Alistair was beginning to hate temples.
He'd felt intense unease about this one from the moment he'd stepped inside. That they had just tiptoed their way around a high dragon should have mitigated his discomfort, but it did not. He'd started to feel a cold finger of indeterminate dread snaking its way into his gut when they'd first met the Guardian. The knight had a cold, penetrating stare that cut them to the quick as he gripped the threads of their deepest-held guilts and mercilessly yanked.
At first, she had seemed unmoved by his almost accusatory inquiry about her parents. Her eyes had glinted like veridium and her face did not so much as twitch. Her incredible fortitude had always awed Alistair, the way she never seemed to balk at any difficulty this war had thrown at her. It was a fortitude he knew he distinctly lacked.
Yet, despite her impenetrable face, when she opened her mouth to answer, her voice faltered even as her lips formed the words. When she found it again, her first word was an almost inaudible, "Yes." Her next were stronger, but still fragile, carried on the shaking winds of a steadying breath. "I should have defended them to the death."
In the next moment, that vulnerability was gone as though it had never been, and Alistair wondered if he had imagined it.
He himself was not much bothered by the Guardian's question to him. In truth, it was was not much of a question; less of a secret, hidden guilt than an already accepted statement of truth. Of course he thought things would be better if Duncan had survived in place of him. He had been drowning in his own guilt since the day he'd lost his mentor. It would be quite the feat if some shade in an old ruin could make him feel worse about it than he already did. In truth, he felt a greater wave of guilt when the Guardian put a voice to the unworthy thoughts he'd had about Leliana and her vision. It grew when he saw the fear those accusations brought to her face.
The Guardian seemed to find whatever it was he was seeking in their answers, and wished them luck as he opened the way. Alistair tried to quash his lingering agitation as they made their way forward into the temple.
If Olivia felt the same unease, she did not show it. She strode ahead with her back straight, head set forward, as utterly without fear as she ever had been. The next room contained two lines of silent shades, their intense gazes set on her. Alistair found them creepy, while Wynne and Leliana seemed to be having some sort of religious moment. Olivia did not so much as flinch, walking up to the nearest shade and engaging it before anyone could argue with her. The first shade posed a simple riddle. When Olivia gave the incorrect answer, it exploded into a looming ash wraith with a hideous shriek. She cut it down without so much as flinching, did not even seem surprised. After the first failure, they were not bothered again. She answered each riddle without more than a moment for thought, moving toward the door at the end of the room with unyielding purpose. Alistair could only watch her in admiration.
She was ironbark, sturdy and unyielding, while simultaneously rare and precious. She had always seemed to be somehow taller and grander than every person who stood around her. A battle maiden who could be felled by neither man nor darkspawn. Long ago he had accepted it as simple fact that Olivia Cousland was utterly unmatched in wit, war and willpower. She moved through the world like a hurricane. Her fearlessness was the altar at which Alistair had always laid his own failings. When he faltered in the face of duty, she pressed on without a glance backward, carrying him not behind her, but beside her, like an equal. Yet it was quite obvious to him and the rest of the world that he could never hope to match her glory – which was fine with him. He would be happy to spend the rest of his life in her shadow, if he could be occasionally graced with that toothy smile she reserved for him.
It had never even occurred to Alistair that he had never seen her cry. Not until now, anyway.
As soon as she had stormed her way through the next door, she stopped dead in her tracks. At the end of the hall stood the figure of a man, his hair graying and his clothes fine. Alistair did not have to see her face to guess that it was her father. The father she had left to die at Arl Howe's hands.
Her face was slack in fear, eyes wide like a terrified rabbit staring down a predator. She moved forward like a woman possessed, slow, steps faltering, her eyes never moving from the image of her father.
As they reached him, he turned, and Alistair could not help the surprise he felt at how… plain he seemed. He had pictured the father of this fearless warrior to be some great giant in gilded armor, staring down his foes with eyes like steel. But his eyes were soft. Kind. His face was worn and lined by years of laughter. His voice was soft as he greeted her. "My dearest child."
She was shaking so hard that Alistair could see it from where he stood behind her. Her own voice was little more than a wavering whisper as she reached for him with a trembling hand. "Father?"
Bryce Cousland's shade gave them a sad smile, and when he spoke again, his voice was heavy with sorrow. "You know that I am gone, and all your prayers and wishes will not bring me back. No more must you grieve, my girl. Take the pain and the guilt, acknowledge it and let go. It is time." He reached up as though to take her hand in his own, but it passed through, and she drew back as though bitten. "You have such a long road ahead of you, and you must be prepared. And so I leave this in your hands… I know you will do great things with it."
