faderift | We've come a long way from where we began

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We've come a long way from where we began

WHO: Zevran Arainai, Alistair, & Open
WHAT: Zevran is not dealing with sentiment well
WHEN: Mid-Firstfall
WHERE: The tavern, the stables, his quarters, the healing tents, the courtyard
NOTES: Drinking, swearing, emotional vomiting.

It took a day or two to thaw out properly from the mire. To sleep, to scrub the muck from his skin, to feel alive again. Of course with the break from the mission and a quiet space to sleep it only served to remind him of how difficult it had been on the road. Of the sounds he had heard of the wardens tents. Of what their troubled sleep meant for one Warden in particular.

[ Tavern - OPEN ]

Zevran attempted to spend his days as he would before the arrival of the Grey Wardens. Some time working on his poisons and traps, some time in the tavern listening to gossip and spinning tales, playing joyful, soothing music for the weary souls within. But for tonight there was no music, there was no smiling. Zevran kept his back to the wall, his hand on a glass of wine or ale, bottle waiting for the next poor on the table beside him, eyes on something small and glinting he rolled between his fingertips. Sentiment. What good had that ever done him? What benefit did it ever hold? It was a weakness. It was an illness. And yet here he sat, sick with it. Normally the approach of company would earn a smile, a flirtatious remark- but for one night? He had no desire for masks.

[ Stables - CLOSED to Alistair ]

"As promised." The words were loose in a way only drink made them. Lulling and swooping rather than the clipped roll of his usual pattern of speech, but Zevran was at least a little drunk and looking to become a good deal more drunk before the night was through. Trouble was he trusted very few people enough to indulge as much as he desired in all of Thedas, fewer still in Skyhold. But here, staring at this ridiculous Warden in the hay with at least one dog? A warm twist of fondness bid him offer a very special bottle of Carnal, 8:69 Blessed. As he had said before, Alistair could not start his whiskey without something particularly exquisite. Between that, the carved rune stones still in his pouch, and a wrapped wheel of small cheese in addition to a bottle of his own brandy for the night? He would forgive being forced to drink in a stable. So long as it was in Alistair's company.

[ Zevran's Quarters - OPEN ]

Well this was mortifying. He had somehow misplaced his key- his spare key, and his spare, spare key in the course of the night- or he had locked all of them inside save for the one he'd slipped into Isabella's boot earlier in the day and now? Now he was crouched, fumbling with his lockpicks in a way he hadn't since his earliest years as a Crow. The lock was simple, he knew it was simple- he also knew himself to be terribly, terribly drunk. Enough so that he was not kneeling before the door in any attempt of stealthy entry and instead sitting before it, working with his picks while swearing a blue streak under his breath in Antivan, Common, with a spattering of Orlesian and even some Tevene. Until he sobered up? He would be at it for awhile. Brasca.

[ Healing tents / Courtyard the following morning - OPEN ]

Another reason why he rarely drank. The migraine. The cotton in the mouth feeling. The twist of wire that strung his guts together. Food was probably not a bad idea bu the smell of- well- anything made it twist sharper, tighter, like a dagger to his very middle. Not productive for eating anything that will settle his stomach. Water helps but it does not do much other than remind him that he should eat, but he cannot eat, and light and sound are an aching mass of unpleasantness he did not wish to linger on. Bundled tight in a cloak that was far softer on the lining than on the exterior, he stumbled his way across the courtyard to the healing tents. Perhaps one of them would give him something if he looked sad enough.

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"Maybe," Alistair says doubtfully, at first, and then with more gusto, "maybe, inspired by your unfailing faith in me--"

He has to work the cork out first. He takes his time with it, jostling Zevran plenty in the process, as comfortable as he ever is anymore. The camaraderie was the only thing he admired about the Templars, even if he was only ever watching it from the outside. It's what enamored him with the Grey Wardens. He'd tried to make a brother out of Cousland, before the Blight made Cousland into someone he couldn't stomach, and now--well. It's Zevran he writes to, when he writes to anyone.

He'd never have guessed.

