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(open) for all we know it's just a lie
WHO: Alistair + You
WHAT: Sleep deprivation and a long ride.
WHEN: Both vaguely before and vaguely after today.
WHERE: Skyhold (before today), the road to the Fallow Mire (after after).
NOTES: Vague starterish things because I don't like doing the same thing multiple times! If they're too vague and you want something more specific you can leave me a blank comment or something, it's cool.
WHAT: Sleep deprivation and a long ride.
WHEN: Both vaguely before and vaguely after today.
WHERE: Skyhold (before today), the road to the Fallow Mire (after after).
NOTES: Vague starterish things because I don't like doing the same thing multiple times! If they're too vague and you want something more specific you can leave me a blank comment or something, it's cool.
I. AN INCOMPLETE LIST OF PLACES ALISTAIR FALLS ASLEEP IN SKYHOLD
1. In the stables with the dogs, usually. He only sleeps for three or four hours at a stretch, lightly and fitfully, but he never wakes up screaming. At worst he wakes up gasping and sweating, with concerned, wet muzzles nudging at his face. More often he times things well enough that he's woken in the still-dark hours of the morning by heavy boots or banging wooden doors, instead, and is already on his feet before anyone can reach him.
2. Draped over a table in the tavern still holding the handle of a tankard. He might look like a drunkard from a distance, but really, it's still three-quarters full.
3. Draped over a table in the kitchens with his arm curled protectively around a bowl of porridge or stew or whatever else the kitchen servants were willing to give him at the given hour.
4. Draped over a table in the dusty, cobwebby cellar library, with his arms folded on top of a book he couldn't force himself to stay awake for for very long even if the fate of the Grey Wardens and/or possibly all of Thedas is hanging in the balance.
5. Standing up and leaning against the back of a horse that doesn't belong to him, brush still in hand, until it steps away to search for something more interesting or edible and he falls right over.
II. AN EVEN LESS COMPLETE LIST OF THINGS HE FINDS ON THE WAY TO THE MIRE
1. Money. That's one good thing about wars and demons: there's more coin on the bodies than when roadside homicides are mostly the work of highway robbers. Alistair is a practiced looter, but a gentle, respectful one, too. If it were possible to close their eyes once they'd gone this stiff, he would.
2. A set of Ferelden figurines, mostly soldiers, half trampled by horses. He doesn't pocket them; he's not a child. But he takes the time to move the ones that aren't broken yet to the side of the road for someone else to find.
3. A temporary Inquisition camp full of travelers headed in the opposite direction. He doesn't consider himself one of them--he's a Warden, he's only visiting--but he hasn't found so much money on corpses that he won't borrow their fire or eat their spare food, if someone offers.
4. A Grey Warden, and not any of the Grey Wardens he was on his way to find. He recognizes the armor at a distance on the road, even in the cloudy half-dark. The sight makes his heart stop in the curious, still, emptied-out way it always does in the seconds before a fight begins. But the moment passes, and he keeps moving forward. Maybe he won't be recognizable, he thinks, now he's traded his griffon-and-blue armor for something simpler from Inquisition stores--
Or maybe it will be someone he's met before. Never mind. He raises a hand instead of his sword. The wave is a little sheepish.
II. 3.
She remembers their last talk and his questions about the ancient runes that at the time, she had yet to see in person. Ellana can tell him about them now. As well as just catch up.
"Alistair," she greets with a smile. "What are you doing here?" Her voice is curious as she comes to sit beside him so she can poke at the fire with a stick.
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It's not a lie. It's also not quite the truth. The longer he thought about it, the more worried Alistair was about the other Wardens. He might not be able to do anything about it, if they're caught here, but he'll at least go down fighting with them instead of hearing about it afterwards from the safety of Skyhold. It's the least he can do.
Anyway, he hasn't stayed put for more than a few weeks at a time in years. Ten years. It was beginning to feel odd.
"Don't tell me you've done everything to do and found everything to find. I don't care. I'm going anyway."
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"I know what it's like to be the one left behind. It isn't fun. It's hard to know what to do with yourself. But I won't bother trying to dissuade you. You'll hear plenty of that tonight from everyone else, I'll bet. We've all been cold, wet, and pretty miserable in that place. At least good company can keep the spirits up." That and getting out as soon as possible to head back to the vastly preferable fortress in the mountains.
"I'm sure Harding will appreciate someone new who hasn't gotten all worn out yet."
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He is a bit worn out, but not all worn out, and comfortable with cold and wet and misery. It isn't the Deep Roads. Anything that isn't the Deep Roads is all right. But it could be worse isn't the sort of thing you tell people who are probably still drying out and defrosting, in their souls if not literally, so he doesn't.
