sarasa_cat | VL's Neria Surana - Warden Challenge, Day 5

Another set of entries, cross posted from my tumblr account.
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5. Who is your warden’s romantic interest(s)? Describe their relationship(s) in detail.

There are minor differences between Vanilla Neria (initial warden with the vanilla game), Modded Neria (a replay of Neria in a heavily modded game), and This Bird Has Flown Neria (the Neria who appears in a fic WIP told from Alistair’s POV). For the answers below, I’m responding for the This Bird Has Flown version of Neria and her complex situation with Alistair and Cullen (in which Cullen temporarily becomes a member of the party).

What attracted them to their romantic interest?

Alistair/Neria: Neria expected to spent her life in Ferelden’s Circle, working her way up the ranks of leadership (while dragging Cullen along behind her). When she was sent off with Duncan and told that her life in the Circle was over, this was as a shock. Neria’s initial attraction to Alistair was similar to a rebound relationship: yet another sweet, awkward templar, who definitely appeared interested in her and, at the very least, wanted to be her friend. They hit it off right from the start and, after waking up in Flemeth’s hut, the traumatic event they had just been through together caused Neria and Alistair to bond.

Cullen/Neria: Neria initially met Cullen when he was a 19 year old Chantry brother (Neria was sixteen). Cullen was on a three month rotation to study and serve in the Circle’s chapel. This occured just before Cullen committed himself to achieving knighthood in the templar order. Cullen had no fear of mages (headcanon: his mother was an apostate) and he interpreted the Chant in liberal, unconventional manner. As an elf, Neria was religious because she saw the Chantry’s laws and the Circle system as a opportunity to greatly raise her status and standard of living. Thus, she viewed Chantry doctrine in an instrumental manner. She enjoyed speaking with the young brother Cullen and, once they became friendly, Neria was highly amused by her ability to make brother Cullen blush. When he returned to the Circle three years later as a Chantry templar, it was far more difficult for them to find time to speak, but they remembered each other and every small glance or smile send both of their imaginations running wild.

What do they have in common?

Neria, Alistair, and Cullen have some obvious things in common: all three are or have been part of the Chantry’s system, they have overlapping experiences with magic and with the extreme ends of socioeconomic class.

The Chantry: Neria, The Chantry imprinted on them a sub-cultural outlook and system of expectations that provide a lot of shared context between Cullen, Alistair, and Neria. Canonically, Alistair enters as a broken when he is ten, my headcanon for Cullen and Neria is that the both enter at age twelve.* All three spent the bulk of their formative years with the Chantry and/or Circle acting as their guardians and their educators. They were expected to study book-based knowledge and learn skills that make them useful if called to battle or war. They were housed in dorms with other children and young adults. Their connections to their blood families were of diminished importance, and they were not expected to grow into the typical kinds of responsibilities that they would have had if living with their (extended) family. Issues of marriage, householder responsibilities, or finding employment were never concerns for them. In my headcanon, Cullen and Alistair met in Redcliffe chantry and became friends as boys. They have shared memories of growing up in a dorm of restless boys, being dared to eat slugs, and putting on a brave face while older boys burn marks on young boys arms with hot cinders. Cullen and Neria met a few years before DA:O starts, when Cullen went on a three-month rotation to the Circle. They rekindled their friendship when Cullen returned to the tower as a newly made templar a couple years later.

(*At the time of Neria’s Harrowing Neria has just turned 21, Alistair is 20 but will turn 21 during the early summer while the Blight is still blighting, Cullen is 23 and turns 24 during the late summer while he travels with Neria and Alistair.)

Magic: All three have direct experiences with magic and are educated in the ways in which magic (and templar anti-magic) works. Unlike the general public, their beliefs about magic are not driven by superstition and fear. Up until Uldred’s attack on Ferelden’s tower, they are all comfortable being around mages and performing magic or pseudo-magical templar skills. They all have some experience with the effects of lyrium. They are also caught in the Chantry’s oppositional situation, in which templars are expected to police mages and magical use. All three of them have complex feelings toward apostates.

