dulce et decorum est (pro patria mori)
dim through the misty panes and thick green light,
as under a green sea, I saw him drowning
She can hear it screaming.
The archdemon howls inside her head but it's so loud it might as well be perched outside her bedroom window; she tosses and turns, presses her pillow tight over her ears. It's useless. She'll never be able to sleep like this.
And if she can't sleep, she knows where she'd prefer to be.
Rising, she belts a robe around her waist. (For a moment it reminds her of home, of the heavy velvet robe she used to wear to fend away the winter chill, and she wonders what happened to it - probably divvied out to one of Rendon Howe's whores, like all the other lovely things she once had. Well, she's no need of them now, in any case.) The corridor is quiet, her bare feet silent on the stones and she's almost to his room when-
"Warden."
Maker, how does she do that? When she whirls round at the noise Morrigan's behind her, leaning against a stone column with her arms folded across her chest, yellow eyes glowing in the near-dark.
"A word, if you please."
He wasn't sleeping either. She knew he wouldn't be.
Alistair opens the door just enough for her to slip inside and the moment the latch clicks behind her she wraps her arms around his neck; he pulls her in close, hands on her hips.
"I thought I heard you," he murmurs. "Was that Morrigan?"
"Yes."
"What did she want?"
She doesn't want to talk about it. He doesn't need to know. Instead, she raises herself up on tiptoes, presses her mouth to his. "Nothing. Come here."
(He's getting better, she thinks, at this- at leading instead of following, at taking what he wants instead of waiting for permission.
He'll be a good king.)
They can hear it screaming in earnest, now, as Riordan falls, and Morrigan's words echo over the Archdemon's howls.
Little fool, I'm trying to save you both. Don't you understand?
She understood. But the price-
No. This is how it has to be.
(It was just as Papa used to say: "The easy way isn't always right, and the right way isn't always easy. Do you understand what I mean, Pup?"
She thought she had. She hadn't, not really.)
"I love you," she tells him. He took a falling piece of stone to his shield arm and he's laying down in the medical tent as Wynne tends to him and he's so, so stubborn, already trying to sit up and reach for his blade with his unbroken hand; she pushes him back down, two fingers on his forehead. "Rest now."
"No!" He keeps trying to sit up. "We need to get up there. It's our only chance-"
"It'll keep," she says, and whistles. Dog comes padding into the tent and when she snaps her fingers he settles down with a soft whuff across Alistair's outstretched legs. "And he'll stay with you until that bone's set properly. Won't you, boy?"
Dog pants; she leans down to scratch behind his ears.
"This is an important job, puppy. You're guarding our king. Keep him safe."
"I'm never going to get used to hearing that." Alistair sighs. He stays down this time, at least. Good.
She smiles. He'll be a good king. "I love you," she says again, and leans down to kiss him one more time. "I'll be back soon."
(Did it sound convincing? She thinks it did.)
"I love you, too."
She wants to go back. She wants to go back but she can't, she can't, she can't-
This is why she survived. This is why she is still here when Mama and Papa and Oriana and Oren are dead and gone. This is why.
But oh, Maker, oh, for just one more night-
Up and up and up, around the winding staircase and along the parapets to where the dragon perches until her lungs burn and her legs cramp but she's got to keep going or Sten's going to barrel her over, coming up at her back and clearing three steps at a time. Leliana's just behind him, with Oghren half a flight down.
"We aren't going to wait?" Leliana nocks an arrow even as she asks. "For the rest of them?"
She points- it's trying to take flight, even with one wing tattered, and a pack of darkspawn range along the walls between them and it. "There isn't time. Just keep them off me until I can get in striking range."
The first arrow takes a Genlock clean through one eye as the rest of their blades ring free of sheaths and holding-rings.
It's dying. She can hear its death in its song; it would be beautiful if it didn't hurt her head so much
It's time.
She draws her blade back, a perfect line between its point and the Archdemon's heart.
"For King Alistair," she screams, her words louder than the monster in that moment. Can he hear her? "For Ferelden!"
Her sword sinks home.
He'll be a good king. He'll be-