May 10, 2010 to May 19, 2010

By Deadly Off Topic

A Warden's White Lie

"Howe's castle?" The words came out softer than Elissa meant to say them, but the importance she tacked to them was already lost on her companions as they move around camp. It's all normal routines to them, unpacking and setting the tents up in this secluded vale, so they're not really listening to her. Not that she can't blame them. By this point in their journey, everyone is exhausted and tired and to lose themselves in light banter and humourous talk must seem like a godsend to her weary, bedraggled friends.

Too bad they couldn't see, couldn't realize how being this close to her enemy's home affected her. But the treacherous thought betrays her, how would they know the cold, gritty depth of what that bastard put her though? They weren't there when Howe took everything she loved and cherished and crushed it into oblivion. Even now in the company of friends, Elissa could feel the cold press of that bastard's shadow descending upon her as if he means to rob her of every companion she has.

It makes her uncomfortable and edgy. Almost as if he is actually behind her just waiting for the right moment to cull the remaining friends she has. By Andraste, her friends. This is all the family she has left to her now: a motherly mage, a worldly sister, the always drunk relative no one wants to admit was theirs, the odd black sheep of the family as well as the pet rock no one knew how to deal with (unless you had a chicken, then run the hell away) and a stern, but honour-bound Quanari elder brother. What about Morrigan? Elissa wasn't sure what to make of that aloof, ice-hearted mage yet. She didn't dare trust her, but like all the rest of her ragtag band, Elissa needed all help that came her way.

Absently, she wonders if Howe knows she's coming to seek vengeance on him. What will she do to him when she finds him? Thousands of gruesome ideas flitter through her mind, none of them involve letting that bastard live.

"Hey there, Ferelden to Grey Warden, you there Elissa?" Alistair's subtle touch on her shoulder as well as his warm, friendly voice pulls her back from the brink of troubled memories instantly. And where did he fit in that little family she'd been conjuring up. Brother, friend... or something more?

"Yeah, I am. Sorry, my mind is wandering." Elissa glances back to him, a blush on her cheeks, but her eyes drift too quickly away. He's aware she's not willing to look at him, but what can she do? This is something she has to figure out on her own.

Politely, for the templar is always courteous with her, he nods. "See, I was just wondering if you're okay. You've been quiet ever since we left Arl Eamon." There something in his voice that suggests he wants to say more, but he stops it short. Either he thinks it's not his place to push or he's giving her a chance to first offer on her own.

"I've just been thinking about things." Poking a stick into the campfire, she absently shrugs as if she means nothing more by it.

"I thought it was I who was suppose to worry, you know. It's not every day that a bastard prince is told to make a grab for a throne he doesn't want." Alistair's chuckle is meant to distract her, to remind her that he has his own worries in all this, but Elissa just can't find the humor in it. Her thoughts are all thunderclouds while his are sunnyside up. And she dares not look up from the orange crackling flame to face him, fearing to see how his inability to cheer her up hurts him. It'll only make her feel guiltier and she already feels like shit right now. "Well, come on. I'm not usually this bad am I?"

Unable to answer and yet knowing she should say something as propriety demands it, Elissa murmurs, "Please let it go for now. I need to deal with this... alone." It comes to her again, the burning, crumbling walls of her home, the desperate and dying screams of soldier and servant alike... and the bloody, torn up figure of her dying father. Elissa's teal eyes tightened with unwanted remembered pain. All she can think about is how Howe betrayed her family and how he'll do it again to anyone she holds dear. Thinking about this terrifies her. She does not wish to lose these people to Howe...to lose Alistair to him. To lose the man she's fallen in-

"Elissa?" There's alarm in Alistair's voice now as he reaches for her shoulder. Has he seen something betrayed in her eyes that are soaked in the blood of past memories. "You don't have to do this alone. This isn't like you, what's wrong?"

There's so much she wants to say and it's there hanging on the tip of her tongue, but instead a world of colours suddenly washes itself out into greys, whites and blacks. It's as if she's staring at him in the moonlight and the vibrant colours of life are all bathed in that silver glow except without any of that awe inspiring lunar radiance. Without warning, as if her body is possessed by another, she voices the words she'd never expected to say. "I think we should end this now. Before one of us gets hurt."

"What?" She'd half expected that sharp intake of breath and the shocked way his nostrils flared. But this sudden dip in her belly as if she was falling from a very faraway height, leaves her nausated. So sick that she wants to hunch over and throw up. "Look, I don't know what kind of game this is, but just cut it out. It's not funny. I'm seriously worried about you and you say..this to me?" Alistair is in her face, forcing her to look at him as his fingers cup her shoulders. He refrains from shaking her like a rag doll, but barely.

All Elissa does is stare back with a such a solemn expression in her eyes that he grows nervous and unsure of himself. "Okay, Okay, it's a joke... I get it. It's a good one. You got me there! Ha ha, I've had a good laugh. Now, what the hell is going on?"

It's ghost movements. Her mouth moves, but she doesn't feel it. She's standing behind her body as it does the talking. It's almost surreal watching the look on Alistair's horror-filled face and then realizing that the camp had gone deathly still and is staring with that stony-shocked silence on their own faces.