Socio-economic experiences: All three have one parent who passed away while they were young, and all three were socially stigmatized for situations they were born into: poverty (Neria, Cullen), race (Neria), bastard status (Cullen, Alistair), apostasy (Cullen’s mother). The Chantry/Circle provided each of them refuged from stigmatizing aspects of their identity. Neria willing entered the Circle to escape poverty and better her life. Alistair (as the spare to the heir) was put into the Chantry to receive an education and templar training, and this was paid for by Eamon. Once Cullen was orphaned and given to the Chantry (who kept an eye on him in case he developed magical talents), Cullen received an education that he would other never have received. This was not a lifelong commitment and he could have left at any time.

We know Alistair’s background and I’ve written about Neria’s background on Day One of this meme. My background for Cullen is that his mother was a Ferelden apostate (healer) and his father is a Chasind wilder. Cullen’s mother learned how to control her magic abilities from the Chasind after she ran away from a farm in the bannorn during her pre-teen years. She was in her late teens when she got pregnant and she eventually left the Wilders because she wanted Cullen to be raised among rural Ferelden folk (and her pregnancy caused issues among the Wilders because Cullen’s father already had someone else as his wife). When Cullen was young, his mother moved them from village to village often. She performed healing services that were a mix of spirit healing magic, folk remedies, and basic midwifery skills. Thus, Cullen had no fear of mages when he was young because he believed all mages were like his mother. When Cullen was twelve, his mother overextended her powers while being the midwife for a noble woman who was having a difficult and dangerous labor. The woman and her newborn son lived but, because Cullen’s mother worked without the aid of lyrium or blood, she expended her own life-force and became permanently infirm due to her over-exertion. The noble woman took pity on Cullen and his mother, and she paid a hefty sum of gold to the Chantry to make sure that Cullen’s mother received good care. Cullen (a tall, shy, awkward boy) was given to the Chantry at age twelve. His mother died when Cullen was fifteen.

What do they like to do together? Their interests are similar to others from the Chantry/Circle system: they enjoy reading and discussing what they have read (they are highly literate in a society where many people are only functionally literate, and a good number are illiterate). They are skilled at the game of chess and they like to play card games. They like making jokes about older, pious members of the Chantry and Circle. They enjoy telling jokes while drinking a good pint of ale and eating cheese and freshly baked bread. They are fascinated with the workings of magic and magical items. Cullen and Neria enjoy discussing magical and religious philosophy (Alistair is less interested in this topic). All three are perfectly happy to sit in the grass in a sunny meadow and while away the day.

What do they argue about the most?

Neria and Alistair: Alistair makes or suggests many bad decisions and Neria is quick to cut him off and suggest something else. This can lead to arguments. Neria always wins.

Sometimes Alistair doesn’t know how to put his feelings into words and Neria will push him to say what he is thinking but, when he can, an argument will start. No one wins.

Neria and Cullen: Other than their canonical argument during the Broken Circle quest, plus a few other emotional breakdowns that Cullen suffered after that, they never argue about petty things. They have an unresolvable situation: Cullen is suffering from severe, uncontrollable anxiety and he fears the ways in which demons can take over any mage and turn them into monsters; Neria will always be a mage. This isn’t an argument. It is a fact of life.

What do your Warden’s other companions think of their relationship?

Leliana thinks Neria/Cullen is a perfect picture of true love and devotion; and she thinks Neria/Alistair are really cute. Leliana often wonders aloud if an Alistair/Neria/Cullen threesome will spontaneously occur on night in camp.

Oghren refers to Cullen and Alistair as “Neria’s match pair.” He makes lewd comments about the three of them getting it on while engaging in kinky templar-mage sex games (which doesn’t happen).

Morrigan disapproves, does not understand, and wants nothing at all to do with the half-mad, potentially dangerous templar (aka Cullen). She cannot decide if Cullen is a step up or a step down from Alistair.

Wynne has very complex feelings about Neria’s collection of templars. She doesn’t disapprove, per se, but she is certain someone will get hurt. But, Wynne is concerned about Cullen’s well being and she approves of the way in which Neria and Alistair care for him.

Zevran only cares that Alistair and Cullen claim to be happy. If not happy, why bother? If happy, enjoy it.

Sten thinks that Cullen is a dangerous distractions who sidetracks Neria. If Neria wants to be a Grey Warden, she cannot spend her time looking after a man who is unfit to serve as a soldier. Sten does not approve of Neria/Alistair, but he makes no comment because he does not understand their customs.

Dog (Hafter) loves Cullen, therefore Cullen/Neria is good. Dog wishes that Alistair would be more welcoming to friendly mabari, therefore Neria needs to train Alistair better.

