it didn't sing, it didn't dance

"Have a drink," Fergus says from the fireplace, rising from Cat's chair. "Better yet, have a seat."

What Zevran would like to say is, I had forgotten you were here, and I would like for you to leave. What he says instead is nothing, and he accepts the proffered cup of wine and sinks into Cat's chair while Fergus leans against the mantle of the fireplace.

"They set her up to fail," Fergus says grimly. "The Wardens. Weisshaupt. Whoever."

It's something that has occurred to Zevran, yes, something he has been loath to give too much credence, newly mistrustful of institutions as he is, and attempting, for once in his life, moderation. Or maybe he just hadn't wanted to think about it. Fergus must sense some of this in his glum silence.

"I won't go as far as to say this is all my fault," he says, somewhat gruffly. "I'm not the martyr of the family. But I knew she wasn't doing well when she left Highever. I didn't . . . want to interfere. I didn't want to acknowledge it at all. She's not a child anymore. I had my own grief to manage." 

He looks, abruptly, so guilty that Zevran can see the little boy in him. More than that, Fergus resembles Cat so much with that expression on his face that Zevran has the ill-advised impulse to laugh. 

"I suppose she told you all about that," Fergus sighs.

There isn't any resentment in this declaration, only resignation, and Zevran considers the strange position he now finds himself in, drinking in his lover's bedroom with his lover's bear of a brother, who is perhaps more loose-lipped than he meant to be at the start of the evening. Not that Zevran can begrudge him the drink.

"In truth," he says honestly but carefully, "she has not been as forthcoming with me as you might assume. I know being at Highever was difficult. She also wished to give me the impression that she shouldered it with her accustomed rigor, and in the time we spent together during the Blight, your sister was not a woman given to despair if she could find something else to do."

Fergus chuckles at that, an unexpectedly warm sound, made all the warmer by the silence that comes after it, a slow spiral back into gloom.

"I am a man given to despair," he admits, tilting his cup from side to side, examining the way the liquid conforms to the movement. "My wife and my boy . . . " 

He visibly chokes up, eyes watering. Zevran allows himself a single moment of impatience, callous though it may be. He has had his fill of tears and not nearly enough sleep to suffer more. 

"I was not at my best then," Fergus concludes at last, blessedly sedate. "Cat bore the brunt of it. I might have spared her a little more grief. She might have asked for help sooner than I realized she needed it."

"Perhaps," Zevran says, enough of an agreement that it won't prompt an argument, enough of a potential disavowal that he can avoid another argument, too. Unfortunately, his mouth keeps going. "Or perhaps she would have been too stubborn either way."

"You'll have to get used to it," Fergus agrees, still divining his drink.

Abruptly, he transfers his attention to Zevran, unnervingly focused. 

"I suppose we haven't had the opportunity to really get to know each other," he points out, and Zevran once more swallows a laugh that would surely earn him little favor. 

"What would you like to know?" he asks, deciding that if this takes a turn for the unpleasant, it will not vary with what has occurred so far, and so selfishly, he'd rather just get it over with. 

Fergus rubs the tips over his fingers over his lips, but his cheeks give away the smile he's attempting to suppress.

"Should I interrogate you?" he quips. "Crows don't break under torture, or so I've heard."

"No, we have that habit beaten out of us," Zevran replies bluntly, and again that mortified guilt rearranges the shape of Cat's brother's face until the likeness is unmistakable. "Forgive me, Your Lordship, it has been a long day. So, ironically, I am a perfect candidate for interrogation."

"Don't call me 'Your Lordship,'" Fergus replies. "Out there, I'll be a teyrn, but in here, I'd appreciate less formality. Cat would kill me, for one. Or add it to the list of reasons why she'd be justified." 

"Fergus, then," Zevran agrees.

"Zevran," Fergus concurs, and it shouldn't surprise him that Fergus, like Cat, pronounces his name in the Antivan way, but it's nevertheless a jolt. "What do you do now that you're no longer a Crow?"

Zevran wishes desperately that Cat had given him the details of what, exactly, she'd relayed to her brother about him, and in retrospect, sort of shocking that he didn't pump her for information when he'd had the chance, enamored as he is of hearing how others describe him. She surely must have assured Fergus that her lover no longer honors any contract stipulating her death, and it follows that she would have emphasized his relatively newfound liberation from an organization that Fergus' departed Antivan wife had perhaps mentioned. 

"I remain an assassin, but I am more of an independent man now," he says. "I am in Antiva more than Ferelden, though I travel. Generally, people do not retire from the Crows, but thus far, I have managed it." 

He smiles briefly, humorlessly. A stupid joke, but Fergus looks thoughtful.