His hand stretched out to hers, a gleaming pendant nestled carefully in his palm. As soon as it fell into hers, he snapped out of existence like the snuffing of a candle, leaving cold, empty air where he had stood.
For a long while, there was only was silence. She stood there, staring at her hand, still as a statue. Leliana and Wynne exchanged worried glances. Alistair could only watch her with a furrowed brow, unsure what to say, unable to read her thoughts.
And then her shoulders began to heave, her breath coming out in choked gasps. She fell to her knees in front of the spot where her father had stood, clutching the pendant to her chest with white knuckles. With an agonized wail into the echoing chamber around her, she fell forward to slam her fists against the flagstones.
Realization hit Alistair in a sickening wave of nausea. She had joined the Grey Wardens on the backs of her parents' murder, and yet in all the time he had known her he had not seen her cry about it even once. Had rarely even heard her speak of it, and even when she had, she had spoken more of the vengeance she would wreak on Howe for what he had done.
She had never allowed herself the time to mourn.
His nausea only deepened as he thought back on every time she'd ever comforted him over the loss of Duncan. On the way she would seek him out and ask him if he needed to talk. He had leaned so heavily on her, assuming that she was strong enough to bear his burdens. She had taken on the burdens of everyone she had met, of the whole damn world. And she had been stepping over her family's bodies to do so. She hadn't looked back because she was afraid to see the trail of blood she was leaving behind. She was dragging corpses behind her as she trudged ever forward, with no one to help her to carry them.
Alistair dropped to his knees in front of her, King Maric's sword skittering across the flagstones as he pitched it from his hand. With urgent arms he pulled her to his chest, clumsy gauntlets catching on her armor as he wrapped his arms around her. Her gloved fingers scratched helplessly against his breastplate in a desperate search for purchase, grasping at him as she leaned her forehead against his chest and sobbed. Wynne's voice in the distance said something about searching for artifacts back in the previous room, and she and Leliana retreated.
He didn't know how long they remained embraced on the stone floor. They didn't speak, and he knew there was no point. So he simply held her as tight as he could manage through their cumbersome armor, his lips pressed to the top of her head, stroking her long black braid in a steady rhythm. At some point, she had laced her arms around his neck and was holding onto him as though she would drown if she let go.
She was ironbark, but a tree that did not bend in a hurricane was only left with the option to snap.
She had navigated the Fade entirely on her own so that she could avoid killing innocent mages in the Circle Tower. Had dragged them from Redcliffe to Kinloch Hold to do so because she refused to murder a young boy. She didn't even blink when an ancient Dalish Keeper had begged her to murder a pack of werewolves for his own personal vendetta. Had instead insisted upon brokering peace between the two despite the headache it had caused her to do so. Every step she took, she seemed to take for the sake of others. She was always searching for a way to help as many people as she could on this arduous journey they had undertaken together. She was a spirit of compassion, and had never seemed to need anything in return.
He felt like such a fool for not seeing so much earlier the toll that her selflessness had been taking on her.
When her cries subsided and her breathing began to even out, she looked up to meet his gaze. Her eyes were glassy and sunken, her face ruddy and tracked with tears. She was beautiful.
He brought his hands up to cup her face, swiping at her tears with gentle thumbs, and offered her a warm smile. "Better?"
She gave a weak huff of air in response that may have been a laugh. Leaned forward to hide her face under his chin. "I'm sorry." Her voice sounded small and far away.
A witty retort was bubbling up in his throat, but Alistair clamped down on his tongue to stifle it. Instead he tilted her face up towards him so he could press a kiss to a wet spot below her eye. "No need," he murmured.
When he caught sight of a wobbling smile creeping at the edges of her lips, he grasped her elbows and pulled them both to their feet. He tucked a stray lock of black hair behind her ear and stepped back from her. He could see her square her shoulders and regulate her breathing, fastening her mask back into place. And yet, it seemed somehow more askew than it had before. As Alistair bent to scoop up his mistreated sword, his eyes caught on the amulet that lay discarded on the flagstones. It was glinting in a stray beam of light, as though giving him a knowing wink. He gingerly handed it back to her, ignoring the pull he felt towards the thing. As she accepted it, she stared down at it with an odd smile on her face, as though finding some sort of comfort in the strange necklace. With careful hands, she looped it around her neck and tucked it down into her armor.
When she looked back up at him, her eyes held a new brightness to them. She reached a hand up to touch his jaw with gentle fingers and said, so quiet he almost could not hear, "Thank you." And then the ghost of her hand was gone, and she was turning her head towards the room that their friends had retreated into. "I'm going to go find Wynne and Leliana, and we will finish this damned Gauntlet."
Alistair watched her retreating back with a vacant smile, thinking that surely she was the most magnificent woman in all Thedas.