Are they in love? Explain why/why not.

This is a trick question for all three of the people involved. My WIP, This Bird Has Flown opens with this paragraph (from Alistair’s POV):

In the early autumn during the year of the fifth blight, Neria Surana fell in love. Real love, not some passing infatuation. As I watched it happen, the differences between love and infatuation became all too obvious.

http://vieralynn.tumblr.com/post/36853487501/this-bird-has-flown-chapter-1-1

What does it mean to be in love? What is love? This is one of the central questions that Alistair ponders for what is likely to be 100,000-120,000 words. Is there a difference between being in love and perceiving whether (or not) you are in love? Can you perceive whether two other people are in love? Can you do so more accurately than them?

Alistair is confused. He rushed into a relationship that he wanted without thinking about the consequences of being the spare to the heir. Alistair isn’t sure if he’s falling in love, because he really probably shouldn’t, except he thinks he is, even though it is the wrong time. Actually, Alistair isn’t certain he knows what love is. He thinks he might know, except he has a lot of doubts whenever he tries to put words to his feelings.

But Alistair knows this: Cullen, Alistair’s friend from childhood, is not well, mentally, and Neria will move mountains to get Cullen out of the Circle after Uldred’s attack. He watches Neria care for and watch over Cullen with the same dedication that one might have to close member of their family (assuming, that is, that one’s family hasn’t abandoned them). Surely that is love. Alistair assumes that Neria does all that does for Cullen because the two of them are in love. When Alistair observes the passionate nature of their relationship, he is certain they are in love (because, after all, they have known each other for years, were friendly with each other in the Circle, and were mutually aware of their attraction to each other). So, surely in Alistair’s mind, Cullen and Neria are the ones in love, not Alistair and Neria. As for what love is, what love means, and who is love with whom, that’s a novel-length meditation that Alistair meanders through. (Novel currently being drafted…)

Neria and Cullen were deeply infatuated with each other when in the Circle, but they rarely had opportunities to speak to each other about their feelings or what they wanted. Many of their ideas for their relationship were only half-communicated daydreams and brief comments in passing. When Neria and Cullen spend time together outside of the tower, this marks their first opportunity to speak with each other as adults who are fully aware of the fantasies they once held. Are they in love? (Alistair thinks they are.)

Neria feels terrible about Cullen’s problems and she treats him with the same love and care that one often displays to their immediate family and closest friends. Cullen is confused because he knows that he once wanted Neria, but all of his fantasies and his entire sense of security have been shattered. Most of the time, Cullen does not know what he wants (other than wanting his crippling anxiety to stop).

Does your warden have any past relationships before the Blight? If yes, describe each one.

Yes, Neria has been involved in three relationships (of sorts) prior to Duncan recruiting her into the wardens.

1. Eban: On Day 1, I wrote about Neria’s life in Amaranthine before she joined the Circle. She was close friends with a boy named Eban and they had crushes on each other. Had Neria not been a mage, it is possible that she and Eban may have entered a relationship during their teenage years. The only things they did as pre-teens were really very innocent.

2. Jowan: Neria and Jowan are only good friends but they have experimented sexual a couple of times just to figure out how girl/boy parts work so they would be prepared when doing things with the people they were interested in (e.g., Cullen and Lily).

3. Cullen: Neria and Cullen were in a mostly chaste, mostly exclusive relationship, more or less. Neria assumed she would some day rise up to the top of the Circle’s hierarchy and she wanted Cullen to rise up in the Templar hierarchy because she trusted him and because she thought his views about the Circle and mages were reasonable.

The “mostly chaste” part refers to the fact that they knew that the Chantry would frown on them having a sexual relationship and it could be used against Neria, especially when she was only an apprentice. They’ve secretly held hands and kissed, but only just a little bit, only in the sneakiest moments. Cullen knew what they were doing was akin to playing with fire. Every time Cullen felt overwhelmed with urges he would run off and pray. (Note: my headcanon Cullen was not a virgin; at age 19 he had a secret summer-long fling with with a barmaid in Redcliffe.)

The “mostly exclusive relationship” part of Neria and Cullen’s relationship refers to the fact that there were many unspoken assumptions between them and very little discussion of what they were actually doing (or attempting to do). As far as Neria was concerned, the two times she experimented with Jowan didn’t count as being unfaithful to Cullen because she was imagining Cullen (to the best of her ability) and faithfulness is a wishy-washy term in the Circle.

