when you become a warden, the order is your everything. it is your life and will, at some point, be your death. it is your duty. from the day the joining chalice touches your lips and you are fortunate enough to wake up once more, the order is you, and you are the order.
but what happens when you have no choice but to leave?
celinde had been training to become a grey warden since matheus brought her under his wing at the young age of 10. he taught her all about the duty wardens are burdened with, about the sacrifices they make to keep thedas safe. he told her, during quiet nights around small fires at camp, about all of the legendary wardens who saved theodosians time and time again from the ancient darkspawn. as a child who had no ties to her mother and no longer a relationship with her father, she thought perhaps that, in life, she was destined to become a hero like the wardens of old, and she sought to fulfill that destiny any chance she could see. she spend the next eight years following matheus around southern thedas in secret, praying for the day he thought she was ready enough to undergo the joining.
that day came shortly after the end of the fifth blight. a small part of her wanted the blight to not truly be over, just so she could fight it as an official warden and not just a child that followed one around. she had no such luck. the blight was over for good, thanks to the hero of ferelden who now sat proudly on the throne of the country, and celinde would “have to wait until the next one to come around before she could make her mark”. at least that’s what matheus told her.
as she had been officially inducted into the warden ranks, she began to make a home for herself in the orlesian warden fortress. she saw the rocks of the training grounds and the walls of the library more often than she saw the roof over her own bed. she was trained first in the art of swordplay, then moved along to archery and dagger-throwing - the ladder she excelled in slightly more than the former, although not my much. she studied the old history books day in and day out. she could recite most of them off by memory.
celinde was a warden, through and through. she was nothing without the order.
and then matheus told her of what the wardens were doing. something was wrong - very wrong. they were meddling with forces unbeknownst to him, but he knew, at the very least, what they were doing was not good, nor would it help in their fight against the blights. though he was not of high rank, matheus knew enough people amongst it to hear whisperings and murmurs that, while he was disgusted and confused by what he was hearing, rang true with what he was beginning to notice and overhear in the dead of night.
he stayed alive for several days after relaying the message to celinde and earnest, too, as it turned out, but the night he was struck down, killed by someone in his bed as he slept, celinde found a note on her pillow when she woke, written in his handwriting: “the wardens are not who they used to be. you must leave until things return to normal because, know this: you will not be able to stop it. you will lose your life and be erased from history. so leave. take another one of my apprentices, earnest, and go. flee to ferelden. please do not let yourself be killed. it is not worth it. please.”
the letter had obviously been written in haste. when news got around that matheus had been murdered that past night, one half of celinde’s brain told her to stay anyway - this was her home. this was her destiny.
however, she did not want to be erased from history. she wanted to be known amongst people in the thousands of years to come as a saviour. unfortunately, if what matheus said was true, she would not be able to save the order by herself.
but she found herself looking her shoulder even as she and earnest ran away from the fortress that evening, wearing nothing but some simple spare armour, holding matheus’s map in sweaty, shaky fists, and carrying, in a worn satchel, her grey warden helmet with a griffon symbol carved delicately into the side that she couldn’t bear to leave behind.
she needed to live, so she could avenge her mentor’s life, and so she could fulfill the fate she knew was written in the stars for her.
but she didn’t know how to live a life without the wardens. the order was her life.
and if what good is living if there’s no life to live?
but she had to keep going. the wardens would realize their mistake. and she, when they did, would guide them back to greatness.
she supposed that she just had to survive long enough to see it.