The cork pops. He gives the mouth of the bottle an unrefined sniff and offers it to Zevran to do the same, eyebrows raised--impressed, it smells fancy. But that means looking at Zevran again, and it gives him a moment's pause. He is drunk and drinking more, and sitting in the hay, and very close without any winking or teasing.

"Did something happen?"

A decade ago he never would have been close enough to jostle. Here is a man, a human, a warrior. The sort of thing that spat on elvish foreign assassins- but aside from some suspicion that passed swiftly when he minded his back in the field- Alistair proved unlike anything Zevran had expected based on their initial encounter. But now he is more than comfortable- if anything the jostling realxes some of the tension in his shoulders.

Proof of movement. Of life. Alistair is not lost yet, not in the slightest, but if he let things continue as they were? All odd letters and faint jokes interspersed with a bare handful of moments of deeply sincere thinking and none of the words? The warden will go to his grave knowing nothing of what he did.

Zevran lists to the side to sniff the drink, lips smoothing into a lazy, self depreciating grin as he continues to lean against Alistair as he worked at the top of his bottle of brandy. "A realization, of sorts. As familiar as all the running and fighting and not dying was- it reminded me much of the last time I was traipsing about Ferelden and why. And how that year changed...everything. And how you had a large hand in that change."

Edited (what r consistent tenses even) 2015-11-22 17:44 (UTC)

Alistair nudges Zevran with his shoulder, but not very hard. Not hard enough to suggest he should stop leaning on it. He already has the wine bottle to his mouth, but he pauses to say, "I do have large hands," before he drinks.

It's good wine. He knows good wine, even if he doesn't usually drink it. He looks at the bottle again while he swallows, almost alarmed by the fact that it's good wine and he's drinking it from the bottle--but moment, right. They're probably having a moment. He moves his free hand (free-ish, still closed around the cork) to the hay behind Zevran to provide a brace, in case he winds up needing one once he gets back into the brandy.

"You were in a bad spot," he says. A little prompting, a little deflecting. Things changed for Zevran because they had to change. Or to end.

The distinct lack of a snort of laughter, of a smirk, or even some manner of innuendo ought to be enough of a red flag, even if the rest of Zevran's highly uncharacteristic behaviour is not. Alistair is clever enough to take note and Zev, were he sober, would likely be more bothered by his present honesty. As it stands he takes a deep swig of his brandy, laughter crackling after his swallow rough and bitter.

"Ah, yes. A bad spot." Another deep swig before he rests his cheek against Alistair's shoulder, peering up at him. No words on his jawline. On the smell of dog. "I do not think you understand how bad it was, my friend. You asked once while we were on the road why the Crows sent me, yes? Noted that I was no master assassin. Many who saw me take the contract for your lives thought I was attempting to earn that rank for myself. Go out, kill Grey Wardens, earn my own authority. Neither they, nor you, ever knew the truth of it. I did not take the contract on your life because I thought I could actually kill you."

Brandy makes him honest, Alistair leaves him sentimental. "I took it because I wanted to die."

Midway through a drink, Alistair looks peripherally down at Zevran. A little amused, maybe, in a baffled way, free of judgment. Wondering what's gotten into him beyond the brandy. There are a dozen potential glib responses to the first part of what Zevran says, half of which actually occur to Alistair, the other half of which would require some thought. Of course you couldn't actually kill us; I know what your footwork used to look like, is the frontrunner.

Fortunately, Alistair has his mouth occupied with wine for the handful of seconds required for the opportunity to pass, before he ruins everything. Instead he goes still, lowers the bottle slowly, and wipes his mouth with the hand wrapped around its neck before he turns his head to give Zevran a proper, full frown.

The elf is a lot of things--Alistair knows that, and knows he doesn't know everything--but he can't imagine him being suicidal. He was lively even beaten bloody and lying at their feet.

So: "What?"

Very smart.

"A contract for legendary Grey Wardens and their company in a country that I was neither familiar with nor had any true resources to pull from? It would have been a long shot even if I wished to survive the encounter. As I did not? It seemed fitting." To die like a dog on the road much as he had left and laughed as Rinna bled out in a dank alley like nothing. Waking at Cousland's feet, looking up to be offered Mercy- he spun a tale, of course he did. Smiled as was expected and made a token protest for his own life.