6. Describe your Warden’s sexuality.

What is your Warden’s sexual orientation? Templarsexual. Neria is not sexually attracted to other elves. Only humans.

She is mostly heterosexual, but not entirely. Neria would score between 1 and 2 on the Kinsey Scale, although, overall, her sexual experiences were limited.

Describe your Warden’s past lovers (if any). Neria had two “lampposts licking” experiences while in the Circle. She and Jowan experimented twice to see how sexual activities work for someone of their opposite sex. Their excuse was that they wanted to be sure they understood how the bodies of the opposite sex worked before they did anything with the people they planned to have relationships with. Both of these Neria/Jowan encounters were hands-on anatomy lessons that ended with a few stifled groans. No penetrative intercourse occurred. Jowan knew Neria was interested in Cullen. Neria knew that Jowan claimed to be involved with another woman, but Neria was not certain whether Jowan was telling her the truth. She often suspected Jowan of making up the existence of this unnamed woman just so he could rub his cock against Neria’s thigh while calling it an educational exercise.

Prior to the Circle, when Neria was twelve, she sort of kissed a boy (Eban) whom she was interested in. They “sort of kissed,” in the way that pre-teens sort of kiss, sort of cuddle, and vaguely sort of grope.

How does your Warden feel about sex before marriage? Given the Chantry’s rules and the libertine nature of Ferelden’s Circle, the entire importance of connecting sex with marriage was mostly meaningless to Neria. Sure, it was possible for a mage to receive the Chantry’s permission to marry, but those marriages were special cases and the mages in Chantry-approved marriages were expected not to have (potentially magic-wielding) babies.

Neria associated the phrase “sex before marriage” with other people: daughters of less nobles, children of upper-middle class merchants, pre-teen alienage elves readying for the betrothals (followed by the long wait until they of age to be married).

In the Circle, Neria knew mages who treated sex as a game. She also knew mages who have enjoyed experiencing as many partners as possible. But not all mages used the Circle’s after dark hours like a swinging sex club. In fact, far more of the Circle’s mages in Ferelden had a sober attitude toward sex. Neria was definitely among them.

Do feelings/commitment need to be involved for your Warden? Or are they okay with a fling? Neria stands somewhere in the middle of these two extremes. She has no interest in flings, random sexual encounters, sex parties, semi-anonymous sex, or paying for sex. She needs to know the person she is having sex with an feel some kind of connection with them, but she doesn’t need a commitment.

She was perfectly capable of experimenting with Jowan, just to see how sex works.

She had an unspoken (and somewhat confusing) open relationship for a few months with Cullen and Alistair (but never Cullen/Neria/Alistair all at once, despite what Oghren might think).

She spent a night with Teagan.

When Neria and Cullen finally had sex (outside of the Circle), it was doubtful that either of them truly believed they were in a committed relationship. They toyed with the idea of commitment, but never seriously. On the other hand, both of them wanted to finally know what sex with each other would feel like. They were curious. They had a history between them. Neria had a strong emotional connection to Cullen. The sex they had was really, really = good.

As for Cullen, although he wasn’t able to put all of this into words, for the most part, he just wanted sex with Neria for psychological reasons: to know that he has actually touched and entered her body, and that it was not a blood-magic vision designed to tempt him. To get the whole temptation of “sex with Neria” out of his system. To show that he was mentally strong enough to take control of his desires.

The Cullen in this universe was not a virgin when he met Neria. Under normal circumstances, Cullen believed that sex requires feelings and commitment, but given how he and his first girlfriend appeared committed yet mutually found reasons to end their relationship on good terms (the girlfriend immediately became engaged to someone else), Cullen was able to grasp the grey area between Serious Commitment and coupling with someone for a shorter period of time that will definitely come to an end.

Before Uldred’s attack, Cullen had been able to imagine himself in a Serious, Permanent Commitment with Neria. After Uldred’s attack, somewhere inside of Cullen, he knew that he and Neria were partnering for a finite period of time that would probably be short. Cullen wasn’t able to visualize a future with Neria, but he could appreciate having something in the present. (When Cullen initially realized that Neria and Alistair had been having a relationship, Cullen was overcome with angry, but he got over it pretty quickly.)

