faderift | [ CLOSED ] THE ANTIVAN CROWS SEND THEIR REGARDS

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[ CLOSED ] THE ANTIVAN CROWS SEND THEIR REGARDS

WHO: Alistair, Araceli Bonaventura, Beleth Ashara, ~~Anders~~ Detlef, Korrin Ataash, Taashath, The Iron Bull, Twisted Fate, an Zevran Arainai. Guest Starring: Samouel, Cyril, and Merrick, Super Special Guest Star: Leliana.
WHAT: The Crows come for the Ombra Nera.
WHEN: Begins Guardian 6
WHERE: Skyhold/Antivan Border/The Road
NOTES: CW/TW FOR: Flesh hommonculi, violent/gruesome content, torture, blood magic, non-consensual drug use, adult content, adult language, reader discretion is advised. Sign up post, original plotting post, hit me on PM or @

thesouthernbelle if you have questions.

It's a normal morning in Thedas until, abruptly, it isn't. The Crows come calling; they are swift, they are certain, they are silent and leave behind but one witness that won't be alive for much longer (or so they assume). Prize in hand they ride North for Antiva.

Subthreads for portions of the plot are yours to tag around in as you like!

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"Why are you here?" They know by now he won't cut Alistair's throat, won't poison his wine, push him from a rampart, strangle, drown, or beat him to death. They know this. It was the first tack they'd attempted after Rinna.

It'd shifted to any number of vague faces; dealing with Kieran had been viscerally terrifying until he realized they were letting his mind make the choice of who not to kill. After that it became repetitive...until the fake rescues began. This is simply a new flavor of the same venom and he is tired.

For once he'd like to rest.

Alistair says, "I," and pauses, because he wasn't expecting that. He hasn't been sticking as close to Zevran as some of the others, perhaps, not because he doesn't want to but because he's been busy making sure that they all make it safely home, and that none of the captives escape of are killed by vengeful elves or Qunari, and that if he's going to break down and cry (inevitably) he does it where no one can see and waste time trying to make him stop. In all of that he hasn't considered that Zevran might be angry with him. He's considering it now. He says, "I wanted to see you."

Maybe he should offer to leave.

"I can be quiet."

That's the best he can do.

"What is there to see?" A huddled lump of an elf that is down an eye and cannot keep his hands steady? As far as the rescue dreams go, this one is the worst. It hasn't hurt this much for this long without him dying before- and no shade has ever managed that particular lilt of Alistair's voice.

Quietly hurt and trying to hide it.

No, it'd been pleading. Or droll bargaining. This is new.

New is bad. New means they are getting creative and the rules have changed again. But it can't be the truth, Alistair can't be here, he cant be out. He isn't that lucky. Zevran curls into a tighter ball, blankets muffling the crackling of his voice. "Tell them to try something else. I am not killing you, they know this and I am tired of their imitations."

Another pause. Alistair isn't stupid, but he's not a genius or a psychic, either, and wrapping his head around torture is particularly difficult, because he doesn't think that way. He doesn't quite get it.

But he gets it enough to say, "I know you won't."

He puts a cautious hand on Zevran's arm, over his blankets, just to rest there. It makes him feel better.

"Not unless I ask you to," he adds—an attempt at levity, despite the subject matter. The kinds of things they learn to joke about. Zevran will die first so Alistair can make a fuss at his funeral; Zevran will kill him if he asks, if he doesn't want to go to the Deep Roads. "But we're years from that, and I'm—"

Not important.

"They're not here anymore. We've got you."

His arm is hard as stone under Zevran's hand, too tense to sleep, too tired to argue, too confused as to what is and is not real to try to make the shade leave again. Perhaps this is a longer dream and the end will hurt more for it. But there had been moments in them where he could rest. Where he could soak in echos of those he cared for to shore him up for the next round.

Little by little a hand snakes out from the blankets and stretches up to clasp Alistair's wrist.

It trembles.

All of him trembles, lately. All of him feels horribly cold even as his skin sings with a feverish heat. But he holds fast. "Why. You knew what they would do. What you would find."

He'd told Alistair, once. Over an argument that had been less about him being an assassin and more about Alistair trying to grant him his freedom through the goodness of his heart or something like that. Zevran cannot recall the details. But he can recall the way the warden's face paled as he went through ever cut, every trick, every drop of blood they'd wring from him long before the end.

Alistair might've had to vomit halfway through. He can't remember. But he remembers telling him.

"Yes."

He didn't vomit when Zevran told him. He has recently, though. Demons, abominations, darkspawn, flesh monsters—all of it that, he can shrug and wipe whatever blood or guts may be involved off of his face without issue. But the cruelty people are capable of inflicting on one another still turns his stomach. Doubly, triply so when it's someone he cares about. He found time and space to cry and choke until he retched, after they left the stronghold, and if it isn't quite out of his system yet, it is at least tucked out of the way, somewhere where it won't make his hands shake alongside Zevran's when he needs them to be steady.

"We weren't going to leave you," he says. "I wasn't going to."

