Sundown

To you, my second-born, I grant this gift:
In your heart shall burn
An unquenchable flame
All-consuming, and never satisfied.
-Threnodies 5:7.

He'd been in this room once before. It had awed him with its vivid tapestries and high vaulted ceilings. But not today. Today those beautiful ceilings echoed every ugly word of the crowd around him, threatening to drown him in their deafening roar. Then, he'd thought the room wondrous, more inspiring than any chantry. Now he only wanted to leave it. The cacophony of voices beat at him like surf beats the rock. He had to get out before he crumbled into so much sand, before all this turned from nightmare into reality.

"Alistair," Elissa put her hand on his arm, holding him back.

It was a pleading, placating gesture