Promise Not Made
by c_saber / Universitas

Take Morrigan's sneer, a Grand Cleric's high horse, and a dragon-sized stick up the arse, and lo and behold, there was Knight-Commander Meredith. Meredith. Even her name had its nose in the air. The woman seemed to regard Alistair as little more than a child playing in the mud. Well, twenty years ago that might've been true, but still.

Alistair took the loud creaking of the doors of Viscount's Keep as an opportunity to turn his attention away from the woman's criticism—which seemed to have no end. All about the entrance hall, heads turned to the silver-armored man making his entrance. "Champion" was the word on everyone's lips. Just the person he came to see: the Fereldan refugee who rose from poverty to nobility and more, Alexander Hawke, the Champion of Kirkwall. Scion of the Amell family, too, Alistair noted, and somehow that bit mattered just a little more than the Champion deal.

Not hard to see why.

Meredith offered a last insult—in one ear and out the other—and walked off. Alistair allowed himself a very small sigh of relief. "That was… awkward."

"Awkward conversations." Alistair turned to the approaching Champion, who wore an easy smile on his face. "One of the Knight-Commander's many gifts. She's also great at underwater basket weaving while simultaneously whipping a poor apprentice."

Alistair had to laugh at that image. "I'd pay to see that." Remembering formalities, he held out his hand. The strength of Hawke's grip surprised him. "Err… right. I'm Alistair, King of Ferelden." He gestured behind him. "This is one of my advisors, my uncle Teagan. Well, he's sort of my uncle."

"Only sort of," Teagan said.

"Alexander Hawke." The black-haired man pointed a thumb over his shoulder to a dwarf who apparently liked showing off his abundance of chest hair and a white-haired elf with markings all over his skin. "Also, my partners-in-crime Varric Tethras, and Fenris."

And the conversation proceeded: warnings about threats to the city, talk of the burning tensions between mages and templars. The whole time, one fact gnawed at the back of Alistair's head. This man is his family. And that memory from all those years ago became clear as day.

It was seven years ago, just days before the Landsmeet that placed Alistair on Ferelden's throne, in the library of Arl Eamon's Denerim estate. As always, it was the four of them: Alistair, Leliana, Wynne, and him. Gaius Amell. Gaius, always the silent book lover, had found a nice corner of the library for him to peruse a book on whatever he had found interesting. And Leliana, always the… well, Gaius lover, was right by him. Wynne was out of sight browsing another shelf. Alistair, meanwhile, was trying to find all the books he remembered from his childhood.

He flicked a glance at Gaius. The mage, clad in blue Tevinter-style robes, pointed out a particular passage from his book to Leliana. "Wasn't this the legend you told me about that one night at camp?"

Leliana leaned in closer. After a few seconds, she said, "It is. I think this version left out a few details."

"Important details. This one doesn't have quite the… impact yours does."

Leliana chuckled. "I'm glad you think so."

Gaius had never seemed so, well, happy before. The mage had told Alistair all about his thirteen years in the Circle of Magi, how he hated the ruthless competition between him and his fellow apprentices, the constant presence of the templars, the very fact that his life with his family in Highever had been stolen from him. And when Alistair first met Gaius, the mage acted very coldly, even arrogantly as a result of his experiences. Joining the Grey Wardens and gathering an army had changed him. "You're the first real friend I've ever had," Gaius had told him when he gave Alistair his mother's amulet.

"Gaius." The three of them turned towards Wynne, who had emerged from behind a shelf with a thick open tome in her hands. "I've found something I think you might want to see."

Gaius narrowed his ice blue eyes, as he always did when he got curious. "What is it?"

Wynne traced a finger on the page. "This is a book on the city of Kirkwall, in the Free Marches. There's a chapter that details several noble families who lived in the city. And one of those families is the Amell family."

"What?" Gaius set his book aside and stepped over to Wynne's side. "That can't be my family. My father, William Amell… he was only—" He stopped dead and looked up at Alistair and Leliana. "This is… my father's crest."

Silence lingered in the room for several moments, until Alistair broke it by folding his arms, cracking his normal smile, and saying, "So, I guess I'm not the only one of high birth here. That's comforting."

Gaius straightened his posture and cast his gaze at the floor. "I'm Kirkwall nobility. But that doesn't explain why my father was only a blacksmith in Highever."

"Things often happen between family members," Leliana said. "Perhaps your father had a falling out with the rest of his family."

"None of this makes sense." The mage took a step towards the door. "I need time to think on this."

