closed; our past never really dies

[arcaneadvisor]

WHO: Morrigan and Alistair
WHAT: Chatting about what happens to Kieran in Kirkwall
WHEN: Backdated to when folks are heading out
WHERE: Skyhold
NOTES: Parental anxieties ahoy

That Kirkwall casts a shadow for many is understandable and unavoidable. That it should give Morrigan cause for concern outside the norm might not seem so obvious but she can't ignore the questions from Kieran more than she can ignore the activity about her. She doesn't have as many answers as she'd like but a boy hears plenty going about his day.

She should be packing. There's plenty to secure (the eluvian that she brought all this way, can she trust it in Kirkwall or does she trust those left behind?) with Kieran off elsewhere but instead…

Instead she sends Alistair a message to warn him that she's on her way. There's no one else she can actually talk to about this who'll understand. So hi Alistair, one less than her usual swamp witch self Morrigan, no she didn't mess up the eyeshadow those really are the bags under her eyes right now.
 

Comments

[byblow]

She doesn't have to go all the way to the Wardens' camp—what's left of it, anyway, with so much already packed away. Alistair meets her midway, first waving from afar and then stopping to wait near one of the little guard towers that dot the path leading up to the fortress. A little bit of chivalry. A lot of not wanting the Wardens to notice and eavesdrop. Nosy bastards, all of them.

"Hello," he says. "You're looking..."

Wait.

She isn't looking especially sneaky-witchy today. She actually looks sort of awful. He shuts his mouth abruptly, reconsiders, and smiles again, but with less carelessness.

"If you need your mother killed again, I'll help," he says, "but this time you have to buy me dinner or something first."

[arcaneadvisor]

Recent conversation with Gwenaëlle hasn't endeared the Wardens to Morrigan lately, only reaffirmed what she'd already felt; Alistair is the most useful of them, the only one worth consulting. She can return the wave, not pinch her brow (what's the point, the headache has been there for days, she won't be rid of it so easily now.)

"Kirkwall lies in the shadow of Sundermount, if the Tale of the Champion is to be believed, tis the last place my mother was reliably seen." Morrigan replies because that's part of what's troubling her anyway so well done for hitting the nail on the head Alistair. "You would trust what I would cook these days? My travels have shown me many a new poison."

She's joking. Those are for Oghren. (Only not, he is somehow probably the second most useful Warden because she's seen him fight and he's reliable in that strange Oghren way.)

"I have...concerns. About Kieran. And Kirkwall." This many pauses and Morrigan looking helpfully at a spot somewhere beyond Alistair is all absolutely the most reassuring thing happening today.

[byblow]

It's very hard not to look over his own shoulder at whatever she might be gazing at. However well he and Morrigan are managing to get along lately, however many jokes she makes, he still wouldn't put a giant swarm of insects past her. Harmless ones, probably. Only slightly venomous. But if that were the case, she'd know better than to stare at them. So he doesn't look.

"It's not really so bad," he says, having not yet drawn the line himself between what he thought was a joke, ha ha, killing Flemeth, and whatever Morrigan is worried about now. "He might pick up a few new words, depending on where you're staying, but he's—twelve?" Right? Ages are hard. "I knew all the words when I was twelve..."

That isn't what she's worried about. He can tell, slowly; the good thing about rarely thinking about what's coming out of his mouth is that his mind is usually free to do other things if he needs it, like genuinely examine her face and realize that isn't what she's worried about.

"... You don't think she's still there."

[arcaneadvisor]

Splitting herself into a swarm is only slightly less taxing than becoming a blighted beast, and maybe she can't actually do that now. She hasn't had a reason to do so since the Blight. Only a spider would do for Alistair, the most personal of touches only after their long association with one another. When she does look at him properly as if she's actually seeing him it gives her a moment of pause; Kieran is still swinging a sword, will he fill out that way as he ages, will he grow into the nose, will he still want some little marker of the Wardens carried with him wherever he goes?

"Oghren's arrival and I have no doubt he'll learn more than I wish him to. He heard no new names for you from myself," she manages that instead of a retort about how she doesn't need reminding that she's about to have a teenage boy to be responsible for. "His vocabulary, however, is the least of my concerns." (Yet in a way, it isn't. Alistair must know what Kieran says. Must have heard some strange things from him in all this time.)

Somehow, what Alistair poses isn't something she'd considered. It isn't like being struck. More like submerged. Slowly. "No." Morrigan hesitates, bites her lips and sighs sharply. "If the Tale of the Champion has some semblance of truth to it then she departed. There would be no reason for her to remain in Kirkwall. I was not there, after all. I know not what she truly is, but I know that much about my mother. The Inquisition and Wardens should be spared her involvement."

