Title: Cures for Life and Death
Summary: Their first evening in Lothering, the last remaining Grey Wardens of Ferelden have a chat.
Rating: G
Words: 3k
Notes: Originally posted July 2016. This is a quick, unedited thing inspired by some thoughts I've had on my Cousland Warden. Gen but you could read it shippy if you like. Also slightly AU; just pretend that they meet Leliana their second day in Lothering, not the first. Whoops!
After a few minutes of internal debate, Gemma decided on three bowls, reasoning that the extra portions may be saved should the others be disinclined to share the meal. A day of solving the townspeople's errands had provided them with coin to spend on housing and food, but they had only tackled the first on the list before the exhaustion of the journey had caught up with their limbs. Alistair retired to his room the moment they had arranged one at the shabby inn, mumbling something about a headache, at which Morrigan had rolled her eyes but said nothing.
When Gemma asked the witch what she had in mind for their own lodging tonight — a silent question of Will we be sharing a room, or is that too preposterous a notion to even voice aloud? — Morrigan had simply raised one dark brow and said, "Do what you will. I shall care for my own lodgings." To Gemma's private relief, she'd requested a second individual room, yes, right next to the young man's, and headed upstairs to unpack and unwind.
Which left her alone an hour later, stomach rumbling, wondering how poorly it would go over if she made an attempt to gather the three of them to sit down and dine together like reasonable adults, if those adults were tasked with the challenge of saving an entire country from a monstrous demonic army. She was a leader now, apparently, since her fellow Warden had all but melted into the ground at the thought of taking up the helm, and she still wasn't sure if she could trust Morrigan as far as she could see over the top of her tall head, which left it to her to make the hard decisions. Including what to have for dinner their first day back amongst civilization.
Gemma eventually found Morrigan leaning over a small fire in an alley at the edge of Lothering, long legs crossed at the ankles and picking at some meat that she guessed might have been a rabbit a few hours ago. Morrigan had provided the two of them with an evening meal the night before when they stopped to set camp a few hours after leaving her mother's hut; from her reserved answer, Gemma gathered that she had apparently befriended and then slaughtered a wolf at the northern edge of the Wilds as she and Alistair had set up camp. It had been comforting to learn early that hunting skills and raw meat, at least, would not be in short supply, but she'd hoped this gesture might work as an offer of partnership, if friendship was too much to hope for.
When Morrigan noticed her, glancing up from her possible-rabbit, Gemma offered the bowl of vegetable stew silently, feeling a bit ridiculous at the irrelevancy of the gesture but determined to make the point anyway. The smell of it and the cooked meat from the fire wafted into her nose, and Gemma wished for a moment that she had faith in herself to hold her own in conversation against this other, stranger woman's company to ask to join her and break bread over a shared meal.
"You needn't have wasted the coin," the witch said after a moment of silence, which Gemma wanted to think came out of surprise at the gesture, not judgment of it. She still reached out a pale hand for the offering. "We are still in need of supplies and potion ingredients I will require for our journey north. Still, I thank you."
She counted it as a victory, and decided not to push her luck asking for a bit of rabbit meat to stir into her own bowl. She left Morrigan to her fire and solitude as the sun hit the horizon, silhouetting the witch against the alley's darkening shades of orange and gold.
Gemma balanced the bowls, now cooling, back to the inn. Upon reaching Alistair's door, she paused at the sound of a loud THUMP behind the wood and a muttered curse.
In a moment's reflection, she'd just decided to turn and eat alone in her room when the door opened and Alistair was suddenly there, looking about as shocked to see her as she to see him. He looked a bit disheveled, and — Maker — red around the eyes, and she had the sudden uncomfortable realization to why he had actually wanted time alone.
"Gemma?"
"I thought — " We might sup together seemed a bit unlikely now, but she figured she'd offer all the same. They knew so little about each other, had barely met before being assigned mentor and mentee, their roles switched to leader and follower just as suddenly. She didn't like the thought of either of those options — would, privately, prefer to know her companions as Alistair and Morrigan and herself as Gemma with no boundaries or walls between them. But she knew little about Alistair and how he would react to pity, or what he might see as forced time together with a green Warden and a woman who'd rather bite his hand than shake it.
"I leave you in charge of our coinpurse and this is what you waste it on," he said eventually, and his voice sounded a bit hoarse, but his mouth was smiling, just a little. "Tonight I was planning on feast on leftover jerky and pocketlint. I suppose this'll do." His eyes belied the facetiousness of his jokes; he took a bowl from her gently, then said sincerely, "Thanks."
"You're welcome," Gemma said uncomfortably. "It's a little cold. Wasn't certain if you'd be interested."
