Awkward

Disclaimer: I do not own Dragon Age.

Note: Seriously, why in the world would Alistair go about telling Morrigan's LI what a bitch she is? How will that help them bond?

Reidin Aeducan was largely indifferent to his fellow Warden. Alistair had initially seemed very competent at Ostagar but once it was over, he had fallen apart. Reidin tried to keep in mind the scope of the massacre that went down there and to make allowances but those allowances didn't mean he had to particularly like the other man. Reidin had had to work with plenty of people who he honestly wouldn't have cared if they dropped dead right in front of him but if the way that Alistair and Morrigan wouldn't stop bickering at each other was any indication, neither of them had had any experience working with those they didn't like. Alistair in particular kept attempting to make friends with him and was now in the middle of asking him about their companions.

"Morrigan. Do you trust her? Think about it... maybe Flemeth sent her with us for some other reason than she said," Alistair said suspiciously.

Reidin valiantly resisted the urge to roll his eyes. "You really don't like her much, do you?" he asked rhetorically.

Alistair clearly didn't understand what a rhetorical question was or else just really, really wanted to complain about Morrigan as he took that as an indication to elaborate. "Well aside from the fact that she's a complete and utter bitch, no...I don't like her at all. Why? Do you?"

"Morrigan and I are involved, yes," Reidin replied, waiting for a half-hearted apology for calling his girlfriend a bitch or at the very least a quick subject change. It didn't come.

Alistair actually snorted at that. "Oh, well…you're funeral."

"Excuse me?" Reidin asked frostily.

Alistair looked surprised at the sudden hostility. "What?"

"Alistair, why did you start this conversation with me?" Reidin asked pointedly.

Alistair shrugged. "I was just trying to get to know you better, I guess. We haven't really talked much and we're going to be spending a lot of time together trying to stop the Bight and bring down Teyrn Loghain."

"Right, so your purpose in this was not, in fact, to insult me," Reidin said slowly, waiting for him to catch on.

Alistair, for his part, looked horrified. "Maker, no! I never intended to…how did I insult you?"

"You attempted to bond with me by calling my girlfriend a bitch," Reidin reminded him.

"I didn't know you were together," Alistair tried to defend himself.

"And now you do. Try again," Reidin said flatly.

"You asked me about it!" Alistair exclaimed.

"Wrong, I asked a rhetorical question. Even if you didn't recognize it as such, an appropriate and completely non-offensive answer would have been something along the lines of 'No kidding' or 'What makes you think that?'," Reidin replied sternly.

"Well, maybe calling her a bitch – even if she totally is one – wasn't very nice," Alistair conceded. "But come on! I called her that once and she calls me a fool pretty much every time we ever talk."

"Calling someone a bitch is a bit more offensive than calling them a fool," Reidin countered. "At least it is where I come from. And even if you do feel that she's a bitch then there is still no reason to go telling me, who you now realize is her boyfriend, all about it."

"Would you rather I lied to you?" Alistair demanded.

Reidin closed his eyes. "Let us suppose for the sake of argument that I thought that you had the stupidest haircut I've ever seen-"

"Hey!" Alistair interrupted. "What's wrong with my hair?"

"This isn't about your hair, Alistair," Reidin said impatiently. "This is about a hypothetical situation. Would you consider it lying if I didn't tell you how stupid your hair was? It would be lying if I gushed about how amazing it was but all I would be doing was keeping silent on the matter of your hypothetically-stupid haircut."

"Well, no," Alistair admitted. "I wouldn't call that lying."

"I'm not asking you to tell me how wonderful Morrigan is, just don't tell me that she's a bitch," Reidin requested.

"You never say anything when she calls me a fool," Alistair pointed out.

"Well, you're usually there to tell her that yourself and I don't need to get involved with your arguments," Reidin explained.

" 'Usually'?" Alistair challenged.

"We don't talk about you very often when you're not there because, frankly, we have better things to do but when we do then no, I don't tell her to stop," Reidin conceded.

"Then why are you getting mad at me for calling Morrigan a bitch? And would you care if I called her that to her face?" Alistair inquired.

"I'm getting upset because 'bitch' is more insulting than 'fool', as I've already said, and because I like her more than you," Reidin informed him. "And I still wouldn't be pleased to hear you call her that if she were here but if she were then she'd be perfectly able to defend herself and probably just laugh at me if I said something to you about it."

Alistair frowned at the mention of someone liking Morrigan more than him. "It just seems like kind of a double standard if you never say anything to her when she starts calling me a fool when I'm not there and yet I'm not allowed to call her anything or else you make a big deal about it."

"You may be right, Alistair, but it doesn't really matter," Reidin told him seriously. "This isn't a trial, no one's getting punished, this isn't anything official or me trying to be fair. This is about me feeling that you trying to bond with me by calling my girlfriend a bitch is a really bad idea. This is about me asking you not to do so again when Morrigan isn't here. This is about how you can do whatever you want, of course, but if you really care at all about trying to forge some sort of friendship then I would highly recommend not insulting her to my face."

With that, Reidin walked away and left Alistair to try and make a decision on the matter.

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