She's not even sure she hears herself, but she know she's talking because she's addressing everyone present, not only Alistair. It's almost frightening knowing that for some strange, frightening moment, she's falling into darkness as if a part of her has disappeared beneath the cold waves of an unlit ocean while the ghost of her prior self stands a lonely vigil above. Almost abruptly though, she breaks that water and comes up for breath and the world of gray, white and black is gone, ushered in by a wave of familiar colour. Sound rushes in on its tail and she finally aware that Alistair is storming off, his rigid back all the proof she needs that he is not coming back. What exactly had she said?

Words flicker back and she hears them in self accusation.

...insane bird-fearing rock...

...crazy chantry believing sister...

... patronizing and controlling mage...

... stick up the arse Quanari...

...foppish and foolish elf...

...drunken, sex-obsessed dwarf and

...and...

...responsibility-avoiding man who can't bother to take charge of his life so he hides behind her skirts to do the work for him... and she's tired of it all, tired of doing everything for someone who can't be bothered to take care or stand up for himself...

The wrong words. The wrong sentence. Damn it! It might as well be the wrong day of the week...even year. Has anything ever gone right since the day of her joining?

"Now you understand my feelings, right?"

She can feel it brush against her skin, turning it pink with embarrassment as well as the grating silence, making noise where none was before. Jarring, disruptive, it pulls their attention better than any sharp crackle the campfire can make. She tries to push it off, to throw their attention away because the last thing she needs are those piercing, questing eyes on her. But it's impossible. Wynne, Leliana and Zevran are watching her with haunting gazes as if they... pity her. Imagine that! Pity the one person in the camp who is willing to forge ahead when everyone else is hanging along as if on a free ride? They're not bad people, and she feels ashamed reducing it all down to this, but would they have gone on with this quest to save the world from darkspawn if she wasn't taking charge?

Not to mention that Sten, who's turned his back on her and trudged off, is probably thinking he was rash in his previous esteem thinking of her. Try to win back his trust again will be like trying to glue a tooth back onto a live pike. Dangerous and not worth the risk. Then there's Shale whose eye sockets just glow with the random stone of the day - steady as rock, and just as unforgiving with a passive-aggressiveness that simply says, "Try it and you'll find out exactly how that wizard died."

Morrigan is the only one who isn't looking at her as if she had put her entire foot in her mouth, but it doesn't make her feel any better. Deep down, she's never trusted that cold-heart witch at all. The cold-aloof demeanor of Morrigan leaves Elissa feeling hollow and empty. Dirty. There's no trust shared or lost. In fact, she thinks Morrigan is laughing at her. The same prideful and self-smug way she laughs at Alistair.

Alistair.

Fingers tighten at her side and she almost curses. Her words had hit him the worse of all. Pushing him away, insulting and cursing him for being a failure of the man she expects him to be. She had never seen him so hollowed eyed, so pale faced before. It was almost like looking at the raw-over-exposed man that first night at Flemeth's hovel. He'd been so lost and shaken like a new-born kitten then as if one good slap might overbowl him, breaking his neck. Yet, back then she had stood there and given him a place to shelter... to become strong and in a way, he had given her something she much needed in return. A different way of life that didn't include that full hatred and revenge-infested thinking that had clouded her days after Arl Howe's betrayal.

So how did it come to this now? The wrong words, the wrong things said. WHY WAS she being so spiteful and disgusting to these people she called her friends? Why push them away now of all times? Now when she would face the Arl and call him to the crimes he had done. Didn't she need her friends to go on? How could she do this without them?

Because, and that solemn and serious inner voice of her seemed to smooth over all the cuts and pains with its logic, this is something I have to do on my own because if you go in with them, he'll hurt them. ...take them away from you like he did to your family.

She was halfway to sliding her backpack on when she realized she had no recollect of filling it. It felt heavy, belying the fact that she must have put something into, but did it really matter of what? If things didn't go well with Howe, one less ration would not be useful. Not daring to look around her nor to call out a good bye less she alert the dog who was dozing by the fire and attract his guilting expression either, she made to leave.

"Before you go. I think we need to talk, you and I?" His voice, usually filled with boyish enthusiasm, is deadly serious. When had Alistair returned to camp? When she was packing? Shouldn't she have felt him coming?

The cold wind brushes through her long brown hair, playing with it as she tries to push it out from her eyes. "There's nothing to say to you or anyone else. Let me pass." She makes the mistake to look up at him, figuring that the least thing she could do is to at least look him in the face. But his steel blue eyes are solid stone. There is nothing playful there. He's come to her as a if she were another man. The stance he has warns her immediately that he's come to fight, but he wears no sword at his side. This puzzles her.

"Oh yes, you did say quite a lot, didn't you. To all of us, but you forgot one important thing."

"And what could that possibly be?"

In hindsight she realizes the mistake was hers because she would have seen it coming if it had been anyone else. But this is Alistair. She gasps as she double overs, falling hard to her knees. "You must think me a fool," he rasps in her ear, meaning those words only for her, "and I the more for almost believing you." As he draws back slowly, his fist becomes visible, allowing her a painful moment to look up at him with startled eyes. "But if you think I'm going to let you go face Howe alone, you have another thing coming."

She almost wants to laugh at this turn of events, but the pain coursing through her, more internal than physical, has her in tears. So little time with her and yet he knew her better than she knew herself. This man was something else. Her following words are hoarse, pulled free from lips that no longer can hide her pain, "I'm so sorry."

(Author's Note: This was just something that popped into my head at work. Considering that the human noble - Warden lost everything, I was thinking, would she be willing to risk bringing her friends to face the very man who took away her family. Her (big) little white lie explodes right in her face)

- Please R&R - all kindly advice is appreciated.)