Sereda perches on the edge of the bed, her fingers drumming on the blankets. Rebuilding the Wardens is taking all of her considerable charm and skill, as well as every useful contact she made gathering an army, and since she was last in Denerim she's scarcely had time to breathe, let alone stop and think.
Perhaps she doesn't want to have time to stop and think.
She hears footsteps in the corridor and he slips inside. She rushes over to place her hands on his shoulders, and he knows the cue to lift her up to face him as he has so many times before. He's wearing fine linen clothing, not the coarse shirt and breeches she remembers, and there's barely a day's worth of stubble on his cheeks, but he is still the man she loves.
She brushes his lips with hers, then kisses him, awakening the memories of all the moments she has tried to so hard not to remember these past six months. Their first, tentative kiss, Alistair shy and sweet and kneeling in front of her, blushing pink and grinning from ear to ear. Stolen hours in the forest, losing herself in Alistair's embrace to forget the weight of the world on her shoulders. Passionate kisses in her tent, as Alistair followed her lead. The tearful kisses she pressed to his forehead, as they held each other in the cold light of the last dawn they might ever see.
And the entirely proper kiss he pressed to her hand the last time she saw him, as she congratulated him on his marriage.
He walks her over to the bed, sitting down with her nestled on his lap, and she realises that this kiss isn't like any of the others, because Alistair isn't kissing her back.
She pulls away to look at him, and she knows him too well for him to hide that there's something wrong.
"I don't know if I can do this," he says, quietly.
He bites his lip and looks away, and suddenly she can't even look at him, scrambling off his lap to stand staring into the fire.
"Why?" she asks.
"It's not fair. To you. You deserve better."
"I don't remember when I put you in charge of deciding what I deserve." She can't keep the bitterness out of her voice. She knew from the day he confessed to her outside Redcliffe that duty would come between them, that kings and princesses don't get what they deserve. She'd tried to make Alistair see it, to harden him against the inevitable, even as she wanted to shelter him from the world.
"I know this isn't what you wanted. It isn't what I wanted." She turns back and gestures helplessly. "But this is the best we get."
He looks more anguished than before. "It's not just about us any more. She knows I'm here, you know. I can't exactly sneak out of our bedroom without her seeing, can I?"
"No, you were never very stealthy." She can't believe she's joking about this, and sighs. "Of course she knows, Alistair." She and Eamon had chosen his bride, the daughter of a minor bann who would cement their alliances in the landsmeet and have a dozen fat royal children. Eamon had carefully picked a woman who would never threaten his position, but surely she wasn't stupid enough to believe that this was any more than a political match, or that the king wouldn't have a mistress. "Is she going to cause trouble?"
"What? No! No, she hasn't said a word. She wouldn't. I just - I can't do this to her." He is blinking away tears. It hits her, a sudden realisation like a blow to the chest. He can't do this to her, not like Gorim, not again.
"You love her."
"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to, but she's - you'd like her, Sereda, she's so sweet, and funny." She wouldn't like her, she's sure, and Alistair is smiling the goofy, lovesick smile she hasn't seen for far too long. "I tried but Maker's breath, she's my wife, what was I supposed to do?"
You weren't supposed to fall in love with her, you idiot. That wasn't in the plan. Sereda hates her, this pretty girl who won't ever have to choose between duty and love. Why wouldn't Alistair fall in love with her? She is free to be sweet and funny, to wear pretty dresses and have servants fix her hair. She won't ever have to kill a child in front of him, or cry into his shoulder when the grief and loneliness are too much. She'll never make him promise to be with her, at the end, to kill her before the darkspawn can take her.
Maybe a bright, shining queen is who he deserves.
"I'm sorry. I'm so sorry, my love." She pushes him back onto the bed, straddling him to kiss him, and he understands. His hands are warm and slow and gentle, tracing every inch of her curves, committing them to memory. He knows every inch of her, how to touch her, how to please her, how to leave her gasping and twisting and pressing against him. She scrapes her nails across the broad shoulders, wanting him to remember this, to remember her, to go back to his bride with her marks still fresh on him. He is crying, his tears falling on her hair as he tells her over and over that he loves her, that he always will, that he's so sorry, and she lets herself cry with him as he thrusts, harder, and she can't see anything but him, all of him hers for one last time.
There's no need to talk, afterwards. There's no more to be said, and though she sees him pause, silently, at the door, it's only for a second before he squares his shoulders and is gone.
A/N: Originally written for the anon meme. Prompt: Mistress PC/King Alistair - the king falls in love with his new queen and calls it off.