WHO: Felix, assorted Grey Wardens, and some concerned friends. WHAT: Felix Alexius is too cute to die. WHEN: Nowish. WHERE: Felix's room and the hallway outside it. NOTES: Broken into pieces, with starters in the comments.
The first thing he's said that isn't a joke. Figures. But Alistair appreciates the humor anyway, mustering up a very small smile. "We could probably think of something," he says, "but no. We want you alive."
No good in a fight, Dorian told him, but a good man. Alistair was recruited for his character, too, and he's turned out all right, mostly.
"We're immune to the Blight." Oversimplification. There will be time for gruesome details tomorrow, maybe, if Felix isn't dead. "If you join us, you'll live." Again: oversimplification. He might die in the process. That isn't something they warn for, generally. "But you'll also be one of us. I'm not offering you charity. It's a hard life, and you can never leave it."
Felix watches Alistair for a long moment, perhaps too long considering how little time he has left. He thinks about all of the times that his father had insisted that just one more treatment, one more spell, and he'd be cured. He had made peace with his death long before they had left for Redcliffe, long before his father's desperation had turned to madness.
And now here was a figure from recent history, telling him there was one more chance. He wasn't going to last much longer. Dorian and Adelaide hadn't been here for a pleasant visit, they were his death vigil. If this was true he couldn't afford to waste time deliberating it, and yet it felt like something out of a dream.
"Do you think living with the Blight for the past few years has been easy?" he asked eventually, only really commenting on the idea of having 'a hard life.' Despite the long pause, he needs more time to really process the rest of it. Wasting time, perhaps, but it doesn't quite pierce through his skepticism just yet.
"No," Alistair says, with a brief and faintly bewildered crease between his eyebrows. That fortitude is how they can justify being here, mixing hard-won blood and lyrium for a man who's neither a warrior nor much of a mage.
But Dorian said—before, not knowing the reason for Alistair's nosiness—that Felix might have fought to live this long for other people's sakes. Alistair threw them out to preserve a few secrets, including this one: "If you're tired of it all and you would rather be done, that's all right," he says, glancing toward Kaidan and Sabriel in their corner. "You've been brave enough already. We can tell them we tried and it didn't take, and they'll never know any better."
Dorian may throw him off the fucking ramparts, but. Whatever.
Felix is quiet for a moment again. He glances at all of them and then manages to focus on Alistair. He feels very tired. He's exhausted down to his core. A part of him feels like he should deny Alistair. He has had too many miracle cures that did nothing for him already. He should feel irritated that there is one more person trying to deny the truth he felt in his soul. That truth that it was his time to go.
Alistair had no reason to lie to him though. The Wardens were a secretive bunch and they had the most experience when it came to darkspawn. That was likely why they weren't very popular in Felix's homeland. Honestly, that lack of popularity should have been a hint that they might be worth trusting.
"I may as well try," he says finally. There's really nothing to lose at this point, he isn't likely to make it past the week.
"That's the spirit." That isn't actually the spirit. But it's as close to the spirit as he's going to try to eke out of someone this ill. He claps Felix on his knee—gently, encouragingly—and heaves himself up off the bed. "Usually we would make you kill a darkspawn or two first, but I think we can skip that for now. Stay put."
Kaidan watched the scene quietly from a corner of the room. He'd no reason to doubt Alistair - Maker knows they needed to recruit new Wardens, and quickly to make up for the losses over the last ten years - but a man so close to death from the Blight? There was no guarantee that the Joining would even work. If this had been normal circumstances, he wouldn't even have offered it as an option.
But they were not living in normal times, and desperate times oft called for desperate measures.
He and Sabriel had gone through the ritual to prepare the blood in the chalice. An opportunity to teach another Warden what must be done, the vital blood magic that kept the Wardens going. If the Inquisition thought that blood magic was performed here in Skyhold...
"Everything is prepared," he said quietly as Alistair approached. "You are sure he is ready to go through this?" The unspoken words hung in the air between them. The likelyhood that Felix would die, and Alistair would have to answer to the two angry people outside.
Now, in Felix's room, it almost felt selfish that they were here, taking Felix's minutes, hours, days away from him and the people who cared for him most. Sabriel had been the one to wonder, who had suggested, asked, if there was anything they could do. It wouldn't be charity to make him a Warden, as Alistair had said - they were traitors and hunted, sanctuary seekers and song listeners, and even if he didn't die during the Joining, and he didn't listen to the false voice in their heads, one day there would be a real one and all four people in this room would succumb to it and die, if they didn't before. That wasn't mercy. That was prolonging the inevitable.
But, loathe as she was to take the time from those closest to Felix, she couldn't sit idle. She couldn't watch someone else die when they could do something... even if that something was to offer him time in exchange for duty and oaths.
How many out to the west were dead already that she had known?
Now wasn't the time for those thoughts. Right now, she had dutifully followed through with Kaidan's instructions. She knew what they had done; it was hard not to, but it made her skin crawl, made her taste ash in her mouth. Another secret to keep, and this one, she truly didn't like. "Either way, we have little time," she says, softly. Little time for so many reasons and they shouldn't take more of it, but by doing this, they could take all of it.
With a nod at Sabriel, Alistair says, "He's ready."
