WHO: Beleth and others!! shoot me a PM or a PP on plurk if you want a starter. WHAT: Catchall for VARIOUS SHENANIGANS WHEN: Now. WHERE: Skyhold NOTES: Nothing atm, will warn in headers if something pops up.
Alistair opens his mouth to explain that Teren isn't that kind of liaison, maybe to mention the terrifying fact that he has seniority and will change his entire personality in an instant to pull rank if that's required, but—right. She doesn't want to be a Warden. Good.
He is so busy being relieved by that that it takes a moment for the rest of what she says to sink in, and once it's sunk it still doesn't make any sense. He unfolds his arm to take the little bundle regardless, picks it carefully open with two fingers not necessary to keep his food from falling out of his other hand, and grins—immediately, instinctively, confusion temporarily set aside, because he's a sucker for gifts. "You got me a present." In case she hasn't noticed.
He lets the cloth fall into the snow so he can hold up the ring and look at it better. He'll pick it up later. He isn't a barbarian.
After a couple of seconds examining the little griffon, he remembers to be confused again. He lowers the ring so both gift and pheasant leg are held awkwardly at chest level, at clear risk of being knocked together if he stops paying attention, which is likely, because his attention and squinty brow-furrowed gaze are both on Beleth now.
"Why did you get me a present?" Why would she ever consider giving him an animal she'd killed? There is a switch in his head trying to flip but not quite managing.
Beleth doesn't answer him right away--or even bother being apprehensive about finally starting to get to the point of why she wanted to speak to him. She's too busy being concerned about the ring's chances against getting food all over it, and slowly reaches out to take Alistair's arms, gently steering them apart. Creators, this man was going to give her heart palpitations.
Okay. Time to focus. And the words are there, she's had them memorized for--how long, now? But. Now that the time is here, now that she's actually telling him, that she's not just trying to replay the scenario over and over in her head, she feels a bit of panic starting to rise. It's actually happening, this isn't a drill, what if everything is ruined forever--
Breath. Slow, deep breaths. Then she straightens up, hands clasped together, eyes on his eyes. Confidence!!!
"Alistair, you--you make me happier than anyone I've ever met before. The more I'm around you, the more I find myself wanting to be around you. The more I find myself laughing, smiling, just...feeling like maybe the world isn't as terrible as it used to seem. And--" Here, she falters, looking like she might start to panic again, but she catches herself, takes another breath, and carries on. "--I want to stay around you. I want to be with you."
She allows a timed pause to let that sink in, then quickly moves forward. "I--I know that there are, ah. Considerations to be made. Between me being a Dalish, you being a Warden, and other things. And I'm not going to say that I don't care about them, because those issues are important, and they'll need to be addressed. But--I'm willing to do that. To sit down and address them with you. Because I think that you're worth it, Alistair. Whatever discussions need to happen, whatever complications that need to be worked out."
And now for the part she had the hardest time with--trying to make sure that she didn't sound like a total waste of his time, that she could be worth it. "And--I'll do my best to make you happy, too, Alistair. I know I'm not perfect, but I'm a fast learner, and I'll listen to whatever you have to say. And I promise, I'll try my hardest to make you as happy as you make me." By now, her steel resolve has melted somewhat, and she's chewing on her lip, nervous, but resolved to go through on this.
It takes until I want to be with you for the baffled line to disappear from between Alistair's eyebrows, smoothed out by surprise and his widening eyes. They stay wide during her pause. Then they narrow--not much, but enough to no longer qualify as wide--and lower to her shoulder out of inward-focused concentration while he tries to keep up words like considerations and issues and discussions and complications. If she'd worked in negotiations she might have gotten Bingo on his Panic Bingo card.
He cracks his mouth open, but she's not done, so he shuts it again.
And he gets it together enough to look her back in the eyes for the rest of it, although the effort that that requires means he forgets about his hands and lowers both to hover in front of his abdomen, once again dangerously close to getting pheasant juice on the ring, until he thinks she's finished.
"Beleth," he says, in the tone of someone who's about to try to reason with someone who's being unreasonable, but that's all he has at the moment. He leaves his mouth slightly ajar in case more words happen to come out, but in the meantime he looks down at his hands, gaze darting between them, like maybe the ring or his pheasant leg will have some sage advice for him, beyond say something you idiot, which is advice he can give himself, thanks.
It takes a great deal of effort not to stare at him with all the intensity she can scrounge up, and she only barely manages it. But she's still watching him carefully, every expression and movement, trying to gauge his reaction. The tone isn't...promising, and the panic edging the corners of her mind threatens to take over.
But she didn't come this far just to give up. Not when she wants something--someone--this much, not when she's spent her whole life giving in, and she's finally ready to go after her own desires.