If Alistair had chosen to cut him down where he lay? He would have taken no action. Of course the sort of man that would do such a thing is not one he would be sitting next to ten years later, drunk and maudlin and spilling out more secrets than he cares to count.

"Mercy was...a surprise. For the first few months I waited for Jonas to kill me- or for you to insist he do so. For a knife at my neck and I would not have fought it. The contract I took before yours- it had not gone well. It had gone wrong in every way possible for all that we saw the target dead. I-" He catches himself. Sighs, swallows more of the brandy and leans away to rest his elbows on his knees. Stare down at the straw beneath his feet rather than at Alistair.

"Zevran," Alistair says.

It's a little stupid, a little helpless, but he's never seen him like this. He needs a moment to adjust his understanding of the world to include Zevran talking to him like this, or the possibility they could have killed him without even a struggle and he wouldn't have talked to Alistair like anything at all.

"I did tell him not to trust you," he admits once he's done so, "more than once." Whether Cousland trusted him or used him is open to debate. Alistair can only regret that his instincts were so wrong, that Cousland and Zevran were both such surprises in such opposite ways. He leaves the cork on the bale behind Zevran and moves his hand to press flat between his shoulder blades. "I'm really glad he ignored me. There's nothing you could tell me now to change that."

"And this is why I write to you rather than him. You have ever been more honest. Honest in your suspicions, in your distrust, in your respect. I had never been given that before. Nor...such open, uncomplicated friendship. You expected nothing of me other than I not kill you. More than once- Wynne deterred me from going to your tent after you retired for the night. I have only so many ways to repay that manner of kindness and I did not understand what it was you wanted. I was something to be used, something expendable- and you have never treated me as such." Even now he marvels at it. That Alistair is still so open, so honest. A decade of cynicism and blight and darkspawn should have taught him better and-

He is glad, fiercely, that Jonas took the throne. Politics would ruin what made Alistair wonderful. Little by little, of course, but ruin him all the same. And it is that same goodness combined with the bitter pit in the back of his mind that ever bids him to ruin what good that comes under his hands that wrings out black, bitter laughter. That makes him speak further of his greatest regret. "Even if I were to tell you that I watched the woman I loved die? That I mocked her for her sentiment? That I spat on her for allegedly betraying the crows while our shared lover slit her throat?"

Edited 2015-11-23 06:08 (UTC)

Even then, he could say, right away. He could point out that being willing to die for his mistakes means Zevran must be better than them, or that Alistair would have been happy to murder Loghain while his only child stood close enough to be caught in the blood spatter, if he'd been allowed, for betraying the Wardens--which is different than betraying the Crows, of course, who deserve to be betrayed and dismantled and so on, but it might not have looked that way to Zevran at the time.

But part of honest acceptance is not giving it too carelessly. He doesn't say those things. He moves his hand to wrap around Zevran's shoulder, firmer than resting on his back, but he only says, "And now you regret it."

It isn't a question. Of course he does. He looks miserable. But it does have a little bit of that lilt, inviting him to explain. Maybe starting with allegedly.

The dog on his opposite side noses jealously at his other shoulder. He leans toward her to knock her with his head, an affectionate cut it out, since his hand is still busy with the wine bottle, but his attention doesn't leave Zevran.

Regret is not for assassins. They more often than not die before the can earn themselves space to do so. But this? Weighed upon him for years. He still cannot quite forgive himself for being so foolish. "Rinna. Her name was Rinna and she was a Crow just as I. Just as Taliesin."

Taliesin that he had known since he was a child, that he endured for his own safety, that he placated with sweet words and his body to avoid jealousy and complications before Rinna was brought in and did nothing but provide them. They had been a marvel- the things they might have managed if this had not come to pass- or they all might have been killed. Who can say. "We were given a contract in Ferelden. A merchant of some sort, Rinna did the planning, the tactics, that was her strong suit. Taliesin's was the brute strength, if you recall from facing him in Denerim, and I? Seduction and poison. After some time it seemed our plan to kill our target was leaked, Taliesin assured me that he knew Rinna to be the cause."

