For ten years, the thought of his lover returning to him had kept him awake into the wee hours of dawn. Perhaps foolishly, he'd never doubted that she would return. And true to her word, she did come back to him. Only it wasn't her, not really.
Her hood was pulled down to her brows, shrouding her eyes, and the lower half of her face was covered by thick black scarves. The moment she stepped into the light cast by the dim candle, giving him the slightest view of her eyes, he knew. Her sclera was red with popped blood vessels and her pupils were a diluted glossy white, all traces of what once was a bright green diminished. Like the eyes of darkspawn.
"No," he said on instinct. Not a whisper, not a trembling refusal, but a forceful declaration. "No."
"I failed," was all she had to offer. She brought a gloved hand to the candle, running her fingers over the light it radiated. Shadows of her hand danced on the stone walls.
He stamped his hand on the desk beside him to steady his balance that was trembling. The tremor in his shoulders and the glisten in his eyes said all that was needed to say. "No. You don't fail." His voice was thick with grief he wasn't quite ready to contend with yet.
"I can't remember what you look like," she whispered suddenly. A sob crept into her words. "You were so beautiful and I can't remember what you look like. You start to... you start to forget the things you should remember and you can't stop remembering the things you should forget."
He was going to cave. His knees were already buckling beneath him and with shaking fingers, he yanked a chair out from under the desk and collapsed into it. "Why'd you come back? Why would you come back to me like this? Why didn't you just- why didn't you..." He held his head in his hands, shoulders shaking with the sob that wracked his body.
"I've done a very bad thing, Alistair." Her voice was hushed, now. Far away, like a dream you just can't seem to remember no matter how many hours you spend digging towards the memory. Underlying that cruel resignation in her tone was the darkspawn corruption. Muddy, lost, a slight gurgle to the Ferelden accent.
Slowly, he looked up, eyes glossy with tears he'd somehow managed to suppress. "What did you do?" The question came off more accusatory than he'd intended. He was angry, but at what, he didn't know. The world? For giving him this as repayment for dedicating his life to it?
She went quiet, and that nearly scared him more than hearing the corruption in her tainted voice.
"Maker," he breathed in a whimper, burying his face into his hands again so he wouldn't have to see this. The room seemed too small now. Too small, too cluttered, not enough space to hold the dread swelling in his heart.
"I can't tell you," she said at last. "All I can say is that I don't deserve a warrior's death. That's why I came back. I will not answer the Calling. I did once, and now something very bad has been unleashed, and I don't deserve the honor that so many Wardens have claimed through death at the hands of the corruption that plagues them."
He worried. Not just for her, and whatever she might have done, but for whatever she was about to ask him to do. He didn't have the strength to look up a second time.
"I want you to kill me."
Her words passed over him without reaching his ears.
"Alistair. I want you to kill me."
The corruption was a slow, painful death, that she was suffering right now. A choke in his throat, he stood up from the chair, kicking it out from under him and clenching his fists at his sides to stop them from shaking so uncontrollably. "I can't do that," he stated firmly. "I won't."
"You will, because you have to. You became king because you had to. You contended with the deaths at Ostagar because you had to. You laid down your Warden badge for the throne because you had to. You will kill me because you have to."
When he looked at her, the resignation and acceptance in her dull eyes sent a tremor through his heart. He was having trouble breathing with the thick knot that stuck in his throat like resin. This isn't right, his heart screamed at him as he brought a trembling hand to the hilt of his sword. This is humane, his mind argued.
The rose he'd given her so many years ago had wilted, but its memory stuck. Maker, he'd been so nervous he had to take a bath afterwards to get all the sweat off his body. She'd loved it, though, and she held onto it even after all the petals had fallen and it was nothing more than a hideous stem. She kept it because she loved him. He gave it to her because he loved her.
One step he'd taken towards her with his sword drawn.
They'd camped in the Deep Roads during the Blight, searching for that Paragon, and she'd been so traumatized over the broodmother. What if that happens to me? she'd kept asking aloud as Alistair soothed her against his chest. It won't, he'd reassured her. I'll never let that happen to you. And he wouldn't, because he loved her. And she believed him because she loved him.
Two steps. Two thick, heavy steps that steadily drained him of his strength. He'd climbed mountains with less trouble.
The first night they'd spent together was one that he would always regard fondly. Thank you, she'd said afterwards, much to his surprise. Tender kisses against her shoulder, fingers entwined with hers as hot breath fanned over his neck, no amount of darkspawn could have taken those moments away from him. It'd been his first time, so he was sloppy and clumsy with his movements, and she'd had to guide him through it. But she did so without complaint, because she loved him. He loved her because she loved him.
And when his sword plunged deep into her gut with the most sickening sound that ever graced his ears, he thought of those memories. He clung to them and clutched to them as he would the hand of the Maker in his time of need. Her clothed skin was cold against his fingers and he watched her eyes as what little life remained drained from them and seeped into the boundless abyss. "Thank you," she whispered on her dying breath. Not like she had on their first night, but on their last.