A/N: Prompt: Calm. Set during the end of the Landsmeet with Wardens F!Cousland and M!Mahariel.
Fool
Mahariel watches her as she stands before the Landsmeet while the whole Landsmeet, the whole of Fereldan waits for her answer. Her face still drips with Loghain's, the traitor's, blood while she stills for a moment, eyes closed as she goes over her options in her head.
But there is no hesitance, no fear, and no panic.
Only calm. True and sincere calm.
She was always like that, their perilous leader. The one who always knew what to do, what to say, to make everything better, who had a fire within her that made someone, made him, willing to follow her into the Beyond itself.
Morrigan told him something once that 'Power rests most easily on those raised to it'. Looking at her, it was not that hard to believe so.
Alistair on the other hand is anything but calm. He fidgets nervously causing the joints of his armour to clink annoyingly as he puts his future into the hands of the love of his life. Mahariel wants to shove an arrow into his throat for this reason and more, even if he won't say it.
Anora can fib all she wants, but she is almost no better than Alistair, even if she hides it better (Even if there is no annoying '*clink* *clink*' of heavy plate armour like Alistair). She plays with her hands, with the ring on her left hand, her wedding ring.
When she finally opens her eyes (was it only a minute or a lifetime?), he finally lets go of the breathe he realises he's been holding.
"I've decided." She speaks confidentially, no trace of doubt in her loud and clear tone. "Alistair will become King."
The tense atmosphere finally breaks at that, and some noble, an unimportant shemlen (The Queen he thinks), tries to speak up before:
"And,"
Everything is tense again. No one expected this, for there to be more.
Mahariel holds his breathe and looks up at her, properly this time. Into those stunning hazel eyes still so calm, so strong, that he almost found himself lost for a moment and swore he misheard her next words.
"I will rule beside him."
Wait, what?
"You WILL?" Alistair is apparently just as flabbergasted as he is, but he is grinning, grinning like a fool.
Mahariel is beside himself, his eyes search hers desperately for an answer, a why, but her eyes, for once, gave no answer. She was grinning herself, a confident, (dare he say) sexy grin that showed just how pleased she was with herself right now.
He is in too much in shock to pay too much mind to the scene with Anora or of Alistair's awkward speech (He would have to work on those if he was TRULY expected to be King), it was her voice again, responding to Alistair's question.
"Shall we finish this Blight together?" Alistair extends his hand to her. For once, his expression and tone are serious, stern, but you can see the utter joy and love in his eyes that it's still so plainly obvious what a fool he is.
'He is not the fool. I am.'
She smirks and responds coolly, her gloved hand sliding into his as she curtsied slightly. "I could do no less, my king."
Mahariel's heart snaps painfully in his chest at that way she said that last word as a sudden realisation comes to him.
'I should've told her when I had the chance.'