Alistair stood at the cliff, staring into the distance. The Black City, chained and distant, no longer drew his interest, and the shifting appearance of the landscape that had so fascinated him when he'd first arrived barely received a glance. Mostly he stood on the cliff, so that he wouldn't have to look at—
With a grimace he threaded his fingers together and squeezed them hard, the pain stopping the thought before it ended. Odd how pain is still so real here, he mused as he drew his hands apart and shook them gently. It had been a shock when he'd arrived, too, though the agony then had been more of the heart than of the body. A hand reached up reflexively to his neck, tracing the clean, straight line of a scar that always lingered. Quickly he lowered it, forcing his thoughts elsewhere than that last fateful day of his life.
As always when he stood there, his gaze eventually dropped down, to the nothingness below him. The ground he stood upon had no details other than a formless grey. He'd learned how to prevent it from shaping around his emotions and thoughts, though it had taken a long… well, what passed for time here. He hadn't quite learned the trick of how to go to any of the other islands floating in this vast expanse of nothing over which the City constantly hovered, but he had also gone past the point of caring about it. He was done with caring… or so he told himself whenever he thought to do so.
When he heard the footfall behind him, he raised his gaze again and looked up at the City. "I wish you'd stop trying," he said - again.
"I can't stop," she declared, as she always did.
"Somehow, I don't believe you." He turned to face her, knowing what he would find, but unable to obey the command deep within that told him to simply ignore the traitor.
As always, she took his breath away. Here, where she could make herself look like anything she could imagine, she'd chosen to be herself. Snub nose, freckles, dull brown flyaway hair, crooked teeth, no waist to speak of, that scar that he'd accidentally given her during weapons practice in the Frostbacks: Raichel was no classic Court beauty like Anora had been, and certainly no smooth politician, either. Yet while they had traveled together, Alistair quickly learned that she was so sincere, so caring, and so amazing, that he had thought she would always be the most beautiful of women to him.
Oh, how he had learned differently.
Their gazes met for a moment before she looked away and bit her lip before speaking again. "I'm—"
"Don't say it," he said sharply. "I've heard it enough times, and it never helps. The pain won't go away, no matter what you do or say. It's too late."
Her lower lip disappeared as she worried at it with her teeth for a few silent moments. "I'm not asking you to love me again."
"No, you're asking for something that is far more difficult for me to do." He watched her, noticing the constant movement of her jaw, and knew that blood would soon flow. It was a habit she'd developed during the Blight, a way to stop herself from crying every time she thought about her dead parents and nephew. "The time for you to speak was at the Landsmeet. You could have killed Loghain. You could have made me King. Andraste's bloody ashes, you could have told Anora to spare me from the damn axe!"
She flinched visibly, and a stream of crimson began working its way down her chin. Her head moved in a helpless nod, but she still couldn't look at him.
"I trusted you. I loved you. I thought you loved me. I thought—" Now he stopped himself, shrugging with anger and frustration as he turned from her and looked into the nothingness again. "I thought a lot of things that weren't true. Aren't true. Stop trying to apologize, Raichel. There are some actions – or lack of them – that are truly unforgivable. Words need to be spoken in the proper time or they are meaningless." He gestured at the world around them. "This means it's too late. And it always will be, no matter how many times you come to speak with me."
Surprisingly, she spoke. Usually, she just watched him when he— Shaking his head, he tried to focus on her words. "I—I just wonder…"
"What?"
He heard the sound as her feet skittered across the ground. "Why are we both on this island? Neither of us can leave, we both have our memories of when we were alive. Maybe this is the Maker's way of… of giving us a…"
"A second chance?" he snorted, though the idea was novel enough that he half-turned to her again, eyes narrowed. Raichel had been even more devout than Leliana. Before the two Wardens had shared a tent, Raichel had confided in him her fear of being struck by lightning if she got naughty, which had led to a lot of laughing and kissing and… Pushing the thoughts away, he called up his anger again. "The Maker doesn't care, Raichel, he never has. I would have thought that everything we saw during the Blight was proof of that." His hand again sought the back of his neck, remembering his final living memory as the steel sank deep. "I don't know why we're on this island. I don't even know how long we've been here, and I don't know when it will end. But I'll get away from you if it's the last thing I do."
"Alistair—" she called, but it was too late. He pivoted and stepped forward, following his foot into nothing. Please, Maker, just this once let me keep falling…
He never knew how long he floated in the empty darkness of the Void below the island each time he fell. Since time didn't exist in the Fade, it seemed an eternity and a blink of an eye all at once, and always ended with a gentle landing back on the island, back to the monotony, back to her. His neck always hurt as if the axe had just finished its duty – though thankfully his head remained firmly seated on his shoulders.
Except this time, she wasn't on the island.
After a brief second of concern, he forced himself to smile. That's what he'd wanted, wasn't it? To be rid of her? To never have to look at the face of the woman who betrayed him by sparing a traitor and not speaking up when Anora spoke of execution?
The smile faded. To never see her again…
He didn't know how long he'd been alone once he first got here, how many times he jumped off that edge – first, to try to reach someplace different, and then to try to end it all. He only knew that he'd alighted from a fall one day to find her standing on the island, wearing the same long-sleeved tunic and pants she'd worn in the tent on lazy nights when they just wanted to be together…
Slowly he'd come to realize she wasn't a demon or a spirit – desire, vengeance, or otherwise – and realized that it must be her… and the rage had set in. Every day, she would beg for forgiveness, they'd argue, and he'd fall… and whenever he landed, she'd be there.