She bites her lip, staring up at Alistair, apprehension and worry clear on her face, but there's still a stubborn resolve there. She patiently waits for him to continue, but. He...doesn't. He's just staring at the ring and he's going to get juice on it, for the love of--No. Stop, ignore the pleasant leg, focus. This is entirely off the rails from anything she had planned out, but. She could do this. She had to believe in herself.
"I'm sorry if, um. I said anything wrong, I've never done this--" Wait, no. Shit. That's not believing in yourself. Deep breath. Try not to cry, because that will probably not help (or maybe it will? Would that help??). "But I mean it. I'm tired of saying I don't deserve to have desires, or that they don't matter. So--I care about you, Alistair. Please, give me a chance--even a small one--and I promise, I'll do my best."
"Of course you deserve—" Alistair attempts to interrupt, without looking up from his half-eaten meat, quietly enough that it's easy to talk over him, which is good, because he would never have been able to make himself say desires, right now, in this incredibly sincere context. Even coming close to the word makes him wonder if Beleth was desiring him while they were sleeping... together...
Someone is probably going to kill him. He's probably going to lie down and let them.
Since he has to continue living in the meantime, he looks up and smiles at about 60% his usual voltage while he says, "You sound like you're asking for a job."
Is smiling good? Smiling might be good. It's better than frowning. Probably. So she gives him a nervous little smile, and sheepish laugh at his observation. "Am I? Ah--I'm sorry. Like I said, I've never really. Done this before. And, um..." She clears her throat, and breaks eye contact, staring down at the ground.
"...I know you could do better than me. There are a lot of perfectly good people out there, and--I'm just. Me." She gives a shrug, still smiling, though it's more bittersweet than anything else. "Which...isn't a whole lot." This whole confidence thing was. Not working out well for her. Creators damn it all. Okay, focus.
"But--! I know I have my own strengths! I figured, if I asked for a chance, that I could show you that I can be...good enough--No, that still sounds weird, doesn't it..." Shit. She sighs, and finally looks back up at Alistair. "I just--I'm not good at talking myself up. Clearly. But. I was afraid that if I didn't try, I wouldn't have a chance with you."
"You don't need to talk yourself up," Alistair says, still smiling out of habit and will; "I know you. You're great. But as much fun as it would be to see if I could make your mother faint, I don't—"
The ring gets a brief reprieve from the constant danger of being meat-greased when he raises that hand to rub his forehead with his back of his wrist. Mild distress. He's never done this before, either. Not precisely. Saying no, thank you to strangers in taverns is entirely different than trying to say it to a friend who is—really—funny and pretty and perfectly nice, and trying very hard, and only not getting hugged because he does have some sense. A small amount of sense.
But he's also fairly good at explaining his feelings once all attempts at deflection and dodging have failed. Or when deflecting and dodging would make him Skyhold's Biggest Bastard. Like now. So.
He lowers his hand, closes a fist around the ring and shakes it awkwardly in the pocket formed by his fingers, and smiles again in a thin, meager way that's more look at this obvious gesture of goodwill I am making with my face than an actual smile.
"It isn't you," he says. "I don't mean that as a line. It isn't really me, either. I've just never looked at you that way. Maybe I could, but right now I'm—looking at someone else, and. Well." On some other level of thought, disconnected from everything else he's thinking and saying, he's started compiling a list of people who he should not trust near him with knives for the foreseeable future. "I'd rather do this to you than do that to you."
She had told herself, if he said no (because she was always very aware of that as a possibility), that she wouldn't cry. But that decision was always a pipe dream at best. As soon as the first but, gets out of Alistair's mouth, her eyes are misting, and it only gets worse as he continues on.
There's someone else. He could have, but--she was too late. She waited too long. She fucked up. She wasn't good enough, she wasn't good enough, she fucked up. A quiet, hiccuping sob escapes her lips before she turns away from Alistair, hand pressed against her mouth. She failed. It hits like a punch in the stomach, and she should say something, do something besides just standing there and crying like some pathetic ass (maybe that's one of the reasons?). But it's hard to think of anything to say, hard to think of anything besides she failed.
In the end, she falls back on an old favorite.
"I--" Her voice cracks, and she tries again. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. Th--This was so stupid. I'm sorry. I should've--" She shakes her head. "I'm sorry."
"Beleth," Alistair says, helpless-toned, "it wasn't stupid. Maybe you shouldn't have—" Wait, he thinks, this probably isn't a good time, but his mouth keeps moving anyway, because that's just how he operates. "—wound yourself up so much over it. It's just me. But you don't need to be sorry. I'm sorry."
He looks back down at his hands and their contents, which still do not provide any advice, unfortunately. The ring—he'll give that back, or try, or something, but not right now. That seems like a bad idea.
