faderift | closedish.

When the quarantine is announced, Alistair decides to leave.

It’s not the most rational choice he’s ever made. But he’s had a hard month, and he’s had a hard week, and at the moment he makes the decision he’s just downed a dose of lyrium to stave off withdrawal, leaving him both unnaturally emboldened and fresh from the memory of his awful Maker-damned headache and shaking hands.

So it’s nothing against Beleth. Honestly, it’s a good idea, for everyone who is not him. But he is leaving, escaping from the infirmary bed he’d been otherwise happy to occupy (if ‘escape’ can extend to mean ‘walking out with no interference because no one cares and even if they did no one in Thedas is the boss of him anymore’) and heading toward his room to get—something. A sword. He should probably have a sword.

That’s the thought that gives him pause and stops him. That and three weeks of weird illness leaving him so tired that the stairs make him sort of dizzy. He doesn’t change his mind, but he does sit down on the steps. He’s leaving. He just needs a minute.

Edited 2018-02-04 09:35 (UTC)

Coupe's ring hangs about her throat, on the same chain as the locket containing her father and uncle's images; cheaper and more slapdash, which she uncharitably thinks is some kind of metaphor for Coupe and her uncle, probably. A kind assessment of a man she's not even met.

(In another lifetime, she hadn't known the weight of what she was telling him and for a long time after, he said nothing at all—)

It bounces against her sternum when she descends the stairs, a reminder of where she is going and why—she finds Alistair easily, picks him out in the infirmary beds (she could've done this with Coupe and probably more easily, after all, if someone has fetched her, but no matter). Goes there, sits on the edge of it without waiting to be invited to sit at all, or giving any consideration at all to the chair nearby she could have taken instead. She finds his hand, for once not particularly concerned with the sickly green glow in her own

though it makes her think of...something, there's something she should be doing, isn't there

no matter.

No matter.

“I don't want you to take this amiss,” she says, instead of hello or how are you feeling.

Edited (look we have had both ) 2018-02-04 09:58 (UTC)

He has a few minutes before his sightlines are suddenly disrupted by two very long legs leading to an even longer person looming over him, scrutinizing him and looking rather devoid of patience.
"You should be in bed," Teren observes, gathering as much from the obvious state of him in addition to what's going on in the rest of the Gallows. Nobody needs a rogue Alistair running around.

Sweet Maker, how did he get away? Who was supposed to be watching him? Nathaniel catches up at a jog, reaching out to pull the man back up and away from the death trap that is the staircase.

"Come on," he says in a tone that is all business. "Let's get you to bed. Teren, take his other arm?" It's a request, not an order, which is improvement on his part.

When she sits on the bed, Alistair cracks his eyes open enough to see who it is, who dares disturb—but it’s fine, it’s Gwenaëlle—and then closes them again, firmly, because the light is no good for his head. But he’s awake. If the scrunched-up signs of deliberate effort at the corners of his eyes weren’t plenty of evidence of that, he also smiles tightly.

“Do your worst, Lady Vauquelin.”

Prepared to remind him in a matter of moments that he said that, she says,

“Have you made any arrangements for Sabine in the event of your death?”

which is a fucking question, isn't it.

Hastily— “Not that you're going to die, but if it happens that you do, because Maker knows everyone's doing such a bang up job of making sure you all don't, is there anything that you especially want for her to have? Have you written her anything?”

A beat.

“And, you know. Where is it.”

“No one take—”

And here he becomes a dead weight, a lesson learned in childhood, refusing to provide any assistance in moving him from where he’s sitting down. In his defense, he’s essentially being confronted by the mother and put-upon no-fun eldest brother of the Grey Wardens, at least one of whom wants to wrangle him like a child. Some reversion to childish tactics is only natural.

“—any part of me, thank you. I am taking myself. I have to go.”

Beleth is trying to go down those stairs, thank you very much. And now they're occupied by three Wardens having what appears to be a strange wrestling match. Maybe it's a Warden ritual. Normally, she would shrug it off and either just jump over them, maybe using one's head as a springboard, or find a different route. But she happens to like one of those Wardens, and it's the one that looks like he's losing.

He is, unfortunately, sandwiched between two Wardens that Beleth finds relatively terrifying. But he's her friend, and Beleth is past the point where she cares if either of them manage to shank her. At this point, she may thank them. And after all, Alistair survived her mother for her. She ought to be willing to deal with this.

"Alistair, are you...okay...?" Nailed it. She squints down at them, gingerly taking another step towards them.

Teren isn't going to shank anyone, and she also isn't strong enough to lift a grown-ass man who's decided to be a sandbag, but she does have quite a lot of warning to inject into the single word "Alistair," which she manages to make sound like it is being spoken by a Fereldan Frostback.
She shoots a look at Beleth which says Don't Encourage Him.

