King Alistair and Queen Bethany of Fereldan.
Made with Azaelea’s Game of Thrones game.
When I first played through Dragon Age Origins, my first character was a female Cousland. I don’t even really remember her because I got stuck somewhere I couldn’t go back from and couldn’t go forward either. I usually need a crap first playthrough to get the initial terribleness out.
My second character was a female Brosca. But then on my third playthrough I returned to the Female Cousland story.
This is my Ephena Cousland.
For me, Natalie Dormer as Anne Boleyn in the Tudors really captured what I envisioned my F!Cousland to be: not conventionally pretty but with something about her that makes you keep watching her.
Ephena changed a great deal from the attack at Castle Cousland, In Dragon Age terms I would say this ‘Hardened’ her character. Sure she is still capable of great love and empathy, feeling compassion for people around her, but she struggles with those darker demons now. Her goal should be ending the Blight, saving the world, and indeed she does, but she was lucky that that goal coincided with her deepest desire…revenge.
But in the end she was able to stand over Howe’s corpse and know that it was a Cousland who brought him down, know that her parents and Oriana and Oren can sleep easier now that their murderer has gone to face the Maker. And she is finally able to relinquish that burden, the knowledge that it is over and she can let go of this hatred and grief. So when she meets Nathaniel in that cell in Amaranthine she looks beyond the bitter words and the anger and sees a man who would make a fine Warden.
She knows then that her lust for revenge has truly been sated.
Canonically I tend to have Ephena end up with Alistair and be his Queen. Although if pairing her with Nathaniel or Sebastian was available…I would totally go there.
Also…in her world Alistair becomes King…no matter if she romances him or not…and Anora ends up being married to her brother, Fergus. A match which ends up being incredibly loving.
If anyone is interested in reading any snippets of her I’d be happy to write them…she and all the other Warden stories, and everyone else is in my Epic Dragon Age Big Bang fic.
:)