Except now, she wasn't.
He ran to the edge of the island, looking at the nearby ones, but they remained empty. They were always empty, and he wondered If Zevran hadn't, in fact, been right when he said that the Fade was only the worst place to be if you were truly alone…
Suddenly he heard a gasp behind him, followed by a sob. Quickly he pivoted and ran back to the crouched shape on the ground, ignoring the lingering pain in his neck, and gasped when he saw that the lower half of her arms were drenched in crimson. "Raichel-?"
She looked up at him, tears streaming down her face. "Does it always hu-hurt like this when you fall?" She wrapped a hand around the gaping slash that followed the vein on her forearm, from which blood still flowed. "Do you always feel the moment of death when you land?"
"Yes. I—I suppose I just got used to it." He stumbled and fell to his knees next to her, instinctively reaching out to take her other wrist to hold the wound closed. "Wha—How?"
"I couldn't speak!" she wailed. "I couldn't kill him, not Father's best friend, and I couldn't make you King because Anora used to be my best friend, and you didn't want to be King anyway, and… and I couldn't talk because my throat wouldn't open, and… and I couldn't believe she would… that my best friend would… And your eyes, your face… I could barely breathe, Alistair, and I couldn't speak." She hiccoughed. "And then she took you away and I tried to follow and I screamed and I screamed… But it was too late." She shuddered. "It was too late. She said it was for the good of the kingdom and that a Cousland should know better." She drew a deep breath. "Loghain refused to talk to her after that. Wouldn't even let me go to Fort Drakon, said it was one last favor to an old friend to make sure I had the full thirty years…"
Alistair's hands tightened around her arm, and she hissed in pain. "Sorry," he said reflexively. "I—I just… Why didn't you tell me this before?" His anger tried to rise to the surface, but his own traitorous memory started filling in the details his fury had washed away: her fanatical devotion to her father, who he suspected had been the Maker for her; the smile on her face every time Anora had been mentioned; her abject terror of speaking in public. She'd even made him declare her declaration for Harrowmont to the Deshyrs simply because she'd been too scared to do so herself. Her bravery seemed to only be evident when there was a blade in her hand and a Mabari at her side…
He winced when he remembered that Eamon had convinced her to leave the mangy mutt at his estates that day. He'd forgotten how good of an actress she'd become, and only he saw her tears…
Only he ever saw her tears, heard her uncertainties… and only in private. And the Landsmeet is hardly private.
"Because you were right to be angry," she whispered. He saw the effort behind making those words. "Your life… It was your life, and I failed you, the man I loved, because I let my fears rule me when it mattered the most. You should be angry, you should not forgive me, but… I wish you would." Her voice was barely audible for those last few words.
"You… you followed me down this last time, didn't you?" The realization had just struck him, as another nagging thought kept trying to rise to the surface. "Why didn't you do that before?"
"I was afraid. I was afraid I'd never find you again, that if I jumped off the island, the Maker would decide I hadn't accepted his… his punishment, and… whatever happened to Loghain when he killed the Archdemon would happen to me." She swallowed harshly, trying to work past the knot in her throat. "That you would be angry and lost and alone for all of… of… of whatever time is here. But this time… No, I won't ever let you go alone again, even if you don't want me."
He looked down at her arms. Just like with the wound on his neck, it's lividity had faded, and the crimson had disappeared as if it hadn't drenched her arms. Even her sleeves were whole again, hiding the multitude of small and precise scars that she had been so reluctant to tell him about. But the wounds he'd seen… "I… I always assumed you came here after your Calling," he murmured. "I was alone for so long, I thought… Raichel, when—when did you—"
"Kill myself?"
He nodded slowly, wondering why he hadn't asked her about her death before, even though he knew perfectly well why he hadn't.
"Everyone was celebrating the death of the Archdemon, and it was like no one remembered you. I—Howe was dead, I knew that Sten would take care of my little hound—" Her eyes filled with tears, and she looked down. "There was nothing left for me, and you were dead. Because of me. So I gave all my money to Teagan, made him promise to erect a memorial to you and Duncan in Highever, and left. Found a poplar grove near Denerim and…" She shivered. "I never thought I'd end up here. With you. I thought—" She bit her lip again.
"We first kissed under a poplar tree," he said slowly.
She nodded wordlessly, and he absently reached up and wiped away the trickle of blood before running his thumb over her lip. Finally he sat next to her and enveloped her in an embrace, each leaning into the other. "I… I'm not ready to forgive you, not yet."
"I know," she whispered, voice choked. "I haven't forgiven myself."
He looked at the edge of the island. "Then perhaps we should take the first step… together?"
Her gaze followed his line of sight, and her eyes widened. "You… do you think it would work?"
"It can hardly hurt worse than what we already feel. I think… I think if we don't move on, we won't be able to… move on." He frowned. "I mean—"
She giggled, a weak little sound but recognizable. "I know what you mean. I'm willing to try if you are."
A welter of emotions from his time on the island washed over him – the anger, the frustration, the despair – and he simply wanted a change. He squeezed her shoulders. "Then maybe, just maybe, we'll find out what happens next."
Together they rose and walked to the edge, looking down into the nothingness of the Void. He waited while she closed her eyes and mouthed a quick prayer to the Maker, and nodded when she looked at him afterwards.
Together they looked up at the City that always hovered almost out of sight above them, and their hands squeezed each other tightly.
Together, they stepped forward.
Together, they entered the light.