"Oh." He turned a bit red. "Sorry for disappearing earlier. I really did — I didn't feel well. And then I just…"
It seemed important to get this out now, before she lost the nerve to touch on a subject she knew was still sensitive. "I know," she said. "I understand you're still… mourning."
"Thanks," he said quickly.
Asking if he was all right seemed on par with wandering-into-the-Deep-Roads-nude levels of stupidity, but she had no idea what else to say, so she stayed quiet. He seemed reluctant to speak first, however, and the silence slowly turned from comfortable understanding to subtly awkward.
"Did you need — "
"Unless you want — "
They both stopped, Alistair motioning for her to go ahead, and she finished slowly, "…company. Forget it."
"Not sure I'll be good company right now," he replied slowly, then glanced back into his room. "But I've got a lovely view of the neighbor's rubbish."
She took that as a yes. She wasn't particularly interested in comforting him while still reeling from the events of the Tower of Ishal herself, but she was less attached to the thought of spending the evening in her room or wandering the town alone, so she followed his gesture and walked in.
There were no chairs inside, just a low wooden bed along the right wall and a table pressed against the far window. She crawled atop the table, legs crossed, and he dipped low to sit sideways on the bed, facing her. It was the first time she'd been able to look down at him, height difference that there was between them, and he seemed oddly small as he tucked into his meal.
Gemma discovered most of her appetite had largely been lost between the trek to find Morrigan, the walk back, and the weight of Duncan's death hanging in the air again now. But she hadn't come here to talk about Duncan; though she knew it might be what he needed, she wasn't yet sure how to unwrap it.
"I want to ask you," she said instead, "about what you said, back at the bridge. About how this… how this will work."
Alistair looked up, confused. His eyes were a little less red.
"You want me as the leader," Gemma reminded him. "Though I've been a Warden for about five minutes and know nothing about darkspawn or wartime combat."
"You led the group through the Wilds to get those vials and treaties."
"Only because you weren't allowed to," she said. "I got us lost around that swamp for half an hour. You've done that test before, haven't you? I reckon you'd've done it quicker."
"I couldn't," he said quietly, looking back down at his food. He squashed a carrot in the remaining broth. "A man I was taking the Joining with, he marched in there. I just sort of — followed behind. We were nearly back to the gates when a small group of darkspawn took us by surprised. The last one got a lucky arrow right through his neck. I only survived because I was lucky enough to pick up his shield, just after he'd fallen."
Gemma was quiet, suspecting where this train of thought might lead him.
"It's just weird," he said suddenly, and she knew he had to get this out. "That I'm here, you know, and he's not, though I probably don't deserve it."
She had come to him, she had invited herself up to conversation, no matter how badly she didn't want to hear about missing loved ones or death or the man who saved her life only to recruit her into a lifetime of servitude fighting monsters and waiting to be devoured underground.
In war, victory. In peace, vigilance. In death, sacrifice.
Gemma ground a few beans to mush.
And then he asked it: "Have you… had someone close to you die? Not that I mean to pry, I'm just…"
She should've expected this, or prepared an answer, with Duncan's death so fresh. Instead she couldn't say anything — I don't want to talk about it felt insincere, because a small part of her did, but maybe not with him, and she's not sure how. She wasn't sure where to even begin to explain to her fellow Warden that yes, actually, she was familiar with the feeling. She was familiar all too well.
My entire family was murdered just recently. We were betrayed by a friend, the kind you've known forever, the kind you don't hesitate to open your home and hearth for. I don't know if my brother is alive. The only reason I'm here is because Duncan wouldn't save me from Howe unless I agreed to join the Wardens. I'm doing fine.
She nodded.
"Oh — oh, of course, how stupid of me, to forget — here I am going on and on about Duncan — "
"It's fine," she said quickly, "I haven't brought it up."
"Do you, er. Want to talk about it?" He reminded her a bit of a guilty mabari, but the look on her face was apparently enough of an answer, so he said instead, rather quickly, "Sorry. Your question. Um, what was it?"
"Just… what made you think it'd be a good idea to put a green recruit in charge of assembling an army to fight the darkspawn and stop the Fifth Blight before it begins," she said nonchalantly, and he was startled into an odd sort of laugh. Finding her earlier train of thought, she continued: "Morrigan had a point, you know. You're the senior Warden here, so I'm just curious." She paused, unsure if this would be appreciated, but he was apparently open to the topic — might be even dying to talk about it, perhaps. "I wanted to know, specifically, if it's just that you're not in the mood to lead, because of what happened at Ostagar."
"No, I meant it, just in general," Alistair snorted. He put his bowl aside now, leaning back. "You've met me, do you think I'd be the right person to put an army together? I'm not — " He rubbed a palm into his eye. "Trying to push this off on you. Sorry."
