This story is truly, truly excellent. I'm reviewing mostly to say I have utterly adored reading it - to the point I've had a couple of late nights reading just a few more chapters!

I know it's been six years since this was finished but it was absolutely amazing. The breadth and scale of it as well as the absolutely stunning politicking really just got me caught up in the story. It was magnificent.

You wrote this such a long time ago, I don't know if you still even get updates about it. But I thought it might tickle you to know that new readers are still finding it. As a desperate fan of FCouslandQueen/Alistair I have a tendency to avoid Alistair/anyone else pairings but was drawn here by a prompt on kinkmeme about strong capable Alistair which I also love. I stayed for the beautiful writing, the intricate and absorbing plot, the characterisation and the sheer skill with which you told your story. Bravo :)

I just find her adorable

Wow. I can't even tell you how good this is. Honestly, I like it. The way you input all those little details from the game(events and such) is just the way I like it. Still, I find politics hard to digest so I'm going to take my time with this.

Clever, clever plan with Maddy. However, I can't see this Grand Cleric lasting long at all once the Divine knows? Hopefully... After all, there's been a Divine like the Grand Cleric before, and she was stopped. Let's hope the Divine's reasonable.

I kind of wish that Maddy's magic WAS from Andraste. Or that she was a latent. Or something other than Dalish magic. That's really not okay. I know I'm beating it like a dead horse but it's REALLY NOT OKAY and it's the one thing that makes me ridiculously leery about this fic.

Maddy's reaction to the Dalish and the whole Shemlen thing was very... eurgh. I like I good lot of things about this fic, but one of them that I don't is Maddy's interaction with elves, and her magical Dalish thing. There had better be a good explanation for it - cause a human having ancient, rare Dalish magic is very... yeah. And the fact she got magically pregnant so quick.

Super looking forward to how the Chantry plot rolls out.

The Orlesian human queen has Dalish-like magic that's rare among the Dalish? That's... worrying. And kind of appropriative, depending...

omfg did they seriously have sex outside in a storm

Ah, good, you did acknowledge she was wrong! Excellent. I was concerned, but I'm pleased to know I didn't have to be.

Well... The Maddy vs. Kallian situations AREN'T the same. The Fereldans aren't oppressing the Orlesians - the humans ARE oppressing the elves. Kallian is perfectly acceptable here, honestly.

I understand Maddy may not see it that way, but when your characters are wrong, you need to frame the narrative to show that they're wrong.

Holy shit, this was so amazing! Something's I feel like it deserves a sequel but alas, it's truly a piece of art, congratulations!

What a fantastic piece of work! This has been my guilty pleasure for the last seventeen hours or so. Thanks so much for sharing!

I know you wrote this sometime ago. It was a beautiful story and I enjoyed it immensely. Thanks for writing it.

Wow. Okay, quite a long haul here. I have to applaud you for the simple feat of writing so much. That alone is already a good sign.

But, to the actual review. A good story, overall, but nothing's ever perfect. I have to say the plot's pretty great, certainly better than most of the other stuff here. A few rough patches, but still pretty nice. I especially liked how seemingly random snippets came into play later. That canker in the garden, for instance. I spent so long trying to figure out why you'd bother including such a thing, up until the Vhen'alath.

The prose, as well, feels very... professional, I guess. That part in the Orlesian garden with Maddy and Alistair and the rose comes to mind. My only complaint here is that, while the prose is polished, it occasionally lacks emotion. Such as when Maddy stumbles into the stag party all bloodied and injured. The way it's written, tacked onto the end of a paragraph, makes it seem almost unworthy of note. A lot of the descriptions lacked a certain awe to them as well. The only thing I can suggest is to try playing around with stronger diction and syntax. After all, I can't really dictate what writing style you should follow. But I think adding some more emotional impact - implying a character's emotions instead of stating it outright - would be a very good idea.

Secondly, the romance. This is actually my biggest point, since it's what I came for. In Orlais, when the plot was simply "Which girl will Alistair end up with?" the romance was actually rather good. A tad rushed, but not terribly so. But after Alistair left, it suddenly diminished. I can understand the fluff taking a back seat to the actual plot, and can't really complain about it. But it wasn't just how it was reduced in importance, but it lost a lot of depth as well. In Orlais, the romance between Alistair and Maddy was interesting, and best of all, it had support. There was a clear attractor between them. Maddy had never had anyone father her like Alistair had, and Alistair in return never had anyone to actually mother him and comfort him through his issues. In addition, the both of them were drawn to what they perceived as the only real, genuine people in Orlais' false decadence. That motivation was clear, and made sense - but seemed to have been dropped once they actually got married. As a matter of fact, the couple doesn't really evolve at all once they're married. Beyond the average marriage plot and the occasional sweet nothing, the relationship is never shown to grow further. We're never shown that moment when they realize they're actually in love with each other, or when Maddy is told of the Grey Warden lifespan and has to come to terms with the fact that she can't grow old with her husband, or when they learn of each other's lives and histories. We're told they talked late into their wedding night, that Maddy was distraught about her husband's expiration date, that moment when she admitted she loved him - but we're never really shown these things. It can get quite frustrating at times, especially when one came here specifically for Alibear fluff. It made what started as an interesting relationship grow stale and shallow. Okay, they're in love. Why? Those parental qualities that drew them to each other in Orlais are never mentioned when they're in Ferelden. The closest we get is Maddy saying how she feels safe with Alistair, but even that's never really expanded upon. And it can't be because everyone else is so fake, they've got this large circle of friends and advisers who are perfectly genuine. The reason why they're in love loses focus and thus depth. It makes it seem like the relationship is only loving because you're the author and you say so.