There is one pause in the sniffling and hiccups, right when Alistair offers his incredibly helpful and informative advice. Alistair has probably pissed off enough people in his illustrious career of being Alistair that when Beleth's eyes slowly turn toward him, he can recognize the look of someone seriously contemplating hitting him.
Wound herself up? He thinks she shouldn't have wound herself up about it? --While this is probably true, the appreciation Beleth has for it, however good-willed it was, might be a new historic low. For Beleth, Skyhold, and possibly Thedas in general.
"It was worth getting wound up to me. Or. I thought it was." She is probably entitled to be at least a little bitter about this. That's what she's decided, so that's how it is. "I'm--I'm going to go now." And sure enough, she turns around, but stops after a final afterthought. "--And by Mythal herself, if you get meat grease on that ring, I'll get my ancestors to haunt you."
It's with that incredibly terrifying threat that she finally takes off back towards the Warden camp.
He does recognize that look. He hasn't provoked it on purpose—this time—but he might have if it had occurred to him. That look is vastly preferable to the one with the big watery eyes. It fits him like a familiar old coat. Much more comfortable.
It's comfort enough that he manages to keep his mouth shut instead of flailing around helplessly some more, if barely, until she's turned on her heels and walked away from him. Then it bursts out of him, in an under-the-breath mutter that it's definitely good no one is around to hear: "If I'd worn it I'd have gotten all sorts of things on it."
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no subject
He is so busy being relieved by that that it takes a moment for the rest of what she says to sink in, and once it's sunk it still doesn't make any sense. He unfolds his arm to take the little bundle regardless, picks it carefully open with two fingers not necessary to keep his food from falling out of his other hand, and grins—immediately, instinctively, confusion temporarily set aside, because he's a sucker for gifts. "You got me a present." In case she hasn't noticed.
He lets the cloth fall into the snow so he can hold up the ring and look at it better. He'll pick it up later. He isn't a barbarian.
After a couple of seconds examining the little griffon, he remembers to be confused again. He lowers the ring so both gift and pheasant leg are held awkwardly at chest level, at clear risk of being knocked together if he stops paying attention, which is likely, because his attention and squinty brow-furrowed gaze are both on Beleth now.
"Why did you get me a present?" Why would she ever consider giving him an animal she'd killed? There is a switch in his head trying to flip but not quite managing.
no subject
Okay. Time to focus. And the words are there, she's had them memorized for--how long, now? But. Now that the time is here, now that she's actually telling him, that she's not just trying to replay the scenario over and over in her head, she feels a bit of panic starting to rise. It's actually happening, this isn't a drill, what if everything is ruined forever--
Breath. Slow, deep breaths. Then she straightens up, hands clasped together, eyes on his eyes. Confidence!!!
"Alistair, you--you make me happier than anyone I've ever met before. The more I'm around you, the more I find myself wanting to be around you. The more I find myself laughing, smiling, just...feeling like maybe the world isn't as terrible as it used to seem. And--" Here, she falters, looking like she might start to panic again, but she catches herself, takes another breath, and carries on. "--I want to stay around you. I want to be with you."
She allows a timed pause to let that sink in, then quickly moves forward. "I--I know that there are, ah. Considerations to be made. Between me being a Dalish, you being a Warden, and other things. And I'm not going to say that I don't care about them, because those issues are important, and they'll need to be addressed. But--I'm willing to do that. To sit down and address them with you. Because I think that you're worth it, Alistair. Whatever discussions need to happen, whatever complications that need to be worked out."
And now for the part she had the hardest time with--trying to make sure that she didn't sound like a total waste of his time, that she could be worth it. "And--I'll do my best to make you happy, too, Alistair. I know I'm not perfect, but I'm a fast learner, and I'll listen to whatever you have to say. And I promise, I'll try my hardest to make you as happy as you make me." By now, her steel resolve has melted somewhat, and she's chewing on her lip, nervous, but resolved to go through on this.
"Just give me a chance."
no subject
He cracks his mouth open, but she's not done, so he shuts it again.
And he gets it together enough to look her back in the eyes for the rest of it, although the effort that that requires means he forgets about his hands and lowers both to hover in front of his abdomen, once again dangerously close to getting pheasant juice on the ring, until he thinks she's finished.
"Beleth," he says, in the tone of someone who's about to try to reason with someone who's being unreasonable, but that's all he has at the moment. He leaves his mouth slightly ajar in case more words happen to come out, but in the meantime he looks down at his hands, gaze darting between them, like maybe the ring or his pheasant leg will have some sage advice for him, beyond say something you idiot, which is advice he can give himself, thanks.
no subject
But she didn't come this far just to give up. Not when she wants something--someone--this much, not when she's spent her whole life giving in, and she's finally ready to go after her own desires.
