You know what still fucks me up?
In DA:O , in the Cousland Origin, I’m usually playing Little Lady Cousland. And the first time I played through it? Had zero idea what was going on, really. So when Arl Howe showed up, even though I knew Tim Curry is rather typecast as villains, I saw no reason why I shouldn’t play Little Lady Cousland as genuinely liking him and his family. I mean, why not? He’s probably been her father’s best friend since before she was born. He’s probably met all his children before. So Little Lady Cousland goes out of her way to say it’s good to see him, and that she’d like to see Thomas again very much, and when he’s about to leave she tells him “be safe”.
And in that moment, there’s hesitation in Howe’s voice. “I… thank you, dear girl.” Just a second. A second of regret, a second of rethinking this. A second of seeing a young woman, who he’s doubtless watched grow up, cheerfully and sincerely telling him to be safe. A second of wondering “What am I doing? Am I really sending this girl to her death? Her whole family to their death?”
But he still goes through with it. He still ruins her life. And by the time Little Lady Cousland… no, Grey Warden Cousland… finds him again, there is not a hint of that hesitation or regret in him anymore. He is all anger and venom, and whatever gray area there was in his character has fled. She screams, “WHY?! You were father’s best friend! We trusted you! Why did you do this?!”. He snarls “Your father was a fool.” And, in one regrettable moment, the last of Warden Cousland’s softness slips away, and she murders the man who ruined her life, who she once considered like family.
A year later, Warden Commander Cousland walks into the dungeon at Vigil’s Keep and sees a ghost, not of Rendon Howe, but of herself. A young man she knew in what seems like a past life, who has lost the little softness life had left him and is filled with nothing but bitterness. She’d like nothing more than to give him the closure of her death, but she knows how empty such an offer would be. So instead, she apologizes. Says she can never make it up to him and she knows it, but extends her hand. “You’re free to go. And you can take whatever heirlooms you wish.” He leaves, unconvinced this isn’t a trap.
She’s not sure why she feels so wretched watching him go. But she knows why she feels Rendon Howe’s blood on her hands again, and that hollow lack of satisfaction it gave her to see it pool on the floor.
But then, miraculously, Nathaniel returns. He joins the wardens. And Warden Commander Cousland sees Nathaniel Howe again, the one she and Thomas used to speak of in glowing, admiring terms. The adventurer, the knight-errant, the hero. And slowly, as she befriends him and fights alongside him, she begins to feel a little more like Little Lady Cousland again herself.
Bad blood between families no longer stains their children’s hands. Old wounds heal over. Some semblance of happiness returns to hearts that had forgotten how young they really were.
THAT’S what still fucks me up.
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