#not canon. ​just making a detour for my own edification lol

[mabaris]

oh wait i’m cooking. i’ve had an amell planned for a while who would romance and harden alistair and then conscript loghain (because the wardens need his experience) and sacrifice herself (she’s strongly anti blood magic and even tattled on jowan in the prologue)

I think after lothering, they would head right to redcliffe, but she wouldn’t want to get involved with all of their shit bc she has her own problems to deal with. so they go to get the ashes themselves, without helping the town. she poisons the ashes (because why not? she’s not devout and she has to eliminate the possibility that their enemies also might need this, and if that’s the case she has the upper hand) and kills leliana. they return to redcliffe triumphant, having made their own sacrifices—but it’s gone too

she’s an armchair strategist, fancies herself a pragmatist because she’s read books and knows theories and history. she knows, on paper, that war requires sacrifice, as does working for a greater cause. but she’s also never been outside before and doesn’t fully understand the consequences of her actions until that moment.