"OOP!" Alistair suddenly goes boneless the way Thomas used to when he was a kid and being difficult. Nate still holds him up where he can and uses the same tactic that always worked with Thomas in the past. First, he mutters:

"I can't believe I'm still doing this at forty-two."

Then he reaches down and tickles Alistair's ribs under his arm.

Alistair has responses for Beleth and for Teren—I'm fine and Teren respectively—but those are both lost and possibly forgotten forever when Nathaniel tickles him like he's nine. He was probably nine the last time anyone legitimately tried that.

If anything he goes more limp, other than squirming to trying to get away from it.

"Andraste's sword, Howe," he says. "Get off. I'm leaving."

What the fuck.

"Senior Warden Nathaniel Howe," She draws it out, hoping that both the reminder of his status, and the fact that a near stranger is staring incredulously at him will remove his hands from Alistair. "I don't think that is behavior becoming of a Warden."

Then to Alistair, because unbecoming behavior is allowed when she likes you, "Where are you leaving, exactly? The infirmary?"

“Wow.”

His laugh is the same breathless sound he’s made in the past while trying to pretend that none of his bones were even slightly broken. But he did invite it. After a moment he opens his eyes to deal with it.

“There’s no letter. There isn’t—leaving things unsaid isn’t really a problem that I have.”

Sabine knows what she needs to know. He still probably should have written a letter. If he’d seen this coming—if he were five or ten years older and starting to hear the song again—there would have been a letter. He’s carried enough coin purses and jewelry to widows to know better than to not think it could happen sooner.

“There’s a sword under my bed,” he says. “It’s worth a lot of money. She should have that—the money. I don’t know what she would do with the bloody sword.”

There’s something he should ask Gwenaëlle. Trying to remember what is like trying to remember where he last left a set of keys.

It's been a quiet trip, neither of them exactly chatterboxes and concern clamming Nell up. If there were someone else here she might make an effort to hide it, find something to say around the campfire, some feature of the countryside to comment on as they ride. But it's just Kostos, so she doesn't. There's a compliment in that.

It's not hard to find the Chantry they seek, villagers willing-enough to give directions particularly when staves are out of sight, strapped to the opposite side of their horses. A remote town, small enough not to figure on many maps, large enough to have a Chantry of its own, spire rising above thatched roofs. Some part of Nell had expected to find it fortified, manned by a cadre of Templars behind heavy gates, impossible locks. Something more than a cellar vault and a single middle-aged Sister. She almost laughs at how easy it is to break in. Doesn't, when the vault proves to be empty, shelves bare but for racks the perfect size for phylactery vials and neat little labels: Apprentices, Mages, Enchanters, Deceased.

Upstairs, after, questioning the Sister has been a frustrating endeavor.

"Are you sure that's all they said about where they were going? South? There are a lot of places south of here."

Ever thoughtful (here taken to mean 'thinks a lot', content of thoughts notwithstanding), Gwenaëlle has come armed with paper and ink and her reading glasses, which she puts on as she writes what he says, or at least writes down her new to do list based on what he's said—

“I can arrange the sale,” she says, absently, “I'll be able to get more money for it than she could.”

It's not boastful or prideful, it's the plain fact that Sabine is a city elf and Gwenaëlle is a noblewoman. Whether she sells it in Orlais or here in the Marches, take a trip to Markham and bat her lashes at Alexander, maybe, sentiment might see his way clear to letting her exploit his connections for a better deal, and now she knows better what to expect it would—it'd—

Something feels wrong. She's frowning when she says, “I'll tell her a mabari ate your romantic and meaningful last words,” which sort of makes it less funny.

“Cumberland,” Kostos offers from behind Nell. His gaze is elsewhere, along with some of his attention, toward a wisp left beyond the doorway in case someone comes looking. “Val Chevin. Jader. Highever. Val Royeaux.”

Standing back the way he is, hands clasped behind him, could be nonthreatening, but as much as it implies he isn’t going to lift a hand against anyone, it also implies he isn’t going to lift a hand to hold back Nell.

That might not be the case. There’s a line. Unarmed Chantry Sisters are on one side of it. But every time their unseen someone fucks with one of his friends, the line moves an inch.

When he does turn his head back to look at the Sister, he doesn’t look friendly. Not furious either. Mainly impatient.

“Perhaps you can blink if we guess correctly.”

The Sister, to her credit, is doing a good job of almost looking like she isn’t afraid of them. Her chin is high and her voice barely wavers when she says, “I cannot confirm what I do not know.”

"You know more than you're saying," Nell snaps. She probably won't actually hurt the Sister. Her line is more flexible than his, bent and perforated by circumstance, but unarmed non-combatants aren't a target she relishes, whatever insignia they're wearing.

Still. The Sister doesn't know that, and her patience is too frayed to spend more time attempting the diplomatic tack.