He cannot do this sober- hence the drinking before. He cannot finish past the knot in his throat, hence the next swig of brandy, deep and burning. The dog offers him a moment's respite from the memory and for that? He is grateful. "I had known Taliesin my whole life. He was someone I thought, perhaps, I could trust for it ever had been the two of us against the rest of the Crows. We were...friends. Partners. Lovers. I should have known that coming to care for Rinna as I did, for indulging in sentiment when it has no place in an assassin's life would have left him jealous. I believed him. And he killed her while I watched and laughed as she begged for her life... as said she loved me."

Her last words, those. Then the wretched gurgle he can still hear, even to this day. "Taliesin told me we should blame her death on the job, not take any accountability for it- but it did not matter. The Masters knew what we had done and they did not care. It was a test. A reminder that we were expendable- or at least that is what they said. A year or so after the blight I found the Master that ordered this test and cut his throat as he begged for his life. Apparently Rinna was a bastard child of a Prince that had few legitimate heirs. She was to be backed by another cell of Crows to take his place. Another heir wished it not to be so. And thus? She had to die. Taliesin was given this contract. I regret helping you kill him less, now."

The longer Zevran talks, the tighter Alistair's hand curls around his shoulder, until he realizes the grip might be verging on painful and abruptly loosens it. He'd thought more than once that Zevran might fall for someone someday. Mostly in the context of how much fun it would be to tease him when it happened. How it'd serve him right. That he'd already tried it, and it ended like that--it's all wrong. Zevran--very sturdy, for an elf, but still small--looks even smaller, and Alistair--all grown up, sometimes even worldly--feels childish and a little foolish.

At least it's a familiar feeling. Zevran probably can't say the same about vulnerability.

"I wish you'd told me sooner," Alistair says after a moment, earnest and careful. "That's a lot to carry alone."

Tighter and tighter to the point of bruising- but it is a strange sort of familiarity. Alistair is ever careful around others- the only time he ever forgot himself was in anger. In frustration. That he is angry on Zevran's behalf? Warms something in him.

"How would you suggest I have brought it up? It is not exactly something suited to letter writing. 'Hello Alistair, the sun is High in Antiva, I have killed three masters this past month and by the way, here is my terribly tragic history you never knew because I have told no one.'" He cracks a soft laugh. "Ah, no. No. This- I was as low as I could get. You...helped me out of that. Asked nothing of me. Teased me. Joked with me. Defended me. The others, too, helped as well but you-"

He sags against Alistair's side. "In all my years I have only truly cared for a handful of people. Of those you know me best."

Isabella does not carry his fears, his rare somber moments- that is not how they are.

Rarely tapped as it is, Alistair has a fairly large capacity for seriousness. He takes the Wardens seriously, and duty and honor and compassion, and Zevran--at the moment, anyway. When he's like this. He's gone this whole time without cracking a joke. He didn't even laugh at the thought of how much squawking and chaos would have ensued if Wynne hadn't intervened and Zevran had come crawling into his tent, back then, when he hadn't even been with a woman yet.

So he doesn't say yes, exactly like that, and devolve into bickering over whether or not that imaginary letter would have been appropriate. (It's more or less what Alistair would do--by the way, sort of royalty--but his sad history involves many fewer cut throats.) He does make a little bit of a noise in the back of his throat in token protest, but no. All right. Wait ten years to tell him, whatever. That's fine. He keeps listening.

And, "Aw, Zev," is teasing, but in a subdued and mustered-up way, like trying to smile while walking on a broken leg. (He knows.) "You're my best friend, too."

A joke. Also not a joke. He's never said it before, or thought it in as many words--only marveled a bit over how odd they would probably look to anyone who didn't know Zevran. Which is nearly everyone, even people who probably think they do, if they didn't see his face when he turned down Taliesin's offer or watch him risk his life to kill a dragon that wasn't his problem, really, at that point.

He shifts to accommodate Zevran's lean and drops his hand to drape his arm over his shoulders. Serious, again: "Really, you are."