If mages like Wynne had received that news, they would've shrugged it off, passed it off as another relic from an old life that wasn't theirs anymore.

But Gaius was different.

Very different, Alistair thought, his gaze flicking to the Amell crest hanging on the belt of Hawke's elf companion—Fenris, that was the name. "Well, then," he said, "I guess that takes care of that issue. But there's one more thing I'd like to ask of you, Champion."

"Of course."

Alistair scratched the back of his head; this is where it got awkward. "Well, you see…"

The night after the Landsmeet, Alistair found Gaius staring out one of the windows of Eamon's estate. For a while, he was worried that Gaius had taken Alistair's frustration over being made king personally. The mage had a habit of doing so.

Instead, Gaius said, "I want to go to Kirkwall some day."

"Random thing to bring up, with the Landsmeet just past, Loghain dead, and the big battle against the Blight coming up and all."

"It's not that random." Gaius folded his hands behind his back. "I was planning what exactly I'd be doing after the Blight was defeated—if we win. I'd rather not just sit around in a Grey Warden outpost waiting for darkspawn." A small breath. "Instead I want to see my family."

Alistair nodded. Long story short, Gaius' parents died during the course of gathering the army in a story both of them agreed never to talk about again.

"And…" Gaius turned his gaze to Alistair. "I'd like for you and Leliana to come with me."

He replied with a grin. "Why not? It'd be a nice break from my future kingly duties. And I can't imagine Leliana refusing for the all the fancy shoes in Orlais."

But, as any history text would say, Gaius never got to see Kirkwall. He probably realized that that dream wasn't happening when he saw Riordan fail to slay the archdemon, and the task of killing it—and dying in the process—fell to him or Alistair.

"You're not dying, Alistair. You're going to be king. Ferelden won't need me after the Blight, but it will need you."

That dream died when he wrenched a blade free from a darkspawn corpse and ran it through the tainted dragon's neck. Meanwhile, Alistair could only watch from behind the magical bindings Gaius had placed on him.

"Goodbye. Thank you for everything."

So, seven years later, it fell to Alistair to fulfill that dream, to keep a promise that had never really been made in the first place. He felt rather strange, relating such a personal thing to Hawke, someone he had met only ten minutes ago. Then again, Alistair had only told Hawke the barest minimum of the details. And, from personal experience, big heroes had a way of making people open up to them.

Hawke responded to Alistair's quick retelling with a nod. "Well, I'm certainly moving up in the world." He flashed a grin to Varric and Fenris. "I'll be entertaining the King of Ferelden in the estate."

"Next up the Empress of Orlais will be at your door for a cup of tea," Varric said.

Barest minimum indeed; Alistair guessed they didn't quite see the importance of the visit to him. The "cut that out" look Hawke gave Varric a moment later possibly proved him wrong, however.

The walk to the Hawke Estate was somehow shorter than Alistair expected. Fenris and Varric broke off from the small group to pursue their own things—and to give Hawke and Alistair some privacy. Similarly, Teagan remained at the estate's door. Alistair took a breath and stepped inside the building that Gaius Amell, in another life, might have called home.

"Here we are," Hawke said. "I'll be with you in a few minutes. Need to change out of this armor." The man proceeded up the stairs and into a hallway, leaving Alistair in the living room.

The estate, while large and clean and well furnished, lacked the… frilliness of other noble residences. Testament to its mostly Fereldan occupants, Alistair supposed. Gaius would've liked it. And Gaius would've liked it even more, Alistair realized, when he heard a very familiar voice call "King Alistair?"

"Bodahn Feddic? What are you doing here?" He looked past the dwarf to another familiar face. "And Sandal?"

"Hello," Sandal said, offering him a clumsy wave.

"Serving the Hawke family." Bodahn chuckled. "We've picked up a bit of a taste for helping out big heroes. First with our old friend the Hero of Ferelden, now the Champion of Kirkwall."

"He had a name, you know," Alistair said, still smiling.

Bodahn nodded. "Gaius Amell. I think he's the Champion's cousin, or something along those lines. Not too much family resemblance, though."

A bark from behind drew Alistair's attention to… a mabari. "Well, great." The hound greeted him with a happy bark that reminded him too much of Gaius' own mabari, William. "I guess that they both have mabari is one thing tying them together."

"Mabari like their Amells. Tyrion here, though, doesn't have old William's mean streak. Hasn't chased Sandal even once."