"Which of the Houses did you belong to?" he asks. 

"Arainai," Zevran answers, searching the other man's face, but this name doesn't seem to spark any recognition.

"My wife's family made a deal with House Gegar," Fergus explains. "It's the only one I know of."

House Gegar. It would make sense. A merchant's house, largely a joke. The seat of their power is in Genellan, where trade is robust. He can remember Taliesen complaining every time he was sent to guard a shipment, but all the Houses benefited from the commerce of House Gegar, and so they were a joke only in private. Kiss the ring, Taliesen had always muttered, but he'd been as awed as anyone else at the wealth they had been permitted to see, knowing as they all did that whatever was shipped down the River Volo was a fraction of the whole.

"Your wife was from the provinces, if I recall correctly," Zevran says, and at Fergus' raised eyebrows, he adds, "Cat mentioned it once. Genellan."

"Did she tell you much about my wife?" Fergus asks curiously. "Any of her family, really?"

"Not until after Arl Eamon guessed who she was." His drink long since forgotten, he sets the cup on the floor in front of him. He needs no other incentive to doze off, and the warmth from the fire makes it difficult to keep his head upright as it is. "She takes her Wardening very seriously, you know."

"Yes," Fergus says, unease clear. 

"She mentioned you threw her slipper down a well once," Zevran recalls suddenly. He can remember the weight of Cat's skull on his belly, the bizarre comfort of being used as a pillow. His fingers in her hair as if he could sift through her thoughts that way, puzzle her out. "And she — "

" — went into the well after it," Fergus finishes for him, eyes bright with a wonder that Zevran doesn't want to look at directly. "Maker. She bullied me into lowering her into that well, and I told her, over and over again, it won't work, you'll only get hurt, but she could talk a stone into singing. Our father was furious." 

He trails off, caught in the memory like a spider web, and even as he comes back to the present, Zevran imagines he can see the wisps of it still clinging to him.

"It was things like that," Zevran says after a moment. "Small things. We did not have time to," he waves a hand, "truly, you know. There was the Blight." There was being ambushed by Taliesen. There was the mad rush to Redcliffe only to turn right back around. 

"How long do you think it will take for you to finish your business in Antiva?" Fergus asks, and now there is a more definite sense of a conversational direction. 

"I cannot rightly say, Fergus," Zevran replies, a little dryly.

"I see," Fergus says. Zevran shrugs. "Do you two have . . . plans?" 

Zevran regards the other man for a moment. He has no idea what Cat has told her brother about him, and neither does he know what, if anything, she has divulged about what being a Warden means. That she will never have children, that she should have died when she killed the archdemon. That becoming a Warden shortened her lifespan beyond the surface assumptions, a hazy and uncertain mortality. For that matter, Zevran himself cannot say he is an expert in what being a Warden truly means, for Cat specifically or for them as a couple, beyond that she can no more walk away from her life than he from his. He opts for purposeful cluelessness.

"What plans do you mean?" he asks.

"To be married," Fergus replies with a bracing frankness, and this time, Zevran cannot contain his laugh, a quiet, breathy, and altogether skeptical noise. 

Fergus' brow furrows. Zevran winces.

"Let neither of us pretend that we do not know that Cat and I are hardly the first human and the first elf to ever — " Brasca. " — enter into a romantic relationship with each other, but the rules of the Chantry did not change overmuch during your time in the Wilds. Such a marriage would not be sanctioned in most chantries."

"We can procure a willing priest," Fergus says easily, nigh dismissively in the way of powerful men, and for all that he handwaves formality in the hopes of appeasing his sister, he is still a teyrn. "Such marriages have happened before. In Highever, even."

Zevran has a brief, disorienting vision of himself and Cat before an altar, a benevolent Revered Mother passing her hands above their heads. It is as ridiculous as the ensuing pang of longing in his chest. 

"Well, don't let me rush you," Fergus adds, misinterpreting whatever expression had crossed Zevran's face. 

"I am not sure marriages are even allowed amongst Grey Wardens," Zevran says after a moment. He imagines they would be more akin to suicide pacts. And granted, they've sort of already covered that. "The Maker smiles sadly, as the saying goes."

Fergus falls silent at that, sipping his wine. Zevran allows himself to rest his eyes under the pretext of massaging them.

"They've set her up to fail," Fergus says again after a moment. "But I haven't figured out why."

Because she survived where she should have died killing the archdemon, Zevran could say, but that would require mentioning, at the very least, a ritual ensuring Cat's survival, and Fergus seems the type to follow up. He suspects the Wardens have grown accustomed to letting Ferelden manage Ferelden, that if at any point in the many intervening years between the Wardens' expulsion and the Fifth Blight, Weisshaupt had felt it truly imperative to reestablish the Fereldan arm of the order, they would have. There is much at play here, none of it easily explained even assuming a full night's rest and an appropriate hour. 