There were times on the way that he tried bargaining with the Maker, despite barely believing in Him and knowing He isn't in the business of lifting His Divine Fingers to help—just to let Zevran already be dead, if they weren't going to find him alive. If they couldn't have that, and he was going to be gone, to not let it drag out any longer.

He doesn't move except to rub his thumb against Zervan's tense arm.

"You're going to be all right. I promise."

"I am half mad and half-blind, Alistair." It could be angry, if he had the energy for it. It could be scathing if his voice weren't still so small and tired and afraid. Terrified this is another trick. That he'll have to take the knife, again, and bleed out, again. He is so tired of that. Of falling, of drowning, of choking on his own blood only to wake on that hook, in that cell, with laughter in his ears.

He is so horribly tired.

"You should have." Let them finish it. Leave him behind and let him die. Let this mess end without risking himself, without risking time and resources the Inquisition do not have to spare. Even as he clings to Alistair's wrist and slowly uncoils enough to inch his way over until his head is resting on his lap, forehead pressed against Alistair's stomach, even as he melts under that familiar touch- he insists he shouldn't have come.

What good is he to them now? What good is he to anyone now?

Half-blind makes him exhale everything in his lungs, until his chest can't get any smaller or his shoulders less slumped, torso curling in as if to protect the knot of my fault my fault my fault in his chest—but he doesn't say it. Zevran would only feel obliged to tell him that it isn't. Maybe Alistair will make him do that later, but even he has the sense not to do it now. The only sign at all is the deep, heavy breath he pulls back in as he forces himself to move past it.

"That's not how family works, Zev," he says. Kind of. If Alistair needed rescuing Goldanna would probably let him die, if she weren't the one selling him out in the first place. Cailan might have sent some of his people, maybe, if he ever even knew. But Zevran would come. He knows that. He moves his hand to Zevran's head, to gently rub behind his exposed ear. "Not this one. It's ours, so we get to make the rules, and I'm making that one of them."

He'd remind Alistair that he'd insisted on a sword, on walking out like a fool. But he's grateful that he does not have to for he wouldn't manage the words in a way that was kind. He cannot tend to Alistair's wounds and feelings while he is still sorting out his own.

It's not the kind of rule he understands, but it is one he can cling to. Fine. "You could have died."

Alistair is doomed to death, this much they both know- but he'd rather not be the cause of it outside the boundaries of their agreement. Something thick and hot catches in his chest as he curls tighter around him at that thought. "I don't want you dying for me."

"Good thing I didn't, then," Alistair says, breaking from his rhythmic scalp-rubbing to straighten out a long strand of blonde hair. "Now we don't have to argue about whether or now I'm allowed to."

He is, for the record, allowed to. He doesn't care if Zevran loses both eyes and his whole mind. But he doesn't want to upset him, so his tone is as light as he can make it, and he tugs equally lightly on the tip of Zevran's ear.

"Budge over."

Or don't budge at all, but be warned: Alistair is shifting and wriggling and repositioning to lie down next to him, offering the crook of his arm for Zevran's face-hiding needs instead of his lap.

"You aren't." He mutters, and it's not as light as it could be. Everything he endured, everything he turned against himself to see that even a shade of Alistair might yet live-

He has not earned the right to jest about such things. Zevran reaches up to swat at the tug but budges over all the same, slinking out of his blankets enough to plaster himself against his side. Here he is safe, he is warm, he is solid. Here he hides his face for who could possibly wish to see it now? No one. Not even Alistair.

"All right," Alistair says, "I won't," sounding particularly patient, a little bit like he's humoring him; he doesn't understand. He doesn't yet understand why Zevran is hiding his face, either, or even that that's what he's doing instead of only being clingy and wounded.

He pats around to make sure Zevran's blankets are still doing their jobs, then settles down. Not to sleep. He won't be doing more than light dozing until they're safely back. But he gets both arms around Zevran and stays still.

"You scared me." He doesn't mean it as an admonishment, though maybe it sounds that way. It isn't Zevran's fault. But Alistair thought he was gone, and he hasn't been that afraid since—since before the Archdemon, even. He wasn't helpless in the face of the Archdemon. He hasn't been that afraid since Ostagar. "When we get back you'll have to check me for gray hairs. I wouldn't be surprised."

"I'll make certain to give you fair warning before I get kidnapped in the future." Because clearly, that is the issue here. Not that Alistair cares enough to be afraid. It's easier to be angry than think on what had happened, what he'd lost. A hand slips up to pinch his earlobe lest he take that seriously. He can't handle Alistair having emotions at him.

At least not hurt emotions. Zevran is tired to death of hurt. He'd take apathy at this point.

Teasing is better by far than guilt, however, and he takes it with a soft sigh. "Consider it payback for the whole 'I might be dying, Zevran' bit you fed me earlier."

"Not an even trade," Alistair says, without any fire, tucking his chin down so he can nudge the top of Zevran's head with his nose. "Are you warm enough?"

"What would be?" Actually, no, he doesn't want to know, but it's too late to not think about it.

"No." But no amount of blankets will solve that problem. The room had been freezing, the fade more so, and he carries it in his bones. "There is nothing to be done for it."

