I decided to branch off from television shows for once in my life and decided to write a Dragon Age fan fic... I don't know what the hell I'm on, and it's probably terrible, but I just needed to write it. I at least had fun with it. I've decided I love writing Alistair. Anyway... Enjoy!
Madison entered the tavern of the inn and was immediately overwhelmed by the stench of urine and stale ale. As she ventured further into the main room, the odor of vomit became apparent, and she had to resist the urge to gag. She could hear the sound of steel clashing, and she instinctively moved toward it, bracing herself for battle.
"You're crazy!" a voice called in a thick Orlesian accent, followed immediately by the sound of metal hitting wood. Madison relaxed her stance but continued in the direction of the recently-ceased fight.
"Not crazy, drunk," a familiar voice slurred. "There's a difference. I'm also angry. That tends to happen when a fool tries to pickpocket me while I'm drinking."
As the crowd began to disperse, Madison eased her way through. A few drunks tried to grope her, and she gave them a fierce glare and gestured to her blades. They cowered in submission immediately, and she had to hold back a grin.
Those who remained in her way and caught notice of her immediately parted, and she could feel their curious gaze on her as they whispered. There was no doubt they recognized her as the hero of Ferelden, despite her being in Orlais. Being the Commander, she had made numerous trips there to meet with their Commander and discuss the rebuilding of Ferelden. There was still much Queen Anora had to contend with, even with the Blight thwarted, but she was a capable leader, and doing a respectable job of it.
Suddenly, she could see the man the voice belonged to, now sitting at a far corner table. His hair had grown to his shoulders, along with a half inch of stubble on his face. Madison noticed that with his hair grown out, he bore a remarkable resemblance to his late half-brother. Taking a deep breath, she approached the table.
"Alistair?" Madison winced when her voice rose in pitch on the last syllable of his name. She had hoped that she could be strong, but the way they had parted had been so bitter, she couldn't help but be nervous. Alistair looked up from his mug of ale. His tawny eyes were obscured by the darkness of the tavern, but Madison could still see the cascade of emotions in them: first confusion, then recognition, hurt, and anger. She flinched at the last one.
"What are you doing here? Shouldn't you be helping the queen and her traitorous father clean up the mess the darkspawn made of Ferelden?"
She flinched again. Her first reaction would normally be to fight back, but under the circumstances she didn't wish to anger him further. "I was, but I put one of the Orlesian Wardens in charge so I could come to Orlais in search of you."
"You put an Orlesian in charge? I can't imagine Loghain was too thrilled with that decision. He probably would have expected you to put him in charge, no doubt."
"Loghain is dead, Alistair," she blurted, her irritation getting the better of her already. She slid into the seat across from him and leaned in, speaking in a low voice. "He sacrificed himself to end the Blight, as atonement for Ostagar."
Alistair huffed. "Is that supposed to make everything alright? Loghain's sacrifice didn't bring Duncan or Cailan back, or any of the other Grey Wardens who died because of Loghain's retreat at Ostagar. And despite his actions, you conscripted him into the Wardens and betrayed me."
Madison was silent. She knew there was nothing she could say that would make things right. She began to doubt why she'd even come when he continued. "I thought you cared for me. We talked about Duncan those first weeks after Morrigan and her mother saved us, and you claimed to be grieving his loss. The very idea that you would not only allow Loghain to live, but make him a Warden as well, never even occurred to me. Imagine my surprise when that turned out to be exactly what you did."
She sighed. "I did care for you, Alistair. That's why I did it. Wynne talked to me when you and I first started to show signs of caring for each other. She warned me that there would be sacrifices in our efforts to end the Blight. I brushed her off at the time, and she gradually accepted that what we had was good for both of us. Eventually I realized she was right, though. What would happen if we had to choose between each other or ending the Blight?"
"I would have sacrificed myself to keep you from dying, Madison. Nothing was more important to me than you."