"Well," Cat's brother says, and he drains his cup. "Forgive me. I should let you sleep. Let's not make a show of pretending you're off to your room," he adds, somewhat benevolently, and while Zevran had not realized that that was something they might have still been pretending, at least with Fergus, he supposes he's glad they definitely aren't now.

"Things will be better in the morning," Zevran says, because it's the sort of thing people say. 

Fergus chuckles.

"An optimist, are you?" He stretches with a groan. "Well. I must say, it's not every day I watch a man poison my sister."

"I do not intend to make it a regular occurrence," Zevran says tiredly.

Fergus chuckles again, somewhat sadly.

"Goodnight, Zevran," he says, and he claps him on the shoulder before nabbing the bottle of wine from where he'd placed it on Cat's desk and departing, easing the door closed behind him with a conscientious restraint.

Zevran looks at the bed. Tavish looks back at him, his tongue lolling out of his mouth. He makes a harrumphing noise, then lays his head back down as if to say, I think that went all right.

the set-up is that in 7:5 storm, the fereldan throne is left without an heir. two ppl had a strong claim to the title: arland theirin and sophia dryden, who were cousins. ultimately arland was chosen as king bc he was young and seemed malleable to the ambitious nobles who wanted to take advantage of him.

but it turns out he wasn't so easily controlled after all. arland is described as a tyrant! avernus says that he pitted the nobles against each other, killed indiscriminately, and had no problem eliminating opposition thru 'fear and poison.'

you can find a letter from bann mathuin wulff that says:

Sophia, Arl Ruahn and his entire family have been slaughtered, even the children. The Ruahn line is no more and the arling belongs to the crown, for now. Arland believed Ruahn was plotting against him. Ruahn criticized the king's spending on Wintersend--that is all. It was an idle word, spoken out of turn. The king goes too far. His brain is filled with madness and he clings to the crown like a drowning man clutches at a straw.  Sophia, I beg you, help us. If nothing is done, more will suffer. Your humble servant, —Wulff.

similarly, several members of the cousland family in the storm age, a family the game wants you to associate with honor and righteousness, formed a conspiracy against arland and allied with the wardens.

Arland also executed many Couslands, including the Teyrn himself, for plotting against him, being allied to Sophia, and to teach the survivors their place.

so you're like okay, case closed, arland was a paranoid and evil ruler who unjustly kicked the wardens out of ferelden bc warden-commander dryden rallied the wardens against a tyrant who killed whole families for the crime of questioning his spending habits — and moreover, she did it explicitly at the behest of the desperate nobility who had to come crawling on their knees to plead for help from the woman they rejected as ruler specifically bc she wasn't biddable enough.

but then you start reading dryden's journals.

21 Eluviesta:  It is done. The nobles have thrown their lot in with Arland--Arland the snot-nosed man-child, Arland who did not walk till he was in his fifth year, Arland who had to be pried off his nursemaid's breast not two years ago. Or so it is whispered. The teyrns and the arls believe him to be a simpleton, and easily led, but I have seen something in the boy's eye, and it terrifies me. 10 Moriolis:  I watched the Summerday processions from a room high in Fort Drakon. The regent has me for treason, when my only guilt is of being true to my country and my heart. My guard's tongue was easily loosened with a gift of a ruby ring, and I am told that the banns are fighting against my sentence. I shall pray, but not hope that it will be anything but the gallows for me. 2 Ferventis:  The draught was like bitter fire, but I survived. Weep for me, for I survived. Would that they had made a clean end for me. I should have died a lady, the greatest of the Drydens, not lived to become this nothing--this monstrous nothing! 19 Matrinalis:  Enough. I shall waste no more time with wretched, womanish lamentation. Death would have been easy, but fate saw fit to spare me and I will seize upon this chance. The Grey Wardens are an army, and the old commander is weak--a wisp of a man. I will inspire the Wardens, and Arland will rue the day he spared my life.

i think it's interesting that sophia frames being sent to the wardens as arland 'spar[ing] her life.'

so now it's not so clear. was sophia deserving but bypassed bc she couldn't be manipulated the way the nobility thought arland could be? or was she kind of ruthless and paranoid herself? a woman who despises weakness who clearly had zero intentions of letting arland's claim to the throne go unchallenged?

her rebellion threw ferelden into chaos. personally i don't think that turning to demonic powers/blood magic is like. The Bombshell the game thinks it is. but the game considers that to be a signifier of a leader willing to feed their subordinates into the machine to get eaten the fuck up. this is in line w everything we know abt the wardens — they're more than accustomed to resorting to things other ppl find distasteful at best.