Alistair doesn't want to think about it either--not for his own sake, but because explaining the mismatch between his hypothetical future death and painless endurance of an annoying song and what happened to Zevran will require revisiting the room with the hook and the blood and he's been doing a remarkable job of keeping his voice steady, so far, so no. He shakes his head, nose rubbing into Zevran's hair in the process.

"All right," he says, to nothing to be done, but his hold tightens anyway, in case it will help. He manages to be quiet for fifteen seconds, maybe. "Does it still hurt? Your eye."

"..." Zevran sighs, trying to think of a way to lie and unable to put anything together that will satisfy either of them. If he answers, Alistair feels guilty. If he doesn't, Alistair assumes, and feels guilty. Damned if he does, damned if he does not and it aches in the back of his skull as a throbbing counterpoint to the eye. "Why are you asking after things you cannot fix?"

Because that's what this is. Alistair searching fruitlessly for something he can fix, something he can put right. Charming as it is when he turns it on others; it does neither of them any good in this mess. He lives. Anything more is stretching it. He lives.

He doesn't have an answer for that right now. He might later, when he's had time to think about it or isn't so tired and overwhelmed; then he might be able to say that if he can't fix it he at least wants to try to help carry it. That's what he's good for. Big shoulders, you know.

Right now, though, Zevran's nine-word question translates in Alistair's head to one word, yes, and he lifts his chin away from Zevran's head. "Let me see."

"No." It's immediate, cut out of him in a sharp snap of all the frustrations he's had roiling in the back of his mind since he was cut down. Zevran presses his face tighter against Alistair's shoulder- he'd move away if he could manage to do so without revealing the source of so much of his disquiet, but he couldn't, the blankets were about his shoulders, Alistair is determined, and he does not wish to think about this.

"All right," Alistair says again, surprised, acquiescent in tone. But after a moment to do some hasty and simple puzzle-solving, he adds, "You can show me in the morning," ninety-five percent innocence--because clearly it's only being cold and not wanting to move that's the issue here, and clearly Zevran isn't planning on making his way all the way back to Skyhold with his face hidden against various shoulders and chests, and clearly daylight will be better for having a good look, anyway--and five percent pointed.

"I said no." He hisses, rolling away. Hand pressed to his face while he reaches for his pack, Alistair's pack- a pack. He can't attempt to sleep now, not knowing Alistair will likely attempt to peek when he does not wish it to be seen. He's half blind and half mad- but he can still make his own choices. And not showing anyone that does not need to see it the ruin of his eye, the blurred over mass of it? Is his choice to make. Alistair ought to abide. Swearing under his breath he picks through until he finds a bandage and wraps it around his head, a wad of cotton against his new scars to keep them from being seen.

"Zevran."

Alistair's tone tries for a mix of apology and question and rebuke and falls short of all three. He sits up, propped back on his arms and frowning, to watch what little he can see in the dark, with Zevran's back to him.

Fine. All right. That's happening. And he's still too relieved to have Zevran back at all to be overly hurt by the sense that he's being shut out.

"Okay," he says. "Will you look at me now, at least?"

"Alistair." Dry, wry, and distant; in a way his name hasn't been for over ten years. Since those first days when he was trying to sort out who would and wouldn't kill him if displeased. A harrowing time that he's been past for years but this? He does not know how to cope with this and Alistair's need to fix things.

"Will you let the matter lie? I am cold, I am in pain, I am broken and there is nothing you can kill that will make this right again."

Alistair doesn't believe him. Maybe there isn't anything he can kill, precisely, but he's sure there are things he can do, and he's sure Zevran isn't broken. Not in any way that can't be mended with enough effort and support.

But he doesn't say so. He doesn't want to fight. If Zevran's already saying his name that way—like a sharp elbow in the ribs, but Alistair shakes it off, it doesn't matter, he doesn't mean it—he won't be able to last a real argument. That isn't the same as agreeing, though, or giving up; he'll keep trying without announcing it beforehand, that's all.

For now he only puts a hand on Zevran's back and sighs, frustrated but ultimately agreeable.

"Thank you," he says, "for protecting me." Battered and drugged and still. If the list of other things already breaking his heart weren't so long, that would do it. "Come on, I'll hush. You should try to sleep."

He does not have to look back to know Alistair is making one of his many, many faces. Probably one part kicked puppy and two parts hopeful, with a dash of guilt in the mix. It's all in the eyebrows, truly, and Zevran cannot bear to look at it. He did this to himself. He cannot bear the consequences and Alistair's guilt.

Of course it might be easier to bear than his gratitude.

Habit, honestly, had him move. He had endured too much for too long (in his mind) to allow some fool Crow with more daggers than good sense to cut Alistair's throat. An instinct he's never shaken himself of, after that year of doing the same, putting himself between the blade and Jonas, the blade and Alistair. It's the only reason he managed and for a brief, visceral moment, he loathes himself for it. Hates himself more for thinking it'd be an even trade, his eye, Alistair's life.

Tense under Alistair's hand but. He turns, bandage covering his scars and eye. "...You never did learn to watch your flank."

An olive branch of a sort. Something to make this less tense, so he could sleep.

[ CLOSED ] THE ANTIVAN CROWS SEND THEIR REGARDS

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