"I like the doggy," Sandal said.

"So do I." Alistair glanced up the stairs at Hawke, now dressed in nice yet simple noble's garb with the Amell crest on his shirt. "After you get past Tyrion's constant slobbering. Do you need anything, your Majesty?"

"Not right now. Just a question." After a moment, he glanced to Tyrion, Bodahn, and Sandal. "In private."

Hawke stepped down the stairs, gesturing to a door to the side. "The study's quiet enough."

The study had books. Lots of books. Gaius really would've liked the place. Alistair could imagine him marching up to the shelves and losing himself in the volumes.

"You said you had questions?" Hawke asked.

"Yes." About Gaius' father… what was his name? It had been eight years since anyone ever mentioned it… "William." Of course. Gaius had named his dog after him. "William Amell, did you ever hear about him?"

Hawke lowered his gaze for a moment. "Mother mentioned him once. One of her cousins, had a falling out with the rest of the Amells due to… what was it… some scandal that cost the family a great deal of money."

"Then he moved to Highever, became a blacksmith, married a Tevinter woman, and had a child who turned out to be a mage, a Grey Warden, and the Hero of Ferelden. Twenty-two years condensed into a half a sentence."

"Twenty two?" Hawke raised an eyebrow. "He was younger than me."

"He didn't act like it." Sometimes he showed maturity far beyond his years. Other times, he seemed little more than a closed-minded and stubborn child.

Closed-minded and stubborn child. Alistair could almost hear Gaius say, "Closed-minded and stubborn? Says the one who didn't want to be king." He smiled to himself. They were closed-minded in their own ways, he supposed, and it took the other to point it out. Gaius initially knew nothing of mercy; a product of his years in the Circle. If Alistair and Leliana hadn't said anything of it, quite a few people would've been dead. Alistair, meanwhile hated responsibilities, especially leadership. He had almost forgotten that one night…

Alistair confronted the mage about how he killed Connor, Arl Eamon's son, to save Redcliffe. He did not expect Gaius to react the way he did.

"You're questioning me," Gaius said, his voice low, his gaze focused on the campfire.

"You're damn right I am."

Icy blue eyes snapped towards him. "You're questioning me." The words came out a growl. "You're questioning me. You, who forced me to lead an entire war effort." Each word brought Gaius' voice closer to a full-on yell. "You should be leading. You're the senior Grey Warden. I was only a fresh recruit." Frost gathered at his fingertips as the rage became more and more evident in his face.

"Do you really think we'd be doing this well if I was leader?" Alistair had gotten angry as well.

Leliana approached him from behind. "Gaius."

"Stay out of this." Gaius didn't even look at her. "How dare you." A finger enveloped in mist jabbed at Alistair face. "If you want me to lead, then never second-guess me ever again." With that, he turned and stalked off into the forest.

They didn't speak to each other a while afterwards, despite Leliana and Wynne's best attempts. Eventually, Gaius broke the silence with a gift—the amulet, a soft apology, and a confession: that Alistair was his first real friend.

And lo and behold, Gaius put him on Ferelden's throne. Maybe that was his revenge.

"Your Majesty?"

Hawke's voice drew Alistair out of his reverie. "Err… sorry. It's just… well," He took a look around the study. "I guess I should've suspected that Gaius was nobility. He certainly carried himself like one." His gaze returned to Hawke, a grin on his face. "For good and bad." He glanced towards the door. "One more thing before I go. Tell me if this is too much, but… there's a monument to Gaius back in Denerim. It would be nice if I could add something to mark him as a member of this family." A family gift, to return a favor.

At the top of Fort Drakon stood a gold statue of the Hero of Ferelden as he slew the archdemon. Alistair remembered his unease upon first seeing it; it was a recreation of his best friend's death, after all. But after thinking about it more, he found the choice of scene fitting. Gaius had gone from cold, selfish, and arrogant to sacrificing himself for a nation—and a friend, even though at the time, Alistair begged him to let him to the deed instead.

Alistair approached the statue. The smooth metal of his gift became more apparent under his fingers with each passing step. Finally, he laid the object at the base of the monument. He smiled at the sight; the Amell shield looked just as nice as a bouquet of flowers. He took a few steps back, admiring the view.

"I hope you like it," he said, then turned and left.

Gaius Amell had promised him much: that the three of them would travel to Kirkwall and beyond, that he would help him rule the kingdom. He had died before he could fulfill any of them, but at least Alistair could fulfill one of them for him.