From Neria’s point of view during this period of time, all she wanted was for Cullen to become well again. She thought of him more as a friend than as a potentially committed life partner. They had been sexually attracted in the past. When together again, living in close proximity and full of confusing emotions, sex happened. And it was good enough to happen more than once. Did Neria see a future together with Cullen? She didn’t know. He was struggling with severe anxiety and, as far as Neria was concerned, until Cullen started getting better, their relationship was to be taken one day at a time.

The situation with Alistair was a completely different matter. Alistair strongly equated sex, love, and commitment, but he realized that he rushed into a relationship with Neria while hiding secrets about his royal bastard status. When the whole Neria/Cullen situation came to light, it was easier for Alistair to say nothing and quietly step back. (Not that it stopped him from being a really, really bad man who thought about Neria while quietly jerking off before falling asleep; nor did it stop him from being a little too physically intimate with Neria in the Deep Roads when they temporarily left Cullen behind in the city of Orzammar.) If Alistair was asked what was going on between him and Neria, he would say, “well, it’s complex.” Was Alistair happy or comfortable with their situation? No. Not at all. But it was better than nothing, especially when Cullen made clear that he didn’t see a future for himself and Neria.

How does your Warden feel first time visiting The Pearl? Curious, but only slightly curious. Curious enough to glance at what services the Pearl offered. Not curious enough to pay for one of the Pearl’s workers.

Alistair hung close to Neria while looking shamefaced nervous as she poked around the Pearl (after all, she’s a mage, and circle mages are known to be sexually loose). Alistair breathed a giant sigh of relief when they left the Pearl without a single unsavory occurring.

Did your Warden ask Isabela to ‘get to know her better?’ Why? Was anyone else involved? No, she passed up that opportunity. Neria saw Isabela as being very similar to the very sexually active mages in the Circle. Neria wasn’t interested in them when she was in the Circle, and once she bucketed Isabela into the same category, she had no interest in sleeping with Isabela in exchange for information.

Day 7. Describe your Wardens choices in the five main quests: Arl of Redcliffe, Urn of Sacred Ashes, Broken Circle, A Paragon of Her Kind & Nature of the Beast.

I am describing the main quests in the order that Neria completed them. (And OH BOY, DID I DISCOVER TWO OF NERIA’S HUGE CHARACTER FLAWS IN *THIS* SERIES OF QUESTIONS?! YES, INDEED, I DID.)

Nature of the Beast - Did your Warden side with the Werewolves or the Dalish? Or did they manage to break the curse? Did they side with The Grand Oak or The Mad Hermit in order to pass through the forest?

Neria sided with the Grand Oak

Neria suspected that Keeper Zathrian of withholding facts right from the start. She never trusted the Dalish Keeper. Although Neria initially feared the the werewolves, she sleuthed out the true cause of their curse and eventually negotiated an agreement with Zathrian to break the curse.

Neria felt particularly proud of her first treaty agreement because, in her eyes, justice was served. Zathrian had paid for his crime and a horrible curse had been lifted.

Overall, Neria was disappointed with the Dalish. To her surprise and dismay, the Dalish did not live romantic lives of the wise, noble savages that Neria had read about in pulpy action-adventure novels penned by authors in the Free Marches and Orlais. To Neria's eyes, the Dalish she met were a petty, squabbling, insular people who clung to tattered scraps of supposedly ancient lore, all of it wrapped in fear and superstition.

While searching the Bracillian Ruins, Neria discovered the phylactery that held the spirit of an ancient, elvhen arcane warrior. She was immediately overjoyed with the importance of her historical discovery. Back during Neria’s education in the Circle, she read historical documents that referenced earlier historical accounts (now lost) that described arcane warriors. Neria also knew a mage in the Circle who made this topic his life's research. Finding this discovery in a ruin on Dalish lands made Neria scoff at the Dalish for being so ignorant that they were unable to seek out and care for the treasures buried just beneath their soil.

After Neria left the Dalish, she remembered herself as a child who thought that it would be fun to run away and join the Dalish. She rolled her eyes and scoffed at herself, such a silly childhood fantasy.

Broken Circle – Did your Warden side with the Mages or Templars?

Neria was aghast with the situation in the tower and, as she pieced together clues about what had happened, her long-held sour feelings for the Libertarian Fraternity grew into icy hatred. The connection between Loghain and Uldred made her swear on the spot that Loghain had never been a hero (and Neria edited away her childhood hero-worship/fannishness toward Loghain).