but this wasn't in service to ending a blight. this was an entirely political gambit. at least one other commander at soldier's peak believed sophia's actions were going to destroy both the fereldan army and the wardens. a lot of wardens felt 'disgraced' by her actions specifically bc they were politically motivated, and those wardens deserted, which feels LOADED for grey wardens.

and then it turns out that we don't actually have the full picture of the aftermath or even what led up to the rebellion (tho wot2 notes that the rebellion was founded by sophia):

Little is known of what followed Arland's rule, as a civil war for the throne occurred soon after his death. The war lasted a decade and wiped away most records of his reign.

does this mean arland was a kid in over his head and sophia was a comically evil snake who saw an opportunity and took it? i don't think that's the answer either tbh i think that the truth is both a) somewhere in a vast and ambiguous middle and b) impossible to know.

but we have a pseudo-idea of how the dryden family's reputation suffered as a result of her rebellion, bc they had to book it out of the country. everyone involved the rebellion was crushed. all lands and holdings that had belonged to the drydens were seized by the crown, and even as late as 9:43 dragon in trespasser, teagan as ambassador of ferelden brings up the rebellion as an example of why ferelden in particular is right to be concerned abt the inquisition's presence in ferelden, citing the inquisition capturing caer bronach and using it as a base specifically.

what he says is:

'invading under pretext of restoring order is exactly what the grey wardens did to us centuries ago and we exiled them!'

his position is the accepted ferelden position amongst its nobility.

i rly like this theory that the guerrins took arland's side during the rebellion, and maybe given that teagan's sister was ferelden's queen until she died, he feels like the guerrin-theirin alliance needs to be emphasized regardless of which way the guerrins went — sophia might have been part of a branch of the theirin family, but she didn't use the name. teagan has a line and he's sticking to it! i prefer to think he's just as politically motivated as anybody else at the exalted council.

but i think it's also worth noting that teagan's opinion is the opinion of ferelden's populace, tho the citation for this being how the ppl of ferelden feel abt the rebellion is teagan's dialogue in trespasser lol

Most modern Fereldans believe that Sophia Dryden's rebellion was a Grey Warden invasion under the pretext of restoring order and that their exile was deserved. The Grey Warden Order retained a villainous reputation in Ferelden for 200 years, until King Maric Theirin permitted the Wardens back into his nation.

but tbh.............................i don't think it's all that weird that regular fereldans would consider the rebellion to have been reason enough to distrust the wardens as an institution. i just don't think that it precludes ppl from thinking that arland was a bad king, too.

for one thing, the succession crisis was essentially a bunch of nobles squabbling over who would rule. the drydens are a branch of the theirin family; arland is presumably part of the main theirin line, bc he uses the name. the theirin family, in spite of all this, remained the ruling family of ferelden from calenhad on w the major exception of when ferelden was occupied by orlais.

for another, sophia dryden never relinquished her claim to the throne even after she was imprisoned and sent to the wardens — her journal entry deciding to take control of the wardens and make arland 'rue the day he spared [her] life' was before, if the reports are true and unexaggerated, arland went full tyrant, certainly long before bann wulff's plea for help.

she then leveraged her noble connections to shore up warden power in ferelden, including 'rapidly increas[ing] their numbers', and then used the warden army NOT to protect ferelden against the blight (which is why soldier's peak was built in the first place) but to pursue her own political goals. teagan bringing up caer bronach as his line in the sand makes sense in this context.

and it doesn't help, i think, that there had been rumors swirling around abt what exactly the wardens were up to in soldier's peak even before arland and sophia go head to head.

a fun tangent is the antiva connection here, which is minimal but deeply meaningful to meeee:

Toben Dryden, Sophia's brother and guardian of her young son, had no choice but to flee Ferelden. Toben bought passage to Antiva on a merchant vessel and traveled under the name Derocher. Once in Antiva, Toben set about building a new, quiet life for himself and his nephew. He started a small business and eventually made a name for himself as a trader.

and of course this also introduces the element of sophia's son, who would have inherited the throne after her had she succeeded in becoming queen.

winding this down by saying that the imminent fereldan succession crisis part 2: electric boogaloo is right around the corner given that by 9:41 there's still no heir to the fereldan throne as far as i can tell and tbh wouldn't someone have mentioned it in trespasser if somebody had either had a baby or named their successor?? maybe the drydens have successfully played the long game and levi and his brother mikhael and whatever potential children they might have had between awakening and trespasser as living descendants of the theirin line are abt to get v v important.