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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. 2
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Slotting the last one into formation, he dusts his hands on his knees and smiles.
"If you're hungry, I won't stop you taking them."
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"You're headed for the Mire?"
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He glances back down at the soldiers. Nudges one into a straighter line with the toe of his boot. That doesn't count as playing with them. He's only making them appealing for whatever child might come back for them. Or wander past next. Or live nearby and, probably, judging by the state of southern Ferelden as a whole even a decade after the Blight, not have many toys.
"Are you headed away from it?"
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"I am. Gladly." Sal grins. "I've had quite enough of damp and mud and tents. My bed in Skyhold isn't much more comfortable, but at least it's mine, and less crowded."
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Alistair could probably have his own bed if he asked for one, especially if he worked the words Fifth Blight into the request somewhere, but he hasn't. The Grey Wardens are all imposing on the Inquisition's hospitality, at the moment, without really being part of it, and plenty of their own people don't have beds yet.
"I'm looking forward to the damp and mud, myself. I haven't been home in years. I've missed the squelching."
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He'd even acquired a chest and shelf to hold his few personal items, and placed at the end and side of the "bed", they helped hold its shape. And thanks to the Knight-Commander, he was going home with more items for his little corner.
"There's plenty of it down there." Salvatore gives him a funny look anyway. "You're from the Fallow Mire?"
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Maybe he's nobility.
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