"I know. That's why I couldn't have you in that final battle with me. I knew if I invoked the Right of Conscription with Loghain, there would be no way you could fight alongside him. Your sense of honor wouldn't have allowed it. When Riordan explained how Grey Wardens defeat the Archdemon after Loghain's Joining, any regret I felt vanished. I knew I'd saved your life, not only from Anora, but from your own fool notions of sacrifice."
Alistair was silent for a long moment, and Madison held her breath in anticipation of his response. Finally, he said, "So… you planned the whole thing, just to get me to leave? Huh. Why didn't I think of that?" Madison noticed that his words were no longer slurring, and that his eyes had cleared significantly. She let out her breath in a relieved sigh.
"You were too distracted by the Blight. Avenging King Cailan, Duncan, and the rest of the Ferelden Wardens was also high on your list of priorities." Madison smirked despite herself, watching as Alistair's expression changed multiple times before it settled on a familiar look that caused Madison to tense.
"If I remember correctly, there was one other thing that I believe was high on both our lists. Something I remember you not being able to quite get enough of."
She had to force herself not to blush before she said, "Don't get cocky; you were as bad as I was. Actually, I think you were worse."
He laughed. "What can I say? Training to be a Templar doesn't exactly leave time for much else. Also, I grew up in the Chantry. They're not exactly keen on the idea of sex where their monks are concerned."
Madison chuckled, her gaze locking with his. A familiar rush of feelings overwhelmed her, and the look in Alistair's eyes did nothing to quell them. In a movement too quick for even her reflexes, he had leaned across the table and captured her lips with his. It was a slow, tentative kiss, filled with old embers of feeling reigniting into a burning flame.
"Maker, I missed that," he said breathlessly as he pulled back, his eyes lingering on hers, searching. "Judging by your speechlessness and the look in your eyes, I'm going to assume you did, as well."
Madison motioned for one of the tavern waitresses, who squeezed through the crowd with ease. "What can I get for you, miss?"
"How much is a room for the night?" Her voice was trembling ever so slightly, and when her eyes met Alistair's, he was looking at her in amusement.
"Ten sovereigns." Madison pulled out her coin purse and practically threw the gold pieces at the waitress. "You can take any room you like. Don't let the crowd fool you, we're completely empty tonight."
She stood and grabbed Alistair's hand, pulling him out of his seat and through the door that led to the rooms. She threw open the door to the closest room and turned to face Alistair, pulling him into a kiss as she backed into the room. He kicked the door shut behind him and quickly began fumbling with the light armor she was wearing.
"Andraste's blood, who made this armor? It's like a full body chastity belt!"
Madison chuckled breathlessly as she pushed his hands out of the way to begin stripping it off herself. "It's Drakeskin. I had leftover scales, and when that smith, Wade, rebuilt his shop, he made this for me. It's much better than the last set he made."
"Well, I hate it," Alistair stated harshly. "I can't get the bloody thing off!"
As she tossed aside her boots and gloves, she gently took Alistair's hands and brought them around to rest on the back of her armor. "It's not as difficult as you think. There are a few clasps back here holding it on. Do you feel them?"
"Ah. Well, you sure know how to make a man feel stupid, that's for sure." He quickly undid the clasps and pulled the armor around and off of her, throwing it in a pile with the boots and gloves. "There we go." He places his hands on her hips, and Madison felt a thrill of heat rush through her at the feel of his rough hands on her soft skin. "Back to business, then."
Alistair captured her lips once more, sliding his hands around to her back, down past her buttocks to rest on the back of her thighs. With a firm grip, he effortlessly lifted Madison, and she wrapped her legs instinctively around his waist. She took advantage of their more even height to deepen their kiss, and was surprised to find herself suddenly pressed up against the wall.
Madison reached down and pulled at the hem of Alistair's tunic, lifting it until he was able to successfully pull his arms through without dropping her. Their kiss broke only momentarily to pull the tunic over his head, then resumed it more hungrily than before. Despite the growing ache from where her shoulder blades were, an even more painful ache was growing between her thighs.
Arching into him, Madison nipped at his lip teasingly, her old signal that told him, "Now, or I feed you to the darkspawn."
