When she’s sure her tears have been sufficiently dried Rhiannon gets up from her seat and makes her way towards the bard.
“Your song was wonderful,” she says, dropping a handful of sovereigns and silvers into the an upturned hat on a small table next to the girl.
The woman’s eyes widen slightly, but she manages to school her expression to be more neutral. “Thank you kindly, miss! It’s a newer composition so I’ve not had much of a chance to play it for folks.”
“Who’s the song about, if you don’t mind my asking?”
To Rhiannon’s surprise, the woman blushes. “Ah. You might say that I’m heavily invested in the dealings of Ferelden royalty.”
“Oh? I don’t know much about them, so the song is about the king and queen?”
The bard gives a sheepish smile. “I feel as if I should be embarrassed, they aren’t even the rulers of this part of the world. I mean, I haven’t even been to Ferelden, but I heard the story of the Fifth Blight when I was a little girl and I’m always inspired by it. I don’t know, it seems silly when I say it aloud.”
Rhiannon smiles, shaking her head, “Not silly, no. More…romantic.”
The other woman lets out a sigh, “King Alistair and Queen Rhiannon’s love story is the most romantic thing I could possibly imagine.”
“Have you met them?”
“Oh no, that would be an absolute dream. I just-” the girl smiles, “I just think their story is so incredible. To be fighting in such an awful war and to somehow find love amongst all that? What isn’t there to be inspired by?” Her smile turns wistful, “But I think people often forget that the King and Queen are still Grey Wardens. That they’ll have to face the Calling at some point. I only hope that they’ll be able to overcome that, it would be such a shame to lose each other to such an awful fate.”
Rhiannon’s heart might not be able to take the whirlwind of emotions much longer, but she manages to stop the tears from coming again. “It does seem like a shame, given how much they love each other. I hope this isn’t too presumptuous of me, but could I get a copy of the lyrics? I missed the beginning of the song.”
“It would be my pleasure,” the girl beams, picking up a satchel that lays next to her mandolin case and rifles through for some parchment. She sets a sheet on the small table that holds her upturned hat and begins to write.
“Actually,” Rhiannon adds, “could you make two? I’d like to send one to my husband as well.”
“Oh that’s sweet,” she says, writing with a neat, looping script. “What’s his name?”
“Alistair.”
The girl’s hand stops, her quill poised in mid-air. She sneaks a glance up at Rhiannon, eyes questioning whether she’s being toyed with. As she looks back down to the paper, her gaze passes over the coins sitting in the hat, the ones that bear both Alistair and Rhiannon’s faces. Rhiannon allows herself a sly smile as the girl looks up to her, back to the coins, and back to her again. Her eyes go wide, “Q-queen Rhiannon, I beg your pardon, I-”
Rhiannon presses a finger to her lips. “We can’t let everyone know I’m here, right? Don’t want to make a fuss.”
“What are you doing here? I mean-what are you doing here, Your Majesty?”
“Just like you said in the song, trying to find a cure.”
Her eyes brighten and she leans in, her voice a whisper. “Did you find it?”
Rhiannon shakes her head, her smile fading. “No luck yet. Quite a few dead ends, but I have to keep searching. For both our sakes.”
The bard smiles, going back to her writing. “I know you’ll find it, whatever it may be.”
“I hope so too. That way you can write another song about us.”