It is truly less a question of not trusting Alistair enough to tell him for ten years and more that after the Blight he had wished to put all of it behind him. To close that chapter and move forward. Afterward there had been killing the Crows and writing to Alistair and enjoying his freedom. He had not been kicked quite so harshly in the soul for all these years, reminders in the mire bid him to say as much now. But he is kicking himself, softly, for not bringing it up. It is what friends did, yes? Tell each other such things.

"Primo amico." He murmurs in return, the closest approximation he can gather of this 'best friend' business. But it warms him all the same to hear it, loosens the miserable tension in his shoulders. Eases a touch of the ache that will only smolder till this, too, is taken from him in the flames. "Common is...imprecice. Friend means many things in Antivan but for this? Amico. The friends you have for they are like brothers to you. That you feel amicire or stoagre for."

Like his own blood and that? Is not a feeling Zevran knows. The closest he had before was Taliesin and even that did not have this weight of trust, this unspoken, almost unconditional support. He would truly do anything for Alistair for he trusts him with- everything. It is a strange feeling to have, this, but as Alistair has put it into words, into a language he knows, Zevran feels he too must make an attempt.

"Love." There we are. "Not of the romantic sort but- that, I feel, for you."

He's touched. He's incredibly touched. He couldn't hide it if he tried, which he does not: he beams down at Zevran, eyes crinkled in the corners and only a little sad because they're always a little sad now, even when his oldest friends aren't telling him stories that break his heart. He still has the wine bottle in his hand, so he uses his wrist to drag at Zevran's opposite shoulder and dislodge him from his side so Alistair can look him in the face.

"Zevran," he says, "you're so drunk."

He emphasizes the words two very gentle shakes. He's not quite managed to connect the dots between the Calling and Zevran's mood, stuck halfway on the intermediary dot labelled brandy.

"But I've always wanted a brother, so I don't care how embarrassed you are in the morning. You can't take that back. You gave it to me and it's mine."

Zevran did not expect to be saying, well, any of this when he sat. Nor did he expect it to go so well. The plan had been drink, give wine to Alistair, and drink more. Now that he has given over all the roughest parts of his past and spoken so deeply of sentiment he would rather ignore-

He is not sure what to do next. The smiling, the shaking, does have him crackling a soft laugh. "Ah, Alistair, I have not yet begun to drink."

To emphasize this he taps his bottle of brandy back against Alistair's bottle of wine and takes another sip. Not a swig, a sip. "For this is what we do when we find family in Antiva. Drink. A lot. And if you so wished, as I know you have muttered and written in the past, you could take my name if you like. Alistair Arainai. Or was it the first name you wished to change? That might take more work."

"I only have a first name," Alistair says, stubborn on that point, now and forever. Even if he wanted to go around calling himself a Theirin, which he does not, it might make the Queen change her mind about letting him live, especially with Cousland missing, if Cousland would even care--

He's not going to get grouchy. He doesn't think about it.

"If you're telling me you love me when you're just starting, I can't wait to see what happens when you're finished," he says, rocking sideways to knock Zevran affectionately with his shoulder before he takes another drink himself. Not a sip. He has some catching up to do. And it gives him a moment to think, before he swallows, and then to wonder: "How many of them are left? The Masters, I mean. Before you're done."

Before he can rest.

"Then you can be an Arainai along with me." He bumps Alistair right back, snorting a faint laugh into his brandy. He's about a bottle and some change in already on an empty stomach, expressing love at this point shouldn't be so strange. Meaning it, that is strange.

"Of the House Arainai? None. The remainder of them have fallen into obscurity. Cut off the head and the bird usually dies. I have made a few of the Grandmasters of other Houses, especially that of the First Talon, nervous so I should dare say I've about a dozen or so more."

Alistair laughs along with him, and says, "All right, sure," with approximately the tone of someone indulging a child. But affectionately. Lovingly. He returns his arm to brace behind Zevran's back.

