Who would have guessed that something like this would have been the way the air between them was cleared? With something so unexpected and potentially disastrous hanging over them, everything else seemed so petty.
She had begun to calm, but Ordhan made no effort to back away, and no movement to imply that she ought to. He stood, instead, still and straight, a gentle arm across the back of her shoulders and gentle eyes watching her. A proper knight would have had a handkerchief to offer to wipe away the tears, but though Ordhan was proper in many things, the like did not follow him to the battlefield.
The knight's eyes went dull at the question, and his voice was likewise lifeless when he answered, "The battle." He did not need to say which one. Whenever the subject of the Battle of Denerim came up, Ordhan was quick to dissemble or distract. But it was a shared horror between them, now, hers no less intense for its brevity. She deserved as honest an answer as he was willing to give. "So many died," he went on. "There were only a few guards left alive in the end. The bravest, they said." Here he paused, disdain curling his lips downward before he went on. "In truth, the bravest died."
His eyes returned to the present, and he looked down at her earnestly. "It is very hard to explain, Lillian," he said, a hint of almost pleading to his low voice, "When the Darkspawn came I knew I was supposed to die there, to make up for all I hadn't done. But I didn't. Fighting those creatures was the first worthwhile thing I had ever done, though, and...I have simply kept at it since. It is why I am here." He neglected to tell her that in the first years following the Blight, his efforts were merely a search for that very fate he had so narrowly avoided in the siege: an honorable death to assuage his guilt and put an end to an aimless life. Nor did he tell her of Nathaniel; she would learn of the fate of the eldest Wyland son another day. He drew a deep breath.
Worry creased his brow when she answered. "I do not know if any of the others would believe as we do. They care little about the Chantry, save the templar, but that may mean nothing about how they would feel." Comforter he may be in action, but not quite in words; still, would she have wanted half-truths and hopeful guesses to cheer her? "I am certain that Conlan will do nothing, and Faer--he is an apostate, himself. Perhaps if we speak to them you could be taken under their protection."