When I Look at You (a Dragon Age fanfiction)

Dungeon

She couldn't help thinking for a moment of Una Cousland, daughter of a teyrn, who had complained about having to wear pretty clothes and take hot scented baths and sit down to sumptuous meals. There were definitely times when she envied that younger self.

Then again, Lady Cousland of Highever had a lot of doors closed to her that were open for Una the Grey Warden, she reflected, pausing at the door at the bottom of the stairs. Grimly, she raised her foot and kicked it open, taking a savage satisfaction in the solid thud against her boot and the clunk as it bounced off the stone wall of the dungeons.

Said clunk echoed pretty badly, and Oghren chortled. "Not goin' by stealth this time, eh, Warden? Good on ya, girly. Oghren's with ya!"

Zev was silent, and she hoped he understood her need to walk into the lion's den without fear, as the warrior she was.

"Wynne, hang back a bit, will you?" she said softly. "Zev, you're with her. I'd rather have her in the shadows healing Oghren and me than in the fray."

"Very sensible, my dear," Wynne murmured.

Zev nodded, taking Wynne's arm and melting away into the darkness left by the guttering candles along the walls.

Once the iron door was open, they could hear the screaming. It sent chills down Una's back, and Oghren's green eyes turned icy and alert as he unshouldered his ax. Suddenly it didn't matter as much about finding Howe—she wanted to save the people who were screaming.

The first few rooms they looked in were empty; one held caged mabari who snarled and snapped impotently behind their locked doors. Una was glad of it; they looked like Grenli, some of them, and it would have broken her heart to kill them. The trainer, on the other hand, was fair game, especially when he came at her with a whip.

The screaming got louder as they approached the next room, and Una broke open the door with a blow of her hammer. A second blow took care of the guard at the door, and then she and Oghren set to work on the crew of torturers who came streaming at them from the back room. She didn't even pause to wonder what kind of man needed a dozen torturers—she knew all too well, and she was glad for the first time that her family had died quickly.

Once they were down, she took stock of the people in the two rooms. Most of them were elves, and all dead, until she reached the last table. Stretched there on the rack lay a blond man moaning in pain.

Under the blood and dirt on his face, Una recognized him. "Oswyn!"

"Who?" He opened his eyes, slits in his anguished face.

Zev was there next to her, his nimble fingers unfastening the straps that held Oswyn to the table.

"Oswyn, it's me. Una Cousland. You used to pull my pigtails, remember?"

"U-Una?" He blinked rapidly, trying to focus. Gently Una put an arm behind his back and helped him sit up. "I thought you were dead."

"I get that a lot."

Wynne appeared at her side now, wrinkled but capable hands probing at Oswyn's bare chest and stomach to determine what damage there had been. The mage's mouth drew itself into a disapproving line, and she began to mutter under her breath, although whether the words were spells or curses against the torturers, Una couldn't tell.

"Don't mind her," she said to Oswyn. "She's a mage. She'll soon set you right again."

"And you? You're not a ghost ..."

"No, all too real. I'm a Grey Warden, conscripted the night my family was killed."

"None of the others survived?"

She shook her head.

"I'm sorry." His eyes were clearer now, the lines of pain receding from his face as Wynne worked. "What are you doing here? Did my father send you?" He frowned darkly. "I hope this wasn't his idea of teaching me a lesson, leaving me down here this long."

"I haven't seen your father. I'm here on behalf of the rightful king, Alistair."

"Maric's bastard? I've heard of him. No question why you're here, then—he's the biggest threat against Loghain and Howe's rule." He reached up toward her, then pulled his arm back with a muttered curse of pain. Wynne immediately shifted her focus to his arms and shoulders. "I'm grateful to you, Una. Maker knows how long I've already been down here, and I don't think he'd ever have let me out alive."

"Why were you down here in the first place? It seems strange that Howe would try to pick a fight with your father. Oswyn's father is Bann Sighard, of Dragon's Peak," she explained for her companions' benefit.

"He's alienatin' his deshyrs by torturin' their kids?" Oghren asked. "Only works if he needs their votes for somethin', and then only once."

"Could that be it?" Wynne asked. "Is he holding this young man to ensure his father's vote in the Landsmeet?"

"It seems sensible. Oswyn, how did you end up down here?"

"My wet nurse, her son was at Ostagar. He snuck back into the city, afraid to be branded a traitor like the Grey Wardens—er, sorry," he said, looking uncomfortably at Una.

She waved it away. "I'll explain later."

"Right. Anyway, we'd been raised together, friends since birth, so he came to me. He told me his unit had been ordered to turn their backs on Cailan's army. The next day, he went to the market to reoutfit himself, and he never came back. When I went to look for him, I ..." He frowned, trying to remember. "I turned into an alley, and—that's all I remember."

"Ah," Zev said softly. "Not to bargain with his life for a vote, but to conceal what he knows. Probably forever."

"What? You think Rendon Howe would have had me killed because I found out what happened at Ostagar?"

"There is a lot of that going around," Zev said. He quirked an eyebrow at Una with a faint smile.

"Too much. And we can't all be chased by assassins with hearts of gold," she answered. "I'll explain later," she said to Oswyn, who was looking confused.

"If I'm here because of Ostagar, is Loghain behind this?" he asked.

"He grows more ruthless the closer the Landsmeet draws, or so it seems," Zev replied.

"Then there is a Landsmeet after all? Howe told me that the Arl of Redcliffe was dead and the Landsmeet had been called off."

"No, Arl Eamon is very much alive," Una assured him. "And the Landsmeet is coming up. It's terrible timing, but we could really use Dragon's Peak's support."

Oswyn squeezed her hand. "And you'll have it. Your family and mine go back a long way, and I'd back Cousland against Howe and Mac Tir any day." He looked around at the grimy room with a shudder of distaste. "And once he hears about this, so will my father, I can guarantee that."

"Thank you, Oswyn. Now, we need to get you out of here. Do you think you can make it on your own?"

He tested his arms and legs experimentally.

Wynne watched him with concern. "The legs will be fine, but I worry about the arms. Come and see me tomorrow at the Arl of Redcliffe's estate and I will do some more work on them."

"Thank you," he said. Una gave him hurried directions to the tunnel that led to Howe's bedroom and out of the building, assuming that would be the easiest way for him to go, and they scrounged some spare clothes from a chest to cover him up.