"Who's been leaving you behind? Do you need me to give someone a talk?"
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At his question, Ellana's eyebrows lift before she smiles weakly and shakes her head no.
"It's no one's fault. It's just how I was raised. I wasn't supposed to stay in the clan because I was the third mage and I should have been sent to another. But by that point I was an orphan and the clan was all I had, so the Keeper decided to keep me. But that meant the other clans couldn't know, so I was never allowed to attend Arlathvhen -- the meeting of the clans every ten years. And I wasn't ever allowed to stray far from the camp for fear the Templars would find me. So everyone else had the chance to leave, but not me. Not until the sky tore open and the world was facing bigger problems."
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"It was." Her voice is soft as she stares at the fire. "Not always, but it's hard not to feel caged sometimes. And our clan was once much larger; one of the largest, I think. But there was a plague when I was eight and many died. It was a difficult time for us all, having to tend to the sick while hoping we didn't grow ill too. And so many of us became orphans." She taps her boots together again. "When my magic manifested the next year, Keeper Deheune said she wasn't going to send me away. I'd already lost my parents; I shouldn't have to lose the whole clan and start over with strangers. It was very kind of her. She couldn't have known how stuck I would feel later on."
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"I'm sorry about your parents. And the rest of it," he adds. "But you might have felt stuck anywhere, you know. I hated the abbey I was sent to, but I never would have joined the Wardens if I hadn't been there. And you might have wound up with a very boring clan, or something, and never come here. And I'd be sitting by this fire all alone."
He glances sideways, grinning so she knows he's not too serious--though he does mean it.
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"And what a great tragedy that would be, hmm? You were meant for the Chantry, but hated it?" She ducks her head a little, eyes darting around before she whispers, "But isn't it against the rules to not like some part of it? Are you secretly a very bad Andrastian?" She fake gasps in shock.
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He nudges a log on the edge of the fire so some of the built-up ash collapses, sparking brighter for a moment when the air reaches in, and stops grinning so widely.
"Most Templars start out how I did, though," he says. "I was ten. Sometime they're younger. They're all children of nobles who could spare them for a show a piety, or Chantry orphans, or--" He gestures to himself. "--inconvenient bastards, and the Order stuffs their heads with the Chant until that's all there is and hooks them on lyrium." He sounds like he's complained about this before, probably several times. And like he pities them. "I got lucky." He's pleased about that, at least. Whatever else goes wrong, he isn't a Templar. He smiles again. "If you don't share that wine, I'm going to seize it for the Wardens. To use against the Blight, you know."
He'd never.
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"I was going to share it, I promise." There's a pause as she gives him a moment to drink before she speaks again. "I'm glad you aren't a Templar. I mean, my experiences with them so far haven't been much, but I helped track an animal with one, and she didn't treat me poorly at all. But you don't have to worry about lyrium, and, well, I'm just glad you're a Warden." Now her feet are too warm as well and she draws her knees up towards her chest.
"In the clan, I heard the tale about the Hero of Ferelden stopping the Blight, but the storyteller never had any names to give. I only learned recently that you were the Warden alongside the Hero. Everything you did to save people and help raise an army... I don't want to picture the story without you. I wouldn't want to imagine where you'd be now if you were a Templar."
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That's a little bit of a joke, but not really. He's still unsettled by the memory of the one Harrowing he witnessed, and he'd rather believe he'd have snapped than that he would have ever gotten used to it. And then they'd have taken his lyrium--he does use it, still, because darkspawn have mages, too, but the dwarves love the Wardens, so there aren't any Chantry strings. He gets to hold his own leash, so to speak. It doesn't bother him.
He takes another drink, because the conversation is edging toward territory that makes him bitter and uncomfortable, before he offers the bottle back to her.
"I'm sure it's a good story," he says, which is diplomatic, for him. "Leliana was there, too. She used to be a lot less scary. Don't tell her I said so. And Zevran--have you met Zevran? People like to leave him out because he's..." An elf. Of course. "Antivan."
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Taking back the bottle, her lips lift it a sort of smile. "Are you sure it's not because he's..." She pauses for a beat before adding, "Short?" Then she takes a drink from the bottle before adding, "It's all right, Alistair. I know my people must often be cut out of stories like that. We have a reputation humans give us that has to be maintained. Creators forbid we do something good." Another drink before she goes on. "I do know Zevran, yes. He's teaching me how to play the lute. I have fun with him."
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"Or are you asking if I have 'fun' with him?" The quotes are practically audible.
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"But I'm plenty entertained by him as it is."
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