During one portion of Neria’s journey through the Fade, she wondered if she walking through a nightmare that Cullen was having. She worried deeply about his well being since she had not yet found him in the tower, and her concerns for Cullen began to take precedence over all her other thoughts.

We all know what caged Cullen says to the Warden. In Neria's version, the dialogue choices (and headcanon surrounding it) were one, long, painful, pleading, shouting, angry shame-driven mess. Neria told Cullen she would not make a single decision until she saw the Harrowing Chamber for herself with her own eyes. She told him that she understood he was under extreme duress, and once the ordeal is over and the duress passes, he would be finally see that the rash irrationality in the idea of killing all mages held captive in the Harrowing Chamber just because the libertarian blood mages "wrecked his home.” He was having a regretfully irrational, emotion-driven revenge fantasy. Needless to say, Cullen did not take any of these words well.

Adding insult to injury, Alistair butted in with a few far too intimate gestures made towards Neria, which tipped his hand, allowing Cullen to guess that Alistair and Neria were having an intimate relationship. Epic shouting ensued until Wynne intervened.

And, at that moment, Neria was certain that she would do whatever it took to save Irving and any other non-libertarian mage who was still alive.

Once in the Harrowing Chamber, Neria successfully rescued Irving. After speaking with Greagoir, they collectively agreed that the crisis was over (meanwhile, Cullen engaged in an extended version of his anxiety-fueled canonical shitfit about the possibility of bloodmages still lurking, and controlling unknowing mages's minds). And so, the tower was saved and Neria sided with the Mages.

In "This Bird Has Flown," the novel-in-progress starts off with Neria and Alistair returning to the tower two days later to also negotiate the Templar's aid against the Archdemon and Blight.

Neria was *extremely* pleased with her ability to negotiate the very best situation possible given the disaster that she found in the Circle. Better yet, the Maker-be-damned libertarians were mostly dead, paying for their crimes. Justice served.

A Paragon of Her Kind – Did your Warden choose Bhelen Aeducan or Lord Harrowmont as King? Do they preserve or destroy the Anvil?

Orzammar was the big wake up call for Neria. This was the first time in her gold star winning, A+ receiving, teacher's pet life that Neria was truly a fish out of water, sent to play a rigged game while fully aware of the fact that she did not know any of the game's foreign rules.

Neria listened to gossip as she desperately tried to make heads or tails out of the Aeducan-Harrowmont rivalry. Who were these men? What good, if any, would they do for their Dwarven society?

The entire dwarven system baffled her, but the caste system was something she could understand. She hated it. The moment she heard that Bhelen Aeducan might do something forward-thinking to help the lowest ranked members of Dwarven society, she made a snap decision and put her weight behind Bhelen in order to improve the casteless’ rights.

Her trip into the deep roads was both harrowing and horrifying. Morally disgusted, fully lawful Neria destroyed that Anvil without a second thought.

She left Orzammar older and wiser, because she was forced to acknowledge her limitations in understanding a situation. Nonetheless, Neria believes that she made the right decisions and that her actions helped bring a taste of proper civilized thought into the heathen Dwarven society.

Urn of Sacred Ashes - Did your Warden side with the dragon cult and defile the ashes or did they fight against the cult and save the ashes? What became of Brother Genitivi?

Neria is a devout follower of Andraste. Why would she ever once toy with idea of defiling the ashes and letting a blasphemous cult continue?! (Questioner, are you touched in the head?) Of course Neria preserved the Ashes, exterminated that horrible Cult, and saved Brother Genitivi so he could share the fruits of many decades of dedicated research!

To this day, Neria thinks of this as one of her greatest and most heroic achievements, even though her support for the Andrastian Chantry, in its current form, has greatly diminished to the point that she finds the Chantry itself morally corrupted.

Arl of Redcliffe – Did your Warden help the village defend itself? How did they deal with Connor's possession? What happened to Jowan?

Neria is loyal to the Circle's teachings and the Circle's purposes. She did exactly what she believed a high ranking Circle Senior Enchanter would have done, until things became morally muddled.

When Neria tells the story, she helped the village, went into the fade to investigate the situation with Connor's possession, saved Conner and restored the Arl to good health, and dealt with Jowan's wrong doings, the foul traitor. End of story. Nothing more to be said.