Gemma appreciated him saying so, but felt her tension would rest easier with some sort of arrangement, one they could both work toward as the last Wardens of the nation. She hadn't come with the intention of cornering him into taking the lead, especially not while his concentration was still… caught up in other things. Regardless of her own difficult opinion of Duncan and his ill-timed recruiting of her into the Wardens, he had meant something to Alistair, and trained them both, for however short a time. And now Alistair was expecting her to, what, fill the same role? But was she really here to argue the opposite? Who was the alternative?
A Warden team meal might have been a bad idea.
"I just don't think I could be what Duncan was," Alistair was saying now. "You know, even temporarily, with so much at stake. But neither of us wants to take charge, and I don't trust Morrigan as far as I could throw her, so where does that leave us?"
She privately thought that Alistair would prove himself stronger than he looked, in multiple senses of the word, but agreed with the sentiment. She didn't distrust their newest companion, but hardly saw them leaving their nation's fate in her hands — in fact, it was remarkably easy in her mind's eye to see Morrigan openly mocking the both of them if they came to her with the proposition that she take charge.
"I was under the impression the Wardens are more of a team effort thing," Gemma said squarely, testing the water, then sucked a bit on her spoon. "I thought we did well, at the Tower of Ishal."
"I… Ugh. I don't disagree, I s'ppose." He sighed, leaning his head back against the inn's filthy wall.
"What's so uncomfortable? That you might fall short of Duncan?" she asked, realizing too late how insensitive the question was. He caught her tone and bristled, staring irritably out the window and avoiding her eyesight.
"You didn't have to offer to keep me company first just to make jabs at me, you know. You're welcome to join Morrigan and start in any time we're on the road."
"I didn't mean it like that," she said quickly, apologetically, and his eyes softened. "Genuinely, the Tower went well. We took down an ogre."
That seemed to cheer him up a fraction, though he still looked wary, and Maker, she was bad at this. "We did, at that."
"Look, I'm trying to say…" Gemma paused, trying to find the best wording, and noticed how Alistair was no longer looking at her as though she might explode any minute. From this angle, his eyes looked lighter than she'd previously thought, golden-brown. "I'm trying to say that I'm not any more cut out for this than you are. I hardly have the tactical expertise or experience as a Warden. We might as well split decisions."
"So instead of one imbecile leading this company, you're suggesting we put two in charge." Alistair grinned. "Brilliant."
She frowned good-humoredly. "If you're unconvinced either of us are up to the task, I'd be more than happy to pass the torch to Morrigan."
"Seriously, let's nip that idea in the bud before it leaves the privacy of these four walls." Alistair put aside his empty bowl (how had he eaten so fast?) and adopted an air of mock pride. "Senior Warden Cousland, I'd be honored to accept this promotion — "
"Har, har — "
"In light of the evidence presented by my mentee, who might I add has done a remarkable job with her duties thus far, though I'd like to say for the record she is frankly a downright dreadful cook and we might've been a bit more selective of our candidates — "
"As though you could do better — "
"She's also a bit on the shorter side and I suspect she may be left-handed, which is a bit of an oddity, though I understand we take all sorts — "
"Are you finished?"
" — But I'm honored to have her here, you know, and I was very moved when she came to check in on me, the first evening in that little southern town on the eve before the world went to shite."
Despite herself, she laughed.
Alistair adopted a rueful smile and looked down at his hands, fiddling with the cuffs of his under armor. "You've been a good friend, and you've known me for such a short time."
Gemma wasn't certain what to say to that. "Just making sure you're all right."
"That's a good quality in a leader, you know."
"Don't start."
"Heh. I'll just say, then — I appreciate it. You know I do. So if… if you need anything, if you — " He glanced up at her, then back down. "If you ever decide you need to talk about it too."
Gemma had the faint impression that he felt as though he owed her, as though she had done him a favor this evening. The thought was both amusing and slightly maddening;
They sat in silence for several moments as she made her decision.
"My brother, Fergus," she began eventually, and her heart began to beat faster, her eyes grew hot at the thought of sharing this, it was private, and it was from someone else's life, now. But if she wanted to tell, if she wanted someone to listen — it was nobody's business but their own. "He was a terror. When we were little he used to hide rotten eggs in my wardrobe the night before we'd entertain guests so I'd reek the next day. But he was always a great warrior, and he looked after his rascal younger sister, and then he went and married a lovely woman and had a darling son, and I don't — I don't know if he's still alive."
Alistair reached over, asking a silent question with his hand — when had he moved so close? — and Gemma let him. She grasped his hand in return and took a breath. She continued on.