She bites her lip, staring up at Alistair, apprehension and worry clear on her face, but there's still a stubborn resolve there. She patiently waits for him to continue, but. He...doesn't. He's just staring at the ring and he's going to get juice on it, for the love of--No. Stop, ignore the pleasant leg, focus. This is entirely off the rails from anything she had planned out, but. She could do this. She had to believe in herself.
"I'm sorry if, um. I said anything wrong, I've never done this--" Wait, no. Shit. That's not believing in yourself. Deep breath. Try not to cry, because that will probably not help (or maybe it will? Would that help??). "But I mean it. I'm tired of saying I don't deserve to have desires, or that they don't matter. So--I care about you, Alistair. Please, give me a chance--even a small one--and I promise, I'll do my best."
Well. That'll have to be good enough. Hopefully.
no subject
Someone is probably going to kill him. He's probably going to lie down and let them.
Since he has to continue living in the meantime, he looks up and smiles at about 60% his usual voltage while he says, "You sound like you're asking for a job."
no subject
"...I know you could do better than me. There are a lot of perfectly good people out there, and--I'm just. Me." She gives a shrug, still smiling, though it's more bittersweet than anything else. "Which...isn't a whole lot." This whole confidence thing was. Not working out well for her. Creators damn it all. Okay, focus.
"But--! I know I have my own strengths! I figured, if I asked for a chance, that I could show you that I can be...good enough--No, that still sounds weird, doesn't it..." Shit. She sighs, and finally looks back up at Alistair. "I just--I'm not good at talking myself up. Clearly. But. I was afraid that if I didn't try, I wouldn't have a chance with you."
no subject
The ring gets a brief reprieve from the constant danger of being meat-greased when he raises that hand to rub his forehead with his back of his wrist. Mild distress. He's never done this before, either. Not precisely. Saying no, thank you to strangers in taverns is entirely different than trying to say it to a friend who is—really—funny and pretty and perfectly nice, and trying very hard, and only not getting hugged because he does have some sense. A small amount of sense.
But he's also fairly good at explaining his feelings once all attempts at deflection and dodging have failed. Or when deflecting and dodging would make him Skyhold's Biggest Bastard. Like now. So.
He lowers his hand, closes a fist around the ring and shakes it awkwardly in the pocket formed by his fingers, and smiles again in a thin, meager way that's more look at this obvious gesture of goodwill I am making with my face than an actual smile.
"It isn't you," he says. "I don't mean that as a line. It isn't really me, either. I've just never looked at you that way. Maybe I could, but right now I'm—looking at someone else, and. Well." On some other level of thought, disconnected from everything else he's thinking and saying, he's started compiling a list of people who he should not trust near him with knives for the foreseeable future. "I'd rather do this to you than do that to you."
no subject
There's someone else. He could have, but--she was too late. She waited too long. She fucked up. She wasn't good enough, she wasn't good enough, she fucked up. A quiet, hiccuping sob escapes her lips before she turns away from Alistair, hand pressed against her mouth. She failed. It hits like a punch in the stomach, and she should say something, do something besides just standing there and crying like some pathetic ass (maybe that's one of the reasons?). But it's hard to think of anything to say, hard to think of anything besides she failed.
In the end, she falls back on an old favorite.
"I--" Her voice cracks, and she tries again. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. Th--This was so stupid. I'm sorry. I should've--" She shakes her head. "I'm sorry."
no subject
this is terrible.
"Beleth," Alistair says, helpless-toned, "it wasn't stupid. Maybe you shouldn't have—" Wait, he thinks, this probably isn't a good time, but his mouth keeps moving anyway, because that's just how he operates. "—wound yourself up so much over it. It's just me. But you don't need to be sorry. I'm sorry."
He looks back down at his hands and their contents, which still do not provide any advice, unfortunately. The ring—he'll give that back, or try, or something, but not right now. That seems like a bad idea.
no subject
Wound herself up? He thinks she shouldn't have wound herself up about it? --While this is probably true, the appreciation Beleth has for it, however good-willed it was, might be a new historic low. For Beleth, Skyhold, and possibly Thedas in general.
"It was worth getting wound up to me. Or. I thought it was." She is probably entitled to be at least a little bitter about this. That's what she's decided, so that's how it is. "I'm--I'm going to go now." And sure enough, she turns around, but stops after a final afterthought. "--And by Mythal herself, if you get meat grease on that ring, I'll get my ancestors to haunt you."
It's with that incredibly terrifying threat that she finally takes off back towards the Warden camp.
no subject
It's comfort enough that he manages to keep his mouth shut instead of flailing around helplessly some more, if barely, until she's turned on her heels and walked away from him. Then it bursts out of him, in an under-the-breath mutter that it's definitely good no one is around to hear: "If I'd worn it I'd have gotten all sorts of things on it."