Showing a few more moments of them actually reacting and talking things out with each other would be good. There was that moment when it was revealed that Maddy was a Vhen'alas'mamae, but it was one scene in a sixty chapter fic. Maddy also shows some distress at the idea of Alistair going to the Deep Roads to die, but this is never actually discussed between them. We never see how Alistair breaks it to her, how she actually reacts, how Alistair talks her down. These all take place off screen, when they could've added depth. Nor is there discussion on Maddy's desire to see the Deep Roads. It's a subplot that's simply dropped, when it could've shown depth to their romance if a scene of them talking it out had simply been thrown in. Showing them actually discussing and sharing their lives would've served this purpose as well, Maddy's reaction when she learned of Alistair's inhospitable childhood, and Alistair's reaction when he hears what sort of politcal environment Maddy narrowly escaped growing up in. We're only told of the moment when Maddy realized she loved Alistair, and we're not even afforded that luxury with Alistair's own realization - another thing that could've made it more real. Or Maddy's "magic." I mean, the way it's described, it seems like a very vital aspect of her - an aspect that Alistair can't ever really be part of. Yet he never reacts to this beyond finding it creepy (Which I very much agree with. I know it's magic, but that doesn't change the fact that the Vhen'alath is damned tree, and Maddy's unfounded insistence that it'll magically protect her family does get a bit aggravating). There's no jealousy over being locked out of this big part of her life, no concern when she's reduced to tears over a lumberyard. This is never even touched upon. Additionally, showing them as being friends as well as lovers would've gone a long way to deepening the romance. Their play battle with that toy army Maddy got (Another scene we're merely told of) helped with this, along with them playing on the beach. It's a vital aspect of romance, showing that, even if these two characters had no sexual attraction to each other, they'd still be best friends. Otherwise it just seems like simple infatuation or lust, not real love.

I'm not sure if this stems from the fact that you aren't quite sure where to take the romance now, or if you simply grew bored with the couple after the "I do" and decided to focus on others instead. If it's the latter, this may simply be a one-off incident. But I confess, I skimmed all the Zevran/Phillipe and Leliana/Anders (Leliana/Nathaniel?) bits. What, I came here for Alistair! At any rate, I'm not sure if the problem's recurring or only specific to Maddy's and Alistair romance, so please don't apply any of the critique to the other relationships if you think it only pertains to this one.

Also, was it just me, or did Maddy lose a little of her character upon coming to Ferelden? In Orlais she was written as unpolished, blunt, and a bit crude. She retains the bluntness, for the most part, but she seems more demure and polite than unpolished and inexperienced. Never are we shown her temper getting the best of her, or a small faux pas slipping past her radar. And while her plant obsession begins with the same tone as an avid gardening fan, after finding out about her powers it shifts more to the feel I'd expect from some wild, forest-born nymph than a girl with unexpected abilities. For a good portion of the story, I swore that's what the climax would come down to - Maddy's powers consuming her to the point where she wanted nothing more than to live in the forest's solitude, it'd end up with her having to choose between following her magic's siren call alone or staying with her husband and living a normal life. But this is never brought up, and no one expresses concern over her getting obsessed - perhaps a bit too obsessed - with the local flora. I can understand it if another vhen'alas'mamae brushed it off as nothing, or if a Dalish mage saw no cause for worry, but she's surrounded by normal people who can't quite grasp this connection she has. No one finds it worrying in the slightest, however - unless that's another conversation that was inexplicably cut and relegated to a mere mention.

And then there's Alistair himself, being hailed as a great king, when the majority of his "bright ideas" didn't even come from him. With Maddy's statement in Orlais - that a king must make tough decisions, and it's her job as queen to remind him that he's a good man - it was almost like promising the reader that a good portion of the story to come would revolve around that. Alistair being faced with tough decisions and afterwards Maddy telling him that he’s not any less of a good man for having to do what’s necessary. Instead, it’s more Alistair being faced with tough decisions, and then someone else coming in and handing him a convenient solution at the last minute (Bann Sighard, Kallian’s arrest, Maddy’s magic, the lyrium) It doesn’t make for a terribly interesting character, when everything’s solved for him, especially when he doesn’t come up with most of the ideas. Alistair himself even references this at some point, but it, like some many other unresolved plots, is never given much attention.

It makes me wonder if this story was meant to have a sequel, especially since there was a sad lack of them interacting with their children, but that it was dropped.

That being said, with all this rather negative critique out on the floor, I have to say that I did enjoy the story - I simply excel at saying what I didn't like, and not so much at saying what I did. But it is, regardless, a good story. The plot alone is rather captivating, but it's never a bad thing to make room for improvement.