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Alphabet Table of Contents
(This is based on OYD’s Nathaniel and his bear.)
After numerous assassination attempts had failed, conspiracies built up against him which deflated miserably, dodging the murder attempt of his entire family, and survived a Joining, Reginald considered himself having generally outlived his life expectancy several times over. It was excusable that when the infernal bear of Nathaniel’s came barreling into the main room of Vigil’s Keep, bawling as if the trash had somehow taken up arms against him, that the Hero of Ferelden nearly leaped out of his armor.
It would have been further understandable had the Warden Commander wrapped his trembling limbs around a ceiling support beam and shook in his small clothes, but he had more poise than that. He settled for nearly dropping the papers he was looking over into the brazier. Unfortunately not a brassiere, which would have been phenomenally more interesting. Or perhaps not, because Nathaniel was yelling at him, and he could not recall the other Warden screaming in anything short of battle cries since he had recruited him four years previously. “We have to do something! You have to do something!”
Deux was rolling about on the floor, waving his paws clumsily in the air, screeching and bawling so loudly that had Reginald not gotten dwarven stone masons to make upgrades before the Mother’s Forces hit, the walls would have cracked. They would have made a fabulous pair with his eardrums, and he covered his ears with his palms, ignoring the papers he dropped on his foot. “What is wrong with that beast?” He had to shout at the top of his lungs to be heard between the Ranger and the squalling ursine.
“He’s no beast, he’s… He must have eaten part of the darkspawn or swallowed their blood!” Nathaniel was trying to wrestle Deux down and command him, but the bear was rolling everywhere, nearly on top of his own master. His howling became even more frantic and pained. “We have to do something!” He was reliving Adria, and how they had been too late to save her. Deux, was a friend, and Nathaniel couldn’t tolerate the thought of losing him, for all the trouble he caused.
“What am I supposed to do?” Reginald barked back, hands still clapped over his ears. “It is not as if I can put him …” Couldn’t he? He and Nathaniel had their differences over Rendon, but they had grown up knowing one another. After he had drug his old acquaintance out of the jail cell and put him through a Joining, it had been rocky, but they had patched fences. Stubborn that he could be, Nathaniel was not a fool, and he eventually realized who and what his father had truly been.
Never let it be said that Reginald Cousland did not go any lengths for friendship. “Keep him calm, I will be back. Trust me,” he belted, “we will try this.”
“Varel!” He yelled in the voice of authority which came from bearing the title of the Commander of the Grey. “We need you this instant!” The good seneschal was not moving as quickly as he did as a young man, but the whole Keep could hear the bear thrashing around and bellowing. If Reginald’s voice didn’t carry, Deux’s certainly would. “Get the Joining chalice and throw the emergency ingredients into it!”
“What?” Varel and Nathaniel demanded in chorus as the older man’s mouth succumbed to gravity. His eyebrows managed to defy it, which was a neat effect, but Commander Cousland did not have the time to admire it. “Do it!”
“You want to put my bear through a Joining?” Nathaniel demanded, “Deux, be still!” he commanded, but the behemoth did not listen, slapping his great paws against his aching, burning belly.
“You are going to lose him if we do not. If it works, he will be like us, and a Warden to the core.” If it meant keeping the “mighty hunter” out of the rubbish bins, Reginald would put him through three Joinings a week, but he did not vocalize that sardonic thought.
“Commander? On the bear?” Varel spluttered, but the lethal look from his superior did not have him hesitate any longer as he jogged into a room next to their main hall, quickly throwing together the premixed and prepared ingredients into the Joining goblet as he had for Nathaniel and many others. He had questioned the idea of Conscription of a prisoner, but bears were clearly the encore performance. Bringing the goblet out, clutched carefully in both hands, he made one last attempt at reason, “Commander, on the bear?”
“Just pour, Varel! Nathaniel, get his mouth open – the bear, not the Seneschal.”
“I know what you meant!” the Ranger snapped with uncharacteristic shortness, as he put his fingers into Deux’s mouth without fear of losing any of them. “Open,” he ordered the thrashing animal, prying his jaws apart. “Deux, open!”
Clearly the Seneschal was less than enthusiastic about getting close, so Reginald snatched the goblet. “Join us brothers and bears for the etc. etc. etc. One day we shall join you.” He poured a generous portion of the bloody contents over Nate’s glove, the bear’s muzzle, and managed to get some into the ursine’s mouth.
“Swallow it,” Nathaniel ordered, although he was pleading and practically holding Deux’s paw. Reginald was beginning to understand why his friend had a cold bed which lacked human company, but the huge, hairy throat jerked twice. Deux’s eyes rolled back into his head and he flopped over onto his back, flailing his hind legs.
Nathaniel put his hand over the bear’s chest and sighed in relief as he sagged down to sit next to the shaggy black hulk of muscle. “He survived.”
Reginald sank down to his knees on the other side and pushed his rust colored hair back from his forehead. “That is a relief.”
“We just…”
“Put a bear through a sacred, secret and time honored Warden tradition of the Joining,” Reginald finished for him, then began to laugh. Nathaniel’s grieved panic had been genuine. He couldn’t allow anything to happen to his friend’s pet, hairy comrade, trash sorter, or whatever function it served. It meant something to Nathaniel. “There is not one dull moment about this place, is there?”
Nathaniel cracked a weak smile, but Varel shook his head emphatically. “Commander, you are going to be the death of me.” He signed, staring at Deux and repeated through an exasperated hiss, “a bear.”
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* Dragon Age Origins, Dragon Age 2, the Toolset and all its characters belong to Bioware and their respective owners. This blog is dedicated to their work with fiction, tutorials, and things to share with other fans. Deux belongs to Ouyangdan. Nathaniel Howe, Varel, the setting, and the Cousland Surname belong to Bioware. The story, Reginald, and writing belong to me.
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