"I could conscript them," he offers. There are two reasons he would never do that--first, being a Grey Warden isn't a punishment; second, he doesn't want people like them in the ranks--but several more that he would. Like the fact that it would kill half of them, probably. And the other half might soon follow. And with Loghain and now dozens of new blood mages among them, they might fit in, honestly.

It's still a joke. He still wouldn't do it. It's just slightly less of a joke than it might once have been.

"Only if you let me poison the cup for their joining." It's possible it wouldn't kill some of them but- that is not a chance he is willing to take. No. He will see them dead without dirtying the name of the Grey Wardens anymore than Loghain and the blood mages already have. "No- it is a kind offer, but no. For one the Grandmasters are very careful to keep themselves relatively anonymous. For another you...would not be the man I admire quite so well if I let you do that to yourself."

Become more like Cousland. It suits Jonas, that sort of 'what needs to be done shall be done, damn the rest. It does not suit Alistair quite so well.

"One more grandmaster and they will either come after me in force or attempt to buy a treaty. Which- that would be terribly profitable but I do not think their pride would allow it." An elven son of a whore, outdoing most of the Crows. Ha.

Maybe Zevran would not be the man Alistair admires quite so well if he let Alistair do that to himself. Maybe that. But it's a lot of words to expend for a petty quibble over whom should be proud of whom, so Alistair settles for giving him a flat look and knocking his knee, like don't start. Don't continue. Whichever.

"If they offer you money, you should take it. You could retire somewhere nice," he says, thoughtfully, with his bottle back to his lips. After a drink, he gets to the more important thing: "How much force?"

"A lovely manor in Antiva City where I might sit and wait for someone to get it into their head that they should kill me? No thank you. I have not killed so many that they consider me beyond their reach just yet." But he can. Maker, he thinks he can. And when did that become an option for him? Before he had simply wanted it all to end and now? He is making it end on his own terms.

More he has to thank Alistair for.

He slips him the most innocent expression possible, eartips dipping slightly. This, he knows, Alistair will not like. "Well. The last Master, before I killed them, sent a cell of ten that met me on the road to Skyhold."

"Zevran."

Alistair doesn't like that at all. He only looks put-out in Zevran's direction for a moment--he does know it isn't his fault, exactly--but then he looks put-out at the wooden wall opposite them. Also not at fault, but less innocent-looking, and with fewer feelings.

Finish them off while I'm still around so you can come hide behind me, he almost says, but that won't work. Maybe they'll stop this and he'll be around for years; maybe they won't, and there isn't enough time.

Instead: "You shouldn't be working alone."

"What? They were young. I attempted to offer them the same mercy that was shown to me but- apparently they've a high price on my head. That seems to be worth more than their lives or their freedom." It is unsettling how much of himself he sees in them. Every time, every fight, he makes the offer. Explains how he did it- why he did it.

None have listened as of yet. All have died. Perhaps it takes a particular sort to grasp freedom- or it takes a safety net. Without Alistair and the rest of their Merry band, he would not have managed near so well. He takes another swig of his brandy and leans against Alistair, hooking an arm around his waist as a reminder that he is still here. He is still fighting.

"Who should I work with, mm? You have your Wardens and Isabella is an Admiral, Oghren is...Oghren. Besides. Obras Neras doesn't roll off the tongue quite so nicely as Obra Nera." So original, the Crows.

"Are you trying to make me feel better?" Alistair says. "Is that what you're doing? Because if it is you're not very good at it. If you don't want me to worry don't tell me the price on your head is high enough for ten people to die over it."

He might sound a little grumpy, but he's not really. Really worried, yes, but if he were grouchy about it he would go quiet instead and wriggle free of Zevran's arm. He does neither.

"Someone. Someone with a very big shield," he insists--still serious--but a moment later he snorts a little, raising the hand behind Zevran's back to ruffle his hair. There's probably never been a legend who, behind the nicknames and stories, wasn't once someone relatable, with friends and ridiculous personalities and stupidly well-styled hair. But it's still weird to think of people whispering about Zevran in fear, and weirder yet to think they'll probably still be whispering after they're all dead and gone. "Obra Nera."

We've come a long way from where we began

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lies is what they are

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