faderift | open & not.

He doesn't wear the Templar's uniform very often anymore—not as a rule, when the Inquisition needs people matching, when that's the whole point of the word uniform. They're all in this together and so on. So he keeps his Templar plate in a chest, waiting for this war to end and the old one to start again, and in the meantime wears a tunic around the Gallows, like someone who isn't expecting a fight.

Other than that, it feels a lot like being back in a Circle, if a Circle went mad, and let people come and go as they pleased, and gave demons not only access to the library books but oversight of the entire library.

Not his business.

His business is smaller things. He's nursing an injured hand still, most often wrapped in bandages to keep the salve on his skin from smearing on anything he touches, but occasionally let out for air and curious flexing, making sure the burn scars—ones that originally nearly knit his fingers together entirely, like lava—aren't going to limit his ability to keep his grip on a sword. In the meantime he practices with the other hand, just in case, and occasionally wanders through to the healers to wiggle his fingers for someone else. He keeps a noticeable eye on rifters and mages, not venom or suspicion so much as the watchful habit of a parent whose own kids have grown but who will never stop instinctively making sure nearby children don't try to eat rocks or pick up any knives. (Or eat knives. You never know.) And he spends a fair amount of time standing outside the doors to the room where the recovered phylacteries are being held, cutting his nails with a knife or reading—finding out what all the fuss about that Tethras is—and ignoring anyone who doesn't pass by too many times or stop to linger.

The letter Alistair receives is from Eamon, not the Queen, which is—fine. It's fine. It's good to hear from Eamon anyway, even if the thing written between all five lines of the letter is you can't come back, not yet, probably never, and the things written on the lines are polite and distant, because Eamon raised him the way Eamon raised dogs and horses: outside, under someone else's care if anyone's, often set loose to run himself out. But Alistair is still grateful, and grateful for the letter, and grateful to have a reason besides his own moral failings not to go to Denerim for the funeral.

He puts the letter in a box that will eventually be sorted through to separate what's necessary from what can be burned, and then he goes to the Wardens' office.

Loghain is there when he walks in. Alistair has been avoiding spending any time alone with him, successfully, for weeks. Months, now, technically. But it's been long enough, and he's tired enough, that turning around and leaving would be just too petty and unreasonable for him to do it, so he crashes down into the chair at his desk instead and opens the first of a stack of letters that are, probably, hopefully, not about anyone's dead fathers.

This broom closet of an office somehow has managed to cram three different desks into it, which is how Loghain is able to also be sitting at a desk when Alistair arrives. (His desk is not as nice, but, to be fair, Alistair got here first.)

He's pouring over some document or another in preparation for the journey to Ferelden for the funeral when Alistair comes in; when he doesn't immediately turn around and walk back out again, Loghain pauses and looks up. It might be reasonably accurate to say that their avoidance of each other is mutual; now that it seems to be at an end, Loghain hesitates, unsure of what to do or say.

So he opts for nothing--for a minute.

Then he clears his throat and asks quietly, "Would you like me to bring anything for you?" A pause. "To the funeral pyre."

Alistair looks up, eyes narrowing and head tilting into a look of sullen incredulity—but one of his milder forms of that expression, overall. One that only says no with a hint of why even ask rather than no with a dollop of how dare you. If he were younger, he would say that Maric never gave him anything. Now, older and wiser, he knows the man did at least try to give him a life free of the crown (mixed results) and the stigma of elven blood (so far a success), and for that he can be appreciative. But it doesn't mean he has anything to put on a pyre. There's nothing material to return. No memory to reference. This handful of mud, for the mud on my shoes when I first saw my father, at a distance, that one day he came to Redcliffe and didn't even look at me—

And when they found him in Seheron he was rather busy looking at Loghain, wasn't he.

Anyway, the answer is no. And considering that answer delivered, Alistair doesn't add anything aloud before he looks back down at the correspondence in his hands.

"They're letting you go back?" he says, but obviously they are, so he doesn't want for a response. "Try not to start a war."

Edited 2018-04-06 20:13 (UTC)

Cloudreach means Spring, and Spring means it's warm enough to swim. That's the rule, and a rule Alistair learned far south of here, at that. It doesn't matter if the actual weather disagrees; it doesn't matter that it's currently only taking a quick break between rain showers and the sun is just barely pushing through the clouds, and it doesn't matter that in a couple of days it will suddenly be snowing again. It's Spring, so he's in the harbor, trying his best to glare at Beleth without letting her see that his teeth are chattering.

He clenches his jaw for a moment to steady them before he tries to talk.

"Come on," he says. "Nobody's ever d-d-d-died—damn it." The jig is up. He stops trying. "Nobody's ever d-died of cold in Sp-p-ring."

Edited 2018-04-05 19:12 (UTC)

“Incredible.” Beleth steps up to the shoreline, where the water just barely laps at her boots, and stares at Alistair with an expression that’s struggling between amused and exasperated. “You’ve finally figured out how to cast off your previous fame. From now on, you’ll be Alistair, the man who froze to death in the harbor, a lesson to children everywhere.”

Despite her words, she kneels and begins to unbuckle her boots. “And, a bad influence, to top it all off.” Once she’s freed her feet and rolled up her leggings, Beleth takes a few hesitant steps into the water, promptly wincing. After that, she retreats back to the shoreline and sits, letting the waves roll over her feet. That’s as far as she’s getting.

“So, are you trying to become the first person to die of cold in spring, or is there an ulterior purpose here?”

