It felt like they were fighting the entire darkspawn horde. Outnumbered 5-to-1, the little group was doing its best to not falter. The odds were definitely against them. Someone was very likely to get hurt.
Alistair would have been fine if it were Zevran. There's not a lot of love between the templar and the assassin. But, as it turns out, it wasn't Zevran. It was Lyna that was injured.
He saw it happen. He glanced over to check on her, as he noticed to be doing since recently. The elf took a sword pommel to the temple, and she dropped like a fly. Alistair's heart sank onto the blood-soaked ground. He had to keep fighting, though, and fight he did.
Decapitation always seemed unnecessarily messy to the warrior. But if it were to save precious time, he would do it. He would sooner bathe in darkspawn blood than let Lyna die from lack of care. He fought like a demon straight from the Void. Felling darkspawn at alarming rates, he slashed his way through the group of them that had hurt the other Warden.
Needless to say, heads rolled.
She hadn't awoken by the time the fighting was over, completed by Wynne's staff.
Alistair ran over to her limp body, completely forgetting his sword and shield where he dropped them. They would have slowed him down.
At some point, he called for the healing mage. Wynne also began to run over, abandoning Zevran's swollen-shut eye and bloody gash above his mouth.
Zevran strolled over, not knowing the situation.
Lyna was laying in a pool of her own blood, along with that of the felled darkspawn. Alistair was shaking with badly-supressed sobs as Wynne tried her hardest to heal the frail-looing Dalish.
"The rest of the healing is up to her, Alistair." She placed a comforting hand on his shoulder, "If she has the will, she'll fight. I'll leave you." She turned and beckoned Zevran to join her away from the other two.
Alistair was near hysterics. "Oh, Maker..." he whispered into Lyna's auburn hair, "please don't leave me yet. I need you..."
He sobbed quietly, his stomach tight and his head starting to ache. "I need you, Lyna," he whispered, his hoarse voice cracking because of the lump in his throat. "I love you."
The other Warden, was, as far as he knew, gone. Never again would he pretend to be offended by her snarky comments on his upbringing. Nor would he see her ears twitch when she was irked at him cracking jokes instead of giving straight answers. She would never hear him confessing his adoration, as he had been longing to do for weeks now, he just could never find the words.
Her slack grip on his hand tightened.
"A-Ali...?" Lyna croaked, her normally cocky voice hoarse from the yelling she always does when she's not sneaking across the battlefield.
Alistair looked up at the elf in pure shock. "You...you were dead."
"Dying," she corrected. As she began to sit up, he put a supportive hand on the small of her back. "You know I could never leave you and Zevran alone together, you'd kill ea-"
He kissed her. Gently, timidly, and he was trying so hard to keep what little composure he had left. He lingered there, savoring the feeling of her being alive until his heart started to beat at a normal pace again.
"For the love of the Maker, Lyna..." he whispered, his forehead resting against hers, "Please don't ever leave me. I don't think I could handle it." He looked at the elf with scared, wide eyes.
She bit her bloodied lip and buried her face into the taller man's shoulder.
"Never."