He's not going to get more ready, anyway. Alistair doesn't know of any attempts to find out how blighted a person can be before the Joining can't save them, but it seems like the sort of thing that might matter. They should have done this when Sabriel first suggested it. Alistair said no, or not now, and it isn't charity, and can he even fight—the kind of things he was supposed to say, and that had been said to him before. They're all still true, those things, but here they are—for Sabriel's sake as much as Felix's, as far as Alistair is concerned, before she decides being a Warden is all bad news and worse decisions. It can't all be bad. They're owed a win. This will definitely work.
"I'm not afraid of them," he adds under his breath to Kaidan, although the list of things he currently is most afraid consists, in fact, of (1) the Grey Wardens destroying themselves beyond hope of repair, (2) Adelaide LeBlanc, and (3) Dorian Pavus. "You wouldn't let anyone throw me off the ramparts."
Kaidan gave a low, hoarse chuckle. "No, I can tell you're not afraid. I'll make sure they don't throw you off the ramparts, but as a top tip - don't go up there."
He handed Alistair the chalice with the blood in it. "The sooner it is done, the sooner we can face them."
Felix had gotten used to people muttering about him in the corner of his room long before then. He had listened to his father muttering with others, with healers and well meaning friends. This was the first time, though, that he found himself trying to really listen in.
Now that he had made up his mind to do this, he couldn't help but be curious about these people and who they were. After all, there weren't many Wardens in Tevinter for him to compare to.
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no subject
No good in a fight, Dorian told him, but a good man. Alistair was recruited for his character, too, and he's turned out all right, mostly.
"We're immune to the Blight." Oversimplification. There will be time for gruesome details tomorrow, maybe, if Felix isn't dead. "If you join us, you'll live." Again: oversimplification. He might die in the process. That isn't something they warn for, generally. "But you'll also be one of us. I'm not offering you charity. It's a hard life, and you can never leave it."
no subject
And now here was a figure from recent history, telling him there was one more chance. He wasn't going to last much longer. Dorian and Adelaide hadn't been here for a pleasant visit, they were his death vigil. If this was true he couldn't afford to waste time deliberating it, and yet it felt like something out of a dream.
"Do you think living with the Blight for the past few years has been easy?" he asked eventually, only really commenting on the idea of having 'a hard life.' Despite the long pause, he needs more time to really process the rest of it. Wasting time, perhaps, but it doesn't quite pierce through his skepticism just yet.
no subject
But Dorian said—before, not knowing the reason for Alistair's nosiness—that Felix might have fought to live this long for other people's sakes. Alistair threw them out to preserve a few secrets, including this one: "If you're tired of it all and you would rather be done, that's all right," he says, glancing toward Kaidan and Sabriel in their corner. "You've been brave enough already. We can tell them we tried and it didn't take, and they'll never know any better."
Dorian may throw him off the fucking ramparts, but. Whatever.
no subject
Alistair had no reason to lie to him though. The Wardens were a secretive bunch and they had the most experience when it came to darkspawn. That was likely why they weren't very popular in Felix's homeland. Honestly, that lack of popularity should have been a hint that they might be worth trusting.
"I may as well try," he says finally. There's really nothing to lose at this point, he isn't likely to make it past the week.
no subject
no subject
But they were not living in normal times, and desperate times oft called for desperate measures.
He and Sabriel had gone through the ritual to prepare the blood in the chalice. An opportunity to teach another Warden what must be done, the vital blood magic that kept the Wardens going. If the Inquisition thought that blood magic was performed here in Skyhold...
"Everything is prepared," he said quietly as Alistair approached. "You are sure he is ready to go through this?" The unspoken words hung in the air between them. The likelyhood that Felix would die, and Alistair would have to answer to the two angry people outside.
no subject
But, loathe as she was to take the time from those closest to Felix, she couldn't sit idle. She couldn't watch someone else die when they could do something... even if that something was to offer him time in exchange for duty and oaths.
How many out to the west were dead already that she had known?
Now wasn't the time for those thoughts. Right now, she had dutifully followed through with Kaidan's instructions. She knew what they had done; it was hard not to, but it made her skin crawl, made her taste ash in her mouth. Another secret to keep, and this one, she truly didn't like. "Either way, we have little time," she says, softly. Little time for so many reasons and they shouldn't take more of it, but by doing this, they could take all of it.
no subject
He's not going to get more ready, anyway. Alistair doesn't know of any attempts to find out how blighted a person can be before the Joining can't save them, but it seems like the sort of thing that might matter. They should have done this when Sabriel first suggested it. Alistair said no, or not now, and it isn't charity, and can he even fight—the kind of things he was supposed to say, and that had been said to him before. They're all still true, those things, but here they are—for Sabriel's sake as much as Felix's, as far as Alistair is concerned, before she decides being a Warden is all bad news and worse decisions. It can't all be bad. They're owed a win. This will definitely work.
"I'm not afraid of them," he adds under his breath to Kaidan, although the list of things he currently is most afraid consists, in fact, of (1) the Grey Wardens destroying themselves beyond hope of repair, (2) Adelaide LeBlanc, and (3) Dorian Pavus. "You wouldn't let anyone throw me off the ramparts."
no subject
He handed Alistair the chalice with the blood in it. "The sooner it is done, the sooner we can face them."
no subject
Now that he had made up his mind to do this, he couldn't help but be curious about these people and who they were. After all, there weren't many Wardens in Tevinter for him to compare to.