What really happened?

Neria was far too accustomed to Jowan’s “stupid, weak-willed decisions.” Without anyone to watch over him, of course he would end up as a pawn in Loghain’s hands. Neria pitied Jowan. She briefly considered killing him, but took a long, deep breath. She walked away from the cell and then turned, walked back, freed him, and told him to disappear from Redcliffe and all of the Lake Calenhad region, and preferably even all of Ferelden, running as fast as humanly possible.

Once Neria assessed Connor’s situation, she returned to the Circle for help, the mages performed their ritual with lyrium and sent Neria into the fade. When Neria met the desire demon, for the first time ever Neria began to doubt herself (she was in an emotionally weak place thanks to other events with Royal Bastard Alistair and shellshocked-beyond-hope Cullen). This time, would she final succumb to a demon’s temptations? The demon knew what Neria wanted. Knew far too well. It would have been so easy to ask for something she shouldn’t but, in the final moment, Neria declined everything that the demon offered. She returned from the Fade, sober and ready to face that which she feared the most…

Day 8. Describe your Wardens choices later in the game: The Alienage, the Landsmeet, and Morrigan’s Ritual, plus Soldier’s Peak and Return to Ostagar (but not The Stone Prisoner).

Unrest in the Alienage: Did your Warden help save the elves who were going to be enslaved? Or did your Warden accept Caladrius’ offer to use his blood magic to become more powerful?

Neria found her return to Denerim’s Alienage strange and uncomfortable. She felt that she had little in common with the alienage elves and their culture. Their behavior and customs embarrassed her, and she had no interest in reconnecting with the alienage elves or finding her family. She hoped no one would recognize her and, since she had spent most of her early childhood in Amaranthine, if anyone guessed who she was, they never said so, much to her relief.

Neria was outraged when learning that elves were being rounded up and sold as slaves. She had no interest in any offers Caladrius made her and Caladrius was killed.

The Landsmeet: Who was made the ruler of Ferelden - Anora or Alistair? Did your Warden kill or spare Loghain? How many nobles sided with your Warden?

Neria did not look forward to the Landsmeet. She was certain that Arl Eamon would push Alistair onto the throne the first opening he got. She did not want to make Alistair king but she did not want to stop him if becoming king was what he truly wanted (Alistair was not hardened).

She took her time learning who Anora was and what Anora wanted. Neria briefly discussed the possibility of an Anora/Alistair marriage, although Anora knew that Neria and Alistair were having a relationship. Neria was at all not interested in seeing an Anora/Alistair marriage happen. Instead, she used this line of discussion to better understand who Anora was, and, also, as a means for giving Alistair a shove to see what he wanted. Neria had been extremely displeased with Alistair’s inability to provide a single clue regarding what he preferred. While not reflected in game stats, their relationship became very rocky during this period of time.

Eventually Neria decided that she would promote Anora to the throne. She did what she could to receive backing from various nobles. All seemed to go well at the Landsmeet until Loghain accused everyone else of being traitors because they supported the Warden. Neria chose to let Alistair duel Loghain, Alistair chopped off Loghain’s head, and Eamon immediately jumped in to declare Alistair king. This triggered a debate between Alistair and Anora that Neria moderated. Inwardly, Neria cursed herself because all of her careful planning had gone straight to hell. In the end, Alistair proved to be a complete fool (thankfully). When it was clear that Alistair had shot himself in the foot, Neria declared that Anora should be queen. Everyone was relieved (except Eamon).

Morrigan’s ritual: Did you accept or refuse the ritual? If accepted, did your male Warden, Alistair, or Loghain do it?

Neria accepted the ritual and bluntly told Alistair the entire truth about Morrigan’s plans. After Alistair shouted his frustrations, he agreed very easily and went off to do the deed.

(Meanwhile, Neria went off to speak with Teagan and ended up having horizontal negotiations with the man.)

After the ritual, Neria and Alistair never spoke about it, even though Neria was certain that the OGB issue is sometimes on Alistair’s mind.

Soldier’s Peak: Did your Warden side with Sophia or Avernus?

Neria sided with Avernus and left him to do research.

Return to Ostagar: What did you Warden do with Cailan’s remains?

A funeral pyre was prepared for Cailan. Alistair, Wynne, and Leliana helped in the preparations.