Instead, Nell takes a step closer, the better to loom into the woman's space and make the most of her slight advantage in height, and to speak softly, almost into her ear. "Speaking of places south of here, have you ever heard about what happened in Marcheville? The entire village destroyed by rebel mages? I did that because at the time, I didn't see any other way to get what I wanted. This seems like a nice town, and all I want from you is information. You wouldn't want people to get hurt over that, would you?"

“I do not know where they went,” the Sister repeats, with firmness that frays at the edges as she tries to find space to move away from Nell without appearing to scramble for it. “They did not tell me what they planned.”

“But you gave them what they asked for,” Kostos says. “Did you put up a fight? Report the theft?”

He looks at the walls and the neatly ordered shelves with slightly more attention than they deserve. If there had been some sort of a struggle, she would have had plenty of time to put everything back in its place. But he doubts there was.

"The Gallows."

He's aware that he must look ridiculous. But he doesn't feel ridiculous. He feels like he's made of hollowed-out metal and like he's being very reasonable, for a hollow metal man who is probably going to die.

"I'm not dying here," he adds, because maybe if everyone else understands how reasonable this is they'll leave him alone. "I'm not dying of this. I'm a Warden."

Not one of them. He got out. And if he's going to die, he plans to do it in the Deep Roads.

“Loghain’s,” Alistair suggests. “Loghain’s mabari. But make sure she knows it wasn’t really the dog’s fault. It was Loghain’s for not training her properly.”

Someone needs to resent him for Alistair’s sake. Someone would need to. If he died.

If he died, he would want Kieran to have Duncan’s shield. The amulet hidden under his shirt should probably go to his mother, with his apologies for all the places it’s been broken and mended. Sabine could have back the wooden beads he’s worn braided around his wrist since she put them there—but if he died, he’d want them to the end. Someone can take them literally over his dead body.

But he isn’t going to die.

He says, “I’m not going to die. I can’t leave you alone with Morrigan.” Him, Morrigan. Who else does she have, here? “Who knows what she’ll say about me if I’m too dead to defend myself.”

"I didn't ask if you know where they went," Nell fumes, "Do you think we're stupid, that we won't see what you're doing?" Kostos is talking, and more productively at that, and she shuts up and lets him, for a moment, turning away to glare at the walls and shelves, attempting to reel back in her composure.

"Tell us everything you remember about them," she says, trying to sound calm as she turns back and mostly succeeding, but unable to pull the steely, urgent note from her tone. "What they looked like, what they wore, if they had accents, anything they said. How many of them there were. Insignia? Tattoos?"

Beleth can disapprove all she wants. Nate will use whatever tool is at his disposal. This one just didn't work. He casts an unfazed look at Beleth before ignoring her completely.

"You're not dying," he says plainly to Alistair. "You're coming back with us and getting some rest. Or if you're tired of resting, I'll give you work to do. Whatever you need to get through this. But you have to stay."

Alistair is not quite childish enough to tell Nathaniel that he doesn't get to tell Alistair what he has to do, whether he can work, or whether he is or is not dying, but the glare he aims up at him conveys the general sentiment. He has half an hour before his hands start shaking, maybe two before he has to take more lyrium, and he would really like to not be here anymore.

Although really Teren has no authority over any of them, she's more than happy to tell people what to do. Especially when it involves shoving something, usually their own head, up their ass.
Having stood there for a moment with her arms folded and her expression sour, she steps authoritatively forward and crouches in front of Alistair, then leans forward to whisper something in his ear.

The Sister lifts her chin, but it's only a show of dignity this time, not defiance. "They were within their rights," she says, and she doesn't make them pry an explanation out of her. Seekers, two of them, one bent with age and the other large enough to crowd the room. They knew the phylacteries were here; they had their armor; they knew the words to say.

Kostos only listens, then looks to Nell, eyebrows raised to ask if there's anything else.

Nell thinks about it for a silent moment, long enough to make the sister sweat under the weight of her stare. But she has nothing, and angry as she is intimidating the woman isn't really satisfying. She jerks her head in denial, and turns on a heel to stride out of the Chantry without a word of farewell.

Their horses are tied up in a copse of trees just back of the building, out of plain sight of the road, and Nell heads that way. "Of course it's Seekers," she spits as soon as Kostos is at her side, voice low but the rage in it clear enough, "Who else would've known where to look for so many Circles? Those fucking bastards, when we find them I'm going to tear them apart."

He doesn’t doubt it.

He doubts other things: that they were truly Seekers, or at least all Seekers; that their intent was malicious if they were. They could have collected the phylacteries for benevolent reasons, or at least reasonably responsible ones, and lost them to someone else. They could have—

It doesn’t matter. Whoever has them, Kostos doesn’t doubt that Nell will likely rip them apart, and he won’t blame her. They’ve removed limbs for less. But for the moment he’s too distracted by worrying to join her in fuming.

“She will remember your face.”

closedish.

squad.

alistair, after the quarantine is announced.

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