WHO: Adalia, Alistair, Freddie, Herian, Loghain, Medicine Seller, Melys, Nathaniel, Notas, Teren. WHAT: Rescuing a king, maybe. WHEN: Early Wintermarch WHERE: An island off Seheron, the Fade NOTES: Violence, disturbing imagery.
He's been alone for a very long time. Since Rowan died—
Sometimes Rowan is here, though it's not quite like this. It's like this with Katriel, and Fiona, and Loghain. Maric smiles at the touch and moves in closer, forehead to forehead. Have they done this before? They've done this before, he decides, and expects this Fade-shaped version of his friend to adjust to that decision. That's how it works. It's only slightly less lonely than a cell, but: he's been alone for a very long time.
The smoke clears then, and when Loghain looks at his king he realizes, quite suddenly, that this is a dream--but it's not his dream. It was never his dream, his Maric was never like this. Never real enough, never stubborn or stupid or bull-headed enough. Loghain accommodates his closeness but suddenly can't catch his breath, not that breathing is even necessary here in the Fade. Maker, he's here. He's here, he made it.
"Maric--" On desperate impulse, he frames either side of Maric's face with his hands and kisses him. It's a short kiss, cut off by Loghain himself as he draws back to catch his breath, to rest his face against Maric's forehead, and confess in a voice thick from emotion, "I should never have stopped searching for you."
It’s not quite something that Maric would never imagine Loghain saying to him, not with lucidity always in the back of his mind like an anchor, awareness that he’s gone, awareness he must have been looked for, awareness he was never found—it’s not out of the question, and thus not quite something that requires him to stop. It’s easy to slide from a scenario where he never left to one where he’s finally been found.
The Fade twists around them, a slow morph from the halls of the palace in Denerim twenty years ago to the darker corridors of a foreign fortress. It isn’t quite the one they’re in now, because he never got a chance to see it, but it’s the general idea.
He says, down into Loghain’s collar, “You didn’t. You’re here.”
His hair was white, the last he saw it in a dirty mirror, and it’s faded pale again now, but his face doesn’t change, and neither does his body. He doesn’t know how wasted he’s become on the other side of the Veil. He couldn’t imagine. So he still has all the strength he needs to walk another old man back against the wall of a dreamed-up fortress and kiss him on the mouth.
His back hits the wall--or what he perceives as a wall, anyway, damp and cold and emanating the feeling of prison in a way that Loghain hasn't felt in decades. But the kiss, something long desired yet never known, never consciously acknowledged, consumes his focus, driving out the memories of what brought him here in the first place. (A rescue, yes, but the details grow foggy, shrouded from his mind's eye now as if by bits of hanging moss--)
His hands find the planes of Maric's face as he remembers them, his fingers slipping through hair gone white but still brilliant, still soft as it had looked to his eye in decades gone past. He hitches one shoulder against the uncomfortable stone, a sound muffled against Maric's mouth, but Maker help him, he'd rather drown than let it end. Let it be a different dream, a selfish corner of his mind pleads with them both, a better dream, let it be one that can be made real, one day. One day, if they can only...
Reluctantly, he breaks the kiss, but not the intimate closeness, cradling Maric's face near his, stroking rough thumbs across his cheekbones. "Come home with me, Maric, let me free you from..." he starts to say, but then a furl forms his his browline. Yes, he knows he's come here to free his king, to bring him home, but the how of this suddenly feels so inaccessible to his mind.
“You can’t be serious,” says a voice from further down the corridor.
The voice belongs to Alistair, who has had enough Fade bullshit to last his entire life—he’d had enough Fade bullshit to last his entire life two seconds after the first time something like this happened, actually, thanks—and couldn’t honestly say that this is the worst thing he’s ever seen. He’s seen broodmothers, and an archdemon, and a writhing pit of thousands of darkspawn scrabbling desperately toward a buried old god while its old song rattled the cavern walls, annnnnnd...
That’s it. Broodmothers, Archdemon, nauseating swarm of darkspawn rabidly clawing their way toward the Sixth Blight, and Loghain making out with Maric Theirin. Those are the four worst things he’s ever seen.
“I mean, as far as personal nightmares go, this is really very creative—good job, Fade—“
Maric has moved away from Loghain. Not far. The distance is companionable, still, if not intimate, and he doesn’t seem remotely embarrassed. Only faintly bewildered, squinting down the dimly-lit corridor.
“Cailan?”
There’s a pause, on Alistair’s end, and then, “No.” He isn’t hurt. Being hurt would be stupid, because why wouldn’t Maric expect the son he raised instead of the bastard he saw once at a distance, and also what is even going on. He has no idea, at the moment, and he covers for that and for whatever else he may or may not be feeling by turning to the closest of whomever has accompanied him this far. “Has the Fade made me blonder? I don’t need that right now. Not on top of everything else.”
Nathaniel appeared a split second after Alistair and he's squinting ahead, deciding Alistair is embarrassed enough for the both of them, so he doesn't bother being embarrassed. Being something of a military history buff, he finds he can actually sort of get behind this ship.
"This is Alistair," he intones gravely, because fuck this, Alistair deserves to at least be recognized by his absentee father. "Your other son," he adds helpfully. He hasn't seen King Maric since he was a boy, dragged to court by his father in a fit of I guess I have to train my son for his job. To his dismay, he has the same internal fanboy squee he had back then, even now that he's old enough that he's supposed to have some dignity.
Though no longer in rags, Teren appears rather as she did when she first joined the Wardens, thin and haggard and frightened as she walks out of nothing to stand behind Nate. She looks around like a nervous hare, aware that this is the Fade, wondering what new horrors it's about to throw at them, and hating every helpless minute of it.
