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“May I ask you a question?” Nathaniel Howe waits at the door to the armory, and Simen nods, setting his dagger and the whetstone aside.
“Anything. Well, almost anything. Don’t ask about your father.”
“I understand,” Nathaniel says. Simen almost believes he does, but he isn’t sure he can ever explain to this man how much hate he still has, for Rendon Howe. Nathaniel looks around the armory. “It’s just that I was wondering, do you recruit everyone to the Grey Wardens?”
“It certainly can seem that way, can’t it?” Simen smiles. “You’re still wondering why I recruited you? You might as well ask why I recruited anyone.”
“It’s just random, then? You really don’t care, you recruit anyone and let the Joining sort them out?”
“That’s not true.” There is more bite in Simen’s voice than he meant, and he knows why. He doesn’t regret his decision to recruit Teyrn Loghain. Unlike Nathaniel’s father, Loghain had thought he was acting in the best interests of Ferelden. All Simen had done he had done for Ferelden, and he would stand by every decision. But seeing Loghain again, even if only briefly, has reminded him what that decision cost him. “It’s not like that. I don’t know if there’s any reason why some survive the Joining and others don’t, but I don’t think it has anything to do with their worth. It’s not judgment from Andraste, whatever else it is.”
“I’m sorry, I wasn’t thinking.”
“It’s not that so much as . . . I’m not used to being questioned. And in this.” Simen frowns. “It’s terrible, when someone dies in the Joining. You think you’ll get used to death, in a war. Maker knows I’ve seen more than enough of it.” He pauses a moment, considering his words. “Before the war began, I never even thought of it. And it’s not . . . By the time I arrived at Ostagar, I had seen nearly everyone I had ever cared for dead, or dying. I did not believe death could touch me. I was wrong.”
Nathaniel is silent, and Simen is thankful for this. He would never wish to punish this man for his father’s treachery, of which he had no part, but Simen doubts Nathaniel would thank him for protecting him from the worst of it. It was just, another time.
“So I am a Grey Warden as penance then, for my father’s crimes?”
“That’s one way of looking at it,” Simen replies. He stands, takes a few steps towards the other man, then stops. “Though that applies more to Loghain than anyone else. You might as well ask why I made Oghren a Warden. Or Anders.”
“I admit I’ve wondered. Neither of them are what I imagined Grey Wardens to be. They . . . talk more, for one thing. Not that they aren’t effective against the Darkspawn.”
Simen smiles. “To be entirely honest, if Oghren wasn’t a friend of mine, I probably wouldn’t have agreed to his Joining. But we fought the Blight together and whatever else he is, lewd, crude, a drunk, he *is* . . . formidable, I think was how you put it?”
Nathaniel nods. “Quite. It’s good you are so loyal to your friends.”
“I haven’t always been.” Simen sighs. Alistair . . . why couldn’t he have listened. “I’ve lost too much . . . as for Anders, well, if I hadn’t recruited him execution was probably the best he could have expected. And Sigrun’s already well-accustomed to fighting Darkspawn. As for you, well. . . Amaranthine is your home. You have a right to be here. Such as it is.”
Nathaniel gives one of those rare smiles that almost makes Simen feel like all of this was worth it. “I think I like it better this way.”