Note: This can be read as part of the same universe as Immolation or not. Minor details may be changed based on my unpredictable whims. Alternatively, this can behave as an entirely independent piece.
I:
Upon waking up in a bonafide bed, Fainne's first thought is that it must all have been a bad dream. There was no attack on Highever, no battle at Ostagar – or if there was, not one she was in – and definitely no darkspawn at the top of the Tower of Ishal. It's a beautiful, hopeful dream, countered by the weariness in her muscles, the pain in her chest, the throb of her bad arm. Still, she squeezes her eyes shut, praying that when she opens them, Mother will be there, smiling.
It's not Mother. It's the girl from the Wilds, and she's not smiling. She looks rather bored. "So, you awaken. I told your friend he had nothing to worry about."
"You're -"
"Morrigan," she says. She takes Fainne's bad arm in her hands, running one over the mounds and pockets of skin. "Tis ugly, to be sure, but Mother has placed some healing magic on it. I can assume it shall work better now than previously." She drops the arm as Fainne sits up, moving away. "Now, best you clothe yourself and see to your friend before he throws himself in the river from grief."
Slowly, carefully, Fainne start to pull on your leathers. "My friend?" She struggles to place someone in that space, but the only one who comes to mind is Roland. Poor, dead Roland. Her chest constricts, but as she's squeezing into her cuirass, she remembers another man, leaner, more prone to laughter. "You mean Alistair?"
"The infantile, brooding one, yes," says Morrigan.
The witch's nonchalance, the pounding in Fainne's head, the dull thrum of pain in her arm, it's making her irritable. "Why am I here?"
This finally manages to shake the boredom from Morrigan's face. Her eyes widen. "Surely you recall what happened?" Fainne stares at her blankly. "The man who was supposed to answer your beacon quit the field. Nearly all were slain."
Fainne wishes from the deepest depths of her soul that she could feel something other than utterly exhausted. She wishes grief would come and wrap around her like a funeral shroud. Failing that, she wishes that she could at least feel guilty, feel pity, feel something. The king is dead. The Wardens are dead. It should matter. It should matter to her. Somehow, though, these things, they pale in comparison to what came before. Patriotism should come into effect. It doesn't.
My family is dead. She whispers these words in the back of her mind. Only then does she feel a sharp burst of grief in her chest.
Fainne says, "I see." Then, pulling on her greaves, says, "Thank you Morrigan." She doesn't wait for the witch to stammer through her words. The door swings shut between them.
Alistair stands before the water, his back to the hut. Morrigan's mother is beside him, arms crossed, looking terribly unimpressed. Seeing Fainne, she says, "See boy, I told you she would live."
When he turns, that's when Fainne starts to feel something. It's faint, some small pop of emotion deep in her belly, brought on by the look of absolute relief colouring his features. "You're – you're alive. I didn't think – you were so badly injured..." His face crumples on itself. "Duncan and the rest... they're all dead."
And for all that the conversation is important, for all that the army is important, and the Blight, and the treaties and the Grey Wardens, she can't help but watch Alistair, especially as the two of them set out with witch and mabari in tow. His shoulders are slumped, and the lines of his face drag down. There are no tears on his face, but she knows that they're in there, buried beneath armour thicker than dragonbone, hidden behind his heart, and that anyone who wants to see them is either going to have to rip it out, or get inside.
She knows this, because it's just as true for herself.