Following the sound of Alistair's voice, she moves to stand by him, caught between the warring impulses to either protect him or hide behind him. Only now does she see what greets them, but, naturally, doesn't recognize the man with Loghain.
The transition from private, intimate moment alone with Maric to having this moment suddenly laid bare before other eyes--before Alistair's, Maker help him--is abrupt, and leaves Loghain feeling as though he's been struck by something. He stands where Maric leaves him against the stone wall, his eyes still vague, but only for a moment longer.
It's painfully apt that Teren's appearance is what jogs him back into the moment; the stab of guilt, of shame that follows can't be dealt with now. They don't have the time.
"Maric," he says again, his voice a little hoarse but with growing confidence, because he remembers now and can feel the fingers of the Fade slowly loosening their hold on his mind. He remembers. "We've come to Seheron. For you."
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no subject
He's been alone for a very long time. Since Rowan died—
Sometimes Rowan is here, though it's not quite like this. It's like this with Katriel, and Fiona, and Loghain. Maric smiles at the touch and moves in closer, forehead to forehead. Have they done this before? They've done this before, he decides, and expects this Fade-shaped version of his friend to adjust to that decision. That's how it works. It's only slightly less lonely than a cell, but: he's been alone for a very long time.
"Either way, I'm counting on you to save me."
no subject
To save him.
The smoke clears then, and when Loghain looks at his king he realizes, quite suddenly, that this is a dream--but it's not his dream. It was never his dream, his Maric was never like this. Never real enough, never stubborn or stupid or bull-headed enough. Loghain accommodates his closeness but suddenly can't catch his breath, not that breathing is even necessary here in the Fade. Maker, he's here. He's here, he made it.
"Maric--" On desperate impulse, he frames either side of Maric's face with his hands and kisses him. It's a short kiss, cut off by Loghain himself as he draws back to catch his breath, to rest his face against Maric's forehead, and confess in a voice thick from emotion, "I should never have stopped searching for you."
no subject
The Fade twists around them, a slow morph from the halls of the palace in Denerim twenty years ago to the darker corridors of a foreign fortress. It isn’t quite the one they’re in now, because he never got a chance to see it, but it’s the general idea.
He says, down into Loghain’s collar, “You didn’t. You’re here.”
His hair was white, the last he saw it in a dirty mirror, and it’s faded pale again now, but his face doesn’t change, and neither does his body. He doesn’t know how wasted he’s become on the other side of the Veil. He couldn’t imagine. So he still has all the strength he needs to walk another old man back against the wall of a dreamed-up fortress and kiss him on the mouth.
no subject
His hands find the planes of Maric's face as he remembers them, his fingers slipping through hair gone white but still brilliant, still soft as it had looked to his eye in decades gone past. He hitches one shoulder against the uncomfortable stone, a sound muffled against Maric's mouth, but Maker help him, he'd rather drown than let it end. Let it be a different dream, a selfish corner of his mind pleads with them both, a better dream, let it be one that can be made real, one day. One day, if they can only...
Reluctantly, he breaks the kiss, but not the intimate closeness, cradling Maric's face near his, stroking rough thumbs across his cheekbones. "Come home with me, Maric, let me free you from..." he starts to say, but then a furl forms his his browline. Yes, he knows he's come here to free his king, to bring him home, but the how of this suddenly feels so inaccessible to his mind.
no subject
The voice belongs to Alistair, who has had enough Fade bullshit to last his entire life—he’d had enough Fade bullshit to last his entire life two seconds after the first time something like this happened, actually, thanks—and couldn’t honestly say that this is the worst thing he’s ever seen. He’s seen broodmothers, and an archdemon, and a writhing pit of thousands of darkspawn scrabbling desperately toward a buried old god while its old song rattled the cavern walls, annnnnnd...
That’s it. Broodmothers, Archdemon, nauseating swarm of darkspawn rabidly clawing their way toward the Sixth Blight, and Loghain making out with Maric Theirin. Those are the four worst things he’s ever seen.
“I mean, as far as personal nightmares go, this is really very creative—good job, Fade—“
Maric has moved away from Loghain. Not far. The distance is companionable, still, if not intimate, and he doesn’t seem remotely embarrassed. Only faintly bewildered, squinting down the dimly-lit corridor.
“Cailan?”
There’s a pause, on Alistair’s end, and then, “No.” He isn’t hurt. Being hurt would be stupid, because why wouldn’t Maric expect the son he raised instead of the bastard he saw once at a distance, and also what is even going on. He has no idea, at the moment, and he covers for that and for whatever else he may or may not be feeling by turning to the closest of whomever has accompanied him this far. “Has the Fade made me blonder? I don’t need that right now. Not on top of everything else.”
no subject
"This is Alistair," he intones gravely, because fuck this, Alistair deserves to at least be recognized by his absentee father. "Your other son," he adds helpfully. He hasn't seen King Maric since he was a boy, dragged to court by his father in a fit of I guess I have to train my son for his job. To his dismay, he has the same internal fanboy squee he had back then, even now that he's old enough that he's supposed to have some dignity.
no subject
Following the sound of Alistair's voice, she moves to stand by him, caught between the warring impulses to either protect him or hide behind him. Only now does she see what greets them, but, naturally, doesn't recognize the man with Loghain.
no subject
It's painfully apt that Teren's appearance is what jogs him back into the moment; the stab of guilt, of shame that follows can't be dealt with now. They don't have the time.
"Maric," he says again, his voice a little hoarse but with growing confidence, because he remembers now and can feel the fingers of the Fade slowly loosening their hold on his mind. He remembers. "We've come to Seheron. For you."