The ring was too heavy for a mere band of gold, perhaps it was weighted with the years, he thought. He had kept it for so long, always on or about his person, waiting for this inevitable day. The last thirty years had felt like an eternity and yet no time at all. Every day, in between important meetings of state and family visits, he had let the ring fall through his fingers while he thought of her.
He had tried to keep his memories of her alive, even though just thinking of her caused him great pain. Her face used to be so clear to him, he remembered tracing her thorn like facial tattoos before she had kissed him for the first time. But over the years his memories of her faded until only fragments of her remained to torture him: Her elegant fingers pushing a strand of her brown hair out of her eyes, her tears soaking his shirt as she cried, the slim points of her ears showing through her hair, her voice crying out in the passion of their lovemaking and the look on her face when she had said goodbye.
It still hurt to think of her, perhaps because when she left he didn't realise she was going for good until it was much too late. He still had the letter she had written him, part love letter, part farewell, part suicide note, he knew he should have burned it, but along with the ring, it was all he had that remained of her.
He had married of course, a King must have an heir, especially if they only have thirty years to live, but although his wife was both beautiful and clever, he did not love her. He ceased visiting her rooms at night after the Prince was born and, truth be told, the only way he had been able to get the Queen with child in the first place was to close his eyes and pretend... and that shamed him even now.
He adored his two children, the Princess Oona and Prince Duncan, and one day soon one of them would make a fine King or Queen. But he wished things could have been different, somewhere out there was another child of his, born to a darker bride of his bed, another woman he did not love. It should have never been born, he should never have agreed to it, he should have died instead or enduring the pain of heartbreak for thirty years.
The time was drawing near, the nightmares had returned, he must put his affairs in order and then begin his final journey. The ring he left to the Princess, it was to become a royal heirloom, passed down through his family. The letter he would take with him, allowing him to feel that love and loss afresh as he journeyed through the darkness to join his love in the stillness of the grave.
He went alone and in secrecy, having given up the throne. He said no farewells, he simply went in the middle of the night. He avoided settlements and other people, making sure his face kept in shadow by the hood of his cowl. It would not do for anyone to recognise him on the road, few knew that the price of the Grey Warden was a slow death and he planned to keep it a secret.
He read her letter every night, remembering the love they had shared briefly and the pain they had caused each other. He wondered if Oona would love him now, with his hair greying and his muscles losing definition. Of course she would, he told himself, she chose to die because she could not move on and forget and unlike you, she had no duty to tie herself to the world.
Pathetic, he heard Morrigan whisper in his head, still moping after a woman who was too weak to live without you. You love a woman thirty years dead, fool. He shook himself to rid his head of her voice, cursing the swamp witch. He hated Morrigan as much as he still loved Oona, many times he had been on the verge of sending troops to seek out and kill the maleficarium, but he never had, party because he felt such petty revenge was beneath him, but mostly it was knowing that simple soldiers would be no good against the likes of Morrigan that stayed his hand.
He came to Orzammar and walked through the large open gates. Humans were no longer a strange sight in the Dwarven capital, as the King had allowed the city to open up fully with the surface. He remembered coming here with Oona and how he had watched with some amazement as the elf had begun to get involved with the complexities of Dwarf politics.
He entered the Deep Roads unchallenged, for many people travelled them now, searching for treasures in the lost thaigs. As he walked down the dark paths he saw Oona in his mind's eye, beginning her own journey down the same roads, thirty years previously. She held a torch aloft and was bathed in red light and dark shadows. Her face was determined, but her eyes empty, she sought not victory, after all, but oblivion. The torch guttered and finally flickered out, leaving her in darkness.
Alistair wondered what had become of her, she had been so fierce, so determined to do the right thing, even if that meant her own death. They were too alike in some ways, he thought, with too many of the same failings. He was sure she had died in the Deep Roads, otherwise word would have gotten back to him. Zevran and Leliana had gone with her and neither of them had been ever heard from again either.
Many days into the Deep Roads he began to hear noises that were strange to his ears and yet familiar. There were many Darkspawn in the passages, but they were all smaller than those he was used to seeing. Then he noticed there were strange flesh like growths upon the walls and he realised he had seen things like this before. He kept a tight grip upon his sword as he rounded each and every corner of the tunnels before him, Darkspawn falling easily under his blade.
It was there, in the centre of the labyrinthine mass of tunnels that he found her: A beast with his love's eyes and voice. A monstrous creature, a mountain of nightmarish flesh and tentacles. She had not died after all, she had suffered a fate far worse than death. She cried out and it was with her voice, but the cry was wordless, beyond human language.
Alistair readied his sword and charged.