In the yellow light of a dozen candles, Davina looks youthful, her flowing red hair pulled back, the lines on her face softened.
King Alistair Theirin is having dinner with Davina Tabris, his Warden-Commander, who is back from her latest adventure from only the Maker knows where. He is glad that this time, Davina has sent word prior to her return, giving him ample time to prepare a little feast for the two of them. Over the years, he has prepared similar informal but intimate meals with her, and tonight was no exception.
Davina laughs at one joke or another, and the clear tinkling sound reminds Alistair of little bells.
"No, really?" he asks her as he pours her another glass of wine. The two of them have learned how to hold their liquor, and he estimates that it would take about four more bottles for them to feel tipsy.
"Yes, really! "Davina giggles. "Empress Celene, is, at this very moment, being entertained by no less than our beloved Witch of the Wilds. And her wild stories, no less."
"I feel sorry for Celene," Alistair muses, and his eyes focuses on Davina. Despite still being sober, the wine has brought out a certain ruddiness in Davina's cheeks. Not for the first time, he thinks it pretty.
"Well, you're going to love this," Davina whispers giddily. "Celene can solve her civil war problem with marriage, but she's not doing it because of some lover. A lovely elf called Brial, Brialla, Bingala. Whatever, but it's still very fresh gossip from Halamshiral."
And then Davina falls silent—as if it is unworthy of any human king or queen to ever love an elf.
Alistair pours her more wine and when a servant delivers their main course—roast beef, her favorite—he hopes that conversation will resume.
He wants to reassure her that he would never think ill of anyone loving an elf, and especially not an empress who has fallen for a lovely elf. After all, is he not a king himself, who has flitted in the thin line between friendship and love for his dearest friend?
But the words are stuck in his throat. Like always. The King never admits it either, but he loves spoiling Davina to bits. Because her visits in the palace are random and infrequent, he has hoarded little things and trinkets he would eventually pamper her with when she returns. A rich blue cloak lined with ermine fur, fit for a queen or empress, after her triumphant return from Amaranthine. Very comfortable Antivan leather boots, which Zevran helped him choose, during the first anniversary of the fall of the Archdemon. An ornate hairpin shaped like a rose, inlaid with small diamonds, four years from the secret date when he offered her the last rose of Lothering. An emerald green gown, to bring out the color of her eyes, during one of the Satinalia balls she attended. A new sword forged by Orzammar master smiths just because her return coincided with King Bhelen's emissaries.
Alistair does not know precisely how many little things he has given Davina, but he always remembers the way her smile reaches her eyes whenever she thanks him. It makes his heart swell with a manly pride—after all these years, he can still make his woman happy.
Not that he and Davina are truly together. True, neither of them are married. And Davina has always occupied a special place in his heart. But they have never shared a kiss, let alone a bed. They have always been partners, allies, friends. But lovers? Never—even if the closest thing to love that he has felt is for her.
Alistair does not know that Davina keeps and treasures those trinkets, carefully storing them in an enchanted box in her room in the palace. He does know, however, that as much as she loves the little home she has built for herself in the Alienage, she does not want to tempt fate—or the elves living in the alienage, to be precise. To them, she is coeval to the shemlen lords, even if they have mostly accepted that not all shemlen lords are out to exploit them. She is not allowed to not forget what she is, both by her peers and the world around her. Despite her accolades and accomplishments, and the fact that she holds a position in court, she is still an elf from the alienage of Denerim, with all the connotations that elf and Denerim and Ferelden bring throughout the world as she travels it.
Which is what Davina has been doing. She extends the definition of "adventure" to include her year in Amaranthine, as a favor to Alistair, who could entrust the Arling to no other. She held power, and humans bowed to her will, but it always seemed to Alistair that she begrudged those months in Vigil's Keep. When he visited her there, he saw her sadness at being told to remain in a place where she has neither true freedom nor friends. But she did not ask him for anything, for which he was glad: he knows that all Davina Tabris has to do is to ask for something, and he will go to the Void itself to see it done. But no, Davina is too good for that. It is probably why she has, on her own merit, allies in the great houses of the Arls.
To Alistair's dismay, however, power and life at court is not Davina's cup of tea. His heart sinks whenever she talks of grand adventures abroad—because he cannot see them, and because she sees them alone, not with him. He listens eagerly to her stories of the frightful vestiges of Tevinter far more well-preserved than in Ferelden, or the masked lords of Orlais and their atrocious accents. The docks of Llomeryn, larger and grander than any of Ferelden's ports, where cargo could be anything, from food to textile to timber to slaves. The spice of Antiva City, where life is cheap. The mausoleums of Nevarra, where the dead lay in houses far richer than those of the living.
But always, Davina's roads lead back to Denerim—whether it is her house in the Alienage or the rooms she occupies in the palace to humor her best friend.
Like what Davina is doing tonight. This soothes Alistair's heart, at least, knowing that no matter how many times she departs, she always comes home.