"I've never had an ulterior p-p-p-purpose in m-my life," Alistair says. He tries ducking deeper into the water, briefly disappearing. It's warmer that way. Everyone says so. When he raises back up it's only far enough for his mouth to be over the waves.

It's not warmer. But he's not giving up yet.

"T-tell the children I died for honor."

Briefly, Beleth contemplates abusing her position to make a scout fetch a warm blanket for him, but she’ll wait until he's done trying to kill himself. Instead, she crosses her legs, raising an incredulous eyebrow at Alistair.

“Of course. I'll put up a memorial for you.”

She hesitates after that, trying to figure out how to broach the subject she had been thinking about. Maybe it would be best to start out with something related, but not as personal for him.

“A while ago, I found out that my father hadn't died, he’d just ran off to another clan. I wasn't really sure how to feel about it. I should probably be upset, but...” There's some shifting, as she tilts her head, trying to think of the words she wanted. It may be less personal for Alistair, but it was pretty damn personal for her—enough that she hadn't spoken to anyone else about it. “...He never had much of an effect on my life before, so it's difficult to say if I should care now.”

Alistair's chattering smile fades quickly as soon as she says my father hadn't died.

"I've never liked the word should," he says, which isn't true. Or it's of limited truth, anyway. It's a fine word most of the time. In this sort of situation, though—nah. He ducks under the water again, but only to push toward the shore, so he can pull himself up onto the rocks beside her. "You don't owe him caring, if you don't care."

Ah, he’s finally out. Beleth pulls off her scarf, and absently dabs at his hair with it, while she muses on his words. “It’s hard to care about someone who didn’t seem to care about me. After he was gone, people kept asking me if I was okay, if I was holding up. They all expected me to be feeling a certain way, but it’s more complicated than that. A child’s relationship with their father can be...incredibly complicated.”

And here, she turns fully towards Alistair, still attempting to help dry him somewhat. She doesn’t push him towards the connection quite yet, until she knows if he’s particularly interested in making that leap. “Do you have a towel? Do you need one?”

Alistair shakes his head no—no, he doesn't have a towel, no, he doesn't need one—and then shakes it again, faster this time, like a dog. It makes his hair stick out at weird angles, but it's short enough to barely matter. One rake of his hand back through it nearly puts it back to normal.

"If I freeze here," he says, which he isn't going to actually do even if he's still trembling a little and covered in goose bumps, "you can have one of the mages preserve me, and you won't have to waste any expense on the memorial."

Really, he just needs a minute. The sun is out.

"How old were you?" he asks. He's not an idiot, but even if he's going to talk about Maric eventually, this is still news, that her father ran off. She'd never said.

A little sigh follows his assurance of not needing a towel, and Beleth drops her scarf over his head. Close enough. Then she scoots next to Alistair, leaning against him. She’s not a Ferelden Furnace™, but she’s warmer than the water.

“That’s very thrifty of you, I’ll be sure to make a note. At least you wouldn’t have to worry about a statue getting your nose wrong.” A smirk follows that, and a gentle elbowing. The smirk quickly fades, however, as she thinks about his question. It’s not something she thinks about, let alone talks about, very often.

“Fifteen or sixteen, I think. There had been an attack from bandits on one of the traveling groups. The Keeper said that she saw him fall while fighting.” She gives a shrug, expression blank. The memory wasn’t painful, even then. More than anything, there was guilt at the lack of grief. “She said it would’ve been hard on us if we knew, and embarrassing to the family—having a martyr for a father looks better. I suspect she told us the truth because Arlathvhen is approaching.”

Edited 2018-04-30 04:41 (UTC)

Alistair loops the scarf around his head until he looks like a peasant woman, because why not, and braces his arms to lean back at a slight angle and support both of their weight. The elbow only briefly jeopardizes that balancing.

"What's that?" he asks.

Is he supposed to know? Probably not. If the Dalish wanted him to know what words meant they would probably publish helpful pamphlets or something.

“You look ridiculous,” She informs him, fairly sure he's already aware of that, but quite willing to tell him, anyway.

“Oh, sorry—" She might have not bothered if it weren't Alistair, but as it was, in fact, Alistair, she goes on. “Arlathvhen is a gathering of all the clans, that takes place every ten years. It's incredibly important to the Dalish, it's how we keep up to date on our knowledge, check our lore against others to make sure they haven't strayed from the the original. It’s also just a good time to see people from other clans, thus my father.”

She waves a hand vaguely. “I certainly have no intention of wasting my time there looking for him, though. Dealing with my mother trying to set me up will be more than enough family drama, I’m sure.”

"Family," Alistair says, with sage scorn, like he is very wise and thus very qualified to think something is stupid. The scarf probably helps. Definitely helps. He definitely looks wiser in this scarf, and he doesn't care what Beleth thinks. "Have you considered not having one?"

"No." It’s said with a quiet certainty. "As much as they drive me crazy, they’re my family. I need them, and they need me. And what would I have—what would I be without them?" She sighs, and offers up a shrug.

"It’s the same with the clan as a whole. Leaving them seems like it would be...so lonely. And I’d loose a part of who I am." She’s Dalish. She’s an Ashara. They are two major parts of her identity, and many of her desires and plans revolve around them. What would be left, were it to be stripped away?

"...My father doesn’t count as a part of any of that, though. He’s gone."

Edited 2018-05-12 02:11 (UTC)

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