SPOILERS FOR DA:I
YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.
This actually takes place before DAI or just at the beginning, when the Wardens disappear from Southern Thedas. This is a little bit prior to the Warden Queen cutting off contact with Leliana and leaving Denerim.
I really hated that disappearance when it entered the world lore, because I didn't think Elan would ever willingly abandon her much-adored husband, but a certain Codex entry in DAI put it into perspective, and suddenly I find it exactly right for Elan's character, even though it still killsme to think of her leaving Alistair behind. (And certainly explains his current mood-as if the mages weren't enough to do that-don't you agree?)
In fact, I have some head-canon thoughts on implications that may or may not play out as I learn more about DAI and subsequent word lore…
And, suddenly, she saw it. She realized… he wasn't hearing it. At least not as loudly, not as mournfully, not as as insistently as she was. And she was both profoundly relieved and deeply destroyed, because she knew she could not, would not ever ask him-or even want him-to accompany her toward any death that was less than inevitable. Her death, she had accepted, even for a time welcomed, long ago.
She welcomed it no longer, but she accepted it still, and didn't fear it. She would go to meet it with satisfaction, with contentment, with certainty, knowing that she had done all that had been given to her to do.
Her only regrets would be those she left behind-her brother who had lost so much, her friends and companions of the Blight, the second and profound family of her heart… and him.
Alistair.
Most of all Alistair.
Always and forever and always Alistair.
She would regret his company, his love, his support for herself… but what would hurt her the most, cut her the deepest, linger even beyond the deathblow itself and into whatever eternity her cursed-and-blessed soul might possess… was what she feared her death would do to him… and now… after so much time… after hope… it was perhaps even more cruel than if she had simply died with the Archdemon as a good Grey Warden ought.
But… even knowing that she had survived, that she had succeeded, could she wish that choice unmade, knowing how unlikely success had been and how desperately she had needed to believe someone, anyone, would have some chance if hers came to naught?
As Riordan's actually had.
If she hadn't had that hope… would she have found the strength she needed to soldier on?
If she told Alistair any of this… if she mentioned it at all… there would be nothing to ask. He would go with her. And she… Maker, so much… wanted him by her side with all the profound warmth and longing she'd felt ever since she first set eyes on his face.
But while her own death had not frightened her since before they had even met, she had never been able to face the thought of his. If he did not have to die… she wanted, more than anything in this life or the next, she wanted to be able to go to her death knowing he would live…
Elan gave a dry little cough of laughter. Funny how 10 years melted away and left her standing in the exact same place.
She already regretted knowing Alistair would understand but do his best to deny that did, that he would blame her, and blame himself… Yes, that killed her more surely and more repeatedly than any sword, and it was not, and never could be, any mercy.
She wished she dared to simply ignore the problem and endure. Just say nothing and stay.
But while the voice remained separate, compelling and compulsive in an eerie, but blessedly unwelcome, unfathomable way, she desperately feared the day was coming when the unfathomable would become fathomable.
If that day came-no, to be honest with herself, when- that day came, would there be enough of her left to recognize the man she lived with, lived for, loved?
She didn't know. And she couldn't- wouldn't- take the risk that the answer might be no.
Not with his life.
And, really, even if that weren't in question… the innocent people of Denerim hardly deserved to be put at risk by the Queen they not only respected, but trusted.
Which was also a fair point-Alistair would go with her in a heartbeat, but he would do it knowing he was failing a country which-in spite of his diffidence about rule-he loved with as much passionate commitment as he loved his wife. A country that needed him now as much or more than it had needed him when she had helped-to her own continued bemusement as well as his-to put him on the throne in the Landsmeet. Another deep cut.
It seemed her heart was doomed to die the death of a thousand cuts.
Fitting, as Zev might perhaps say, for an Assassin.
There was a sort of symmetrical poetry of fatalism and fate that almost appealed to her in the bleak beauty of the moment.
And… she had died before…
...and lived.
Leliana and Wynne had passed her tales in recent years that were… intriguing, to say the least. Fiona, the Grand Enchanter, had been a Grey Warden… once.
And she had been… dismissed… from the Order…
because she no longer bore the taint.
She had, somehow, been cured.
If it had happened once… perhaps… it might… happen again?
Surely, though things could, and all too often did, happen without a purpose, they never happened without a cause?
And if a cause existed, then it could be found. And if it could be found…
Oh, yes, there it was.
Hope.
And where there was hope…
Hope was exactly all they'd had when she'd first realized she and Alistair had to kill the archdemon. Somehow.
They'd had no idea how they were going to accomplish that, but they had.
So… she was going to fix this.
Somehow.
She was.
Beyond that… Leli and Wynne's letters had made mention of tales of Morrigan's son as well. By all accounts, a quiet, self-contained, well-mannered boy of whom Morrigan was quietly, dotingly, proud. The thought made Elan smile even as it made her eyes burn. She still longed to meet that little boy, for the sake of his mother as much as that of his father, and she didn't at all understand why she shouldn't. But, that still-born ambition aside, his very existence did make her wonder.
She wondered-still, years after Amarathine-whether or not her choice had somehow done something to cause the appearance of strange darkspawn and the apparent acceleration in the Warden taint. If it had… then finding a solution might well not only be a fulfilment of personal desires, but a duty-to put right what she had inadvertently put wrong to begin with.
To be fair to herself, even if she had started this-whatever it was-well… the archdemon was the immediate threat at the time. While the current situation was troublesome, it would hardly do to have avoided it only to die in the face of the Blight. With the threat of the Blight at bay, she could fix this.
And she would fix this.
Somehow.
She would.
And if one Warden (her own darling Alistair) had had a child with the taint… neutralized… then perhaps another could, as well.
To go from certain death to the fulfilment of a much-lamented dream shared with her husband and the fulfilment of the one duty she feared she would never adequately meet as Queen…
yes, that might be worth a separation.
She didn't want to leave. She hated it.
But it was necessary.
She prayed Alistair would accept that, forgive her, forgive himself, find some measure of uneasy tranquility (as she had!), and welcome her home with open arms when she returned. She had to believe that he would, because whether he did or not, the truth remained the same.
It wasnecessary.
For a time. Only for a time...