Adjusting his grip on her thighs, Alistair stepped back and headed for the bed. He pulled back and gazed into her eyes, and Madison felt a melting in her that she hadn't felt since before he'd left her—since before she'd driven him away.
"Stop that," he said sternly—something Madison never expected from Alistair.
"Stop what?"
"Feeling guilty. If you hadn't noticed, I've forgiven you. I thought it was obvious."
"I know, I know." She kissed him lightly on the lips. When she pulled back to look in his eyes, she sank her hips down to grind against him, eliciting a moan from both of them. "It is obvious."
In a blur of movement, Alistair's lips latched onto Madison's with an intensity that left her in a temporary state of shock, and she hardly registered that she was lying on the bed. Alistair's hands moved deftly, removing her bra and panties with an expertise that surprised her. A twinge of jealously at the thought of Alistair with other women temporarily overpowered her lust, but was immediately banished when she felt his finger probing her. She gasped as he slid it in, searching, finding, building tension until she felt as if she were going to burst. Just when Madison thought he was done surprising her, she felt the warmth of his tongue teasing as his fingers continued to move inside her.
Suddenly, her back arched and the tension that had reached an almost painful extreme exploded into a release so intense, she nearly blacked out. It felt as if she were trapped in a mage's Crushing Prison, without the pain that accompanied it.
Before she could come down from her high, Alistair was moving, his lips caressing her skin with feather-light kisses, his stubble tickling the hypersensitive flesh of her thighs, then her stomach. He stopped at her breasts, nipping ever so lightly at the tender flesh. Unable to take it any longer, Madison grabbed his shoulders and pulled, urging him to move over her. She lifted her head and kissed him longingly, feeling his careful movements as he removed his pants and discarded them somewhere to the side of the bed.
Giving him the signal again, she bit his lip just a bit harder than usual. Madison had never in all their months on the road felt such an aching need for him. His now-long hair draped over them, and he gazed into her eyes with a look that mirrored the mix of love and lust she was feeling.
Alistair bent his head down to kiss her once more before he plunged deep, and an exquisite sensation of fullness overwhelmed her. She cried out as he began to move, her normally relaxed demeanor while making love nowhere to be found. Finding herself aching for more, she shoved his shoulder and forced him to roll over, lowering herself onto him immediately. His hands rested on her waist and pushed down gently as she rocked her hips back and forth, selfishly taking as much as he would give. The tension was building again, and she let out another cry as his thumb found and began teasing, driving her to the edge of madness.
She fell forward as the tension released in a very similar fashion to the last, and Alistair released a guttural cry as he reached his own climax. They lay there, she on top of him, panting heavily. She could feel his heart pounding erratically below her right breast, the rhythm nearly in sync with her own.
Kissing his throat, she rolled off of him languidly and nestled into him, resting her cheek on his chest as she draped her arm across his stomach. He wrapped his arm around her, resting his hand atop her hip, and with his free hand held hers on his stomach.
After a few moments enjoying the post-coital bliss, the inevitable arose:
"So, what now?" Alistair asked.
"Well, you were exiled from Ferelden when Anora became queen, out of fear that you might start a rebellion. However, with Arl Eamon's help, I've managed to convince Anora to allow you to rejoin the Wardens in Ferelden as my second."
He tensed momentarily before he relaxed once again. "Is that why you came here?"
"It was an excuse. Since the Blight ended, I always wondered what happened to you. When I journeyed to Orlais and Antiva, I asked around. Eventually I caught wind of something promising, and found you had come to Orlais. So I talked to Anora, and here I am."
"I see." Alistair was silent for a moment, then, "I take it you missed me, then?"
His tone was teasing, and Madison rolled her eyes. "Yes. I missed you and your witty one-liners."
"Was that so hard?" He moved his hand to stroke her hair, twirling it in his fingers every so often. "I love you. The Maker truly blessed me by bringing you into my life."
"I feel the same way, Alistair." She propped herself up on her elbow and smiled down at him before giving him a light kiss. "And I always will."