[byblow]

"Well, that's something," Alistair says, with a particular sort of grin, a little strained but equally stubborn, not failing to take the situation seriously so much as refusing to be dour despite it.

Also, he still doesn't fully understand what the situation is. There's no reason for Flemeth to still be hanging around Kirkwall. It won't hurt Kieran to learn a few new turns of phrase on the docks. He's an odd boy, but he was odd in Orlais and he's been odd here and no one's picked up a pitchfork yet, that Alistair knows of. So...

He raises an eyebrow.

[arcaneadvisor]

Unwilling to have all the conversation be where everyone who fell off the turnip cart might hear it, Morrigan nods for them to start walking since her study is still vaguely intact. They all had difficult conversations together once upon a time. This is the more difficult part, the more mage-like part, the 'well at least he doesn't have tentacles' part.

He is a normal boy, she told him but how long before someone has a reason to doubt? What happens should those doubts become impossible to ignore?

"What word that has come of Kirkwall and where the Inquisition will be housed is that there is red lyrium present. After the Winter Palace I am...more wary than I was." Morrigan chooses the words carefully but she'd spent several days not able to hear properly when she'd come back, carefully inspecting any area for even a shard of it beneath the skin thanks to that mess. The admission comes around a sigh, she's doing that a lot but she doesn't want to say this when this is her. This is her life and Kieran's, Alistair has the involvement he enjoys but she wants him to be aware. "Lyrium gives Kieran terrible nightmares. Now imagine: here in Skyhold we have space. We are able to remain where we will. Your Wardens are in their camp. Think where we are rumoured to be in Kirkwall with what I have told you."

[byblow]

When Morrigan walks, Alistair follows, arms folded contemplatively behind his back. He wouldn't say he trusts the Wardens here—with his own life, sure, most of them he'd trust with that. Or some of them. A few of them. But there isn't a single one he'd expect to take Kieran's secrets well; in their shoes, without understanding the position they'd all been in, and knowing Morrigan as she is now, and Kieran as he is now, and the increasingly loud whisper in his head saying my son instead of only Morrigan's, Alistair wouldn't take it well at all, either. He'd be all what's were you thinking and what have you done—

But he wouldn't kill a child. He doesn't think anyone here would kill a child, archdemon soul or no, not even Kaisa with her dreams of glory. The worst case scenario is someone trying to take him, to contain him, to figure out what he is and what it means. So the worst case scenario is Avernus and his horror show. Alistair purses his lips for a moment and shakes his head.

"They would have to kill me before they took him from you," he says, which doesn't actually solve the problem at hand, but it is something that should probably be said. Just so Morrigan knows where they stand. "And there are a few of them who could kill me, probably, but I don't think they're the same ones who would try. I'm sure the whole thing would be very noisy, too. You'd have warning." He sighs again, pushing it through his mouth like he's popping a bubble. "It would be nice if it didn't come down to that, though. Of course."

[arcaneadvisor]

She doesn't look back. There's only one person Morrigan looks over her shoulder for and it isn't ever someone she happens to be with, just the spectre that everyeone has lying in wait for them. If there was more time. If she and Alistair, Zevran and Leliana, if all of them had their heads together but that's more people and even if she does trust them with the secret how does it help? More people who might point out a thing she's overlooked? (Another reminder that ultimately he was a selfish act or the result of it, that the day Kieran learns the truth of how he came to be and if he hates her for it that she will only ever have herself to blame.)

Too many of the Wardens have made spectacularly bad decisions. Too many people outside the Wardens have very real reasons to be uneasy with them. Too many people sit and wonder at what Corypheus is and what this all means.

"You are no use to anyone dead Alistair," she replies, though the sentiment is appreciated nonetheless. When it comes down to it if she's being cold and hard and pragmatic, he's the most use to her alive but how many people can she actually trust to any degree here? "Perhaps keep Zevran's collection of rogues close to you if you ever have a reason to fear then. Kirkwall...of all places. I had thought Haven the most spectacularly poor choice to be made and that at least could be blamed upon the Chantry. The Veil is so thin there Alistair. That, red lyrium? Not so far from Vimmark..." Hopefully Alistair understands the last part isn't solely about Kieran; she'd rather not have some runner reporting to someone that she was questioning a Warden about Corypheus' hold on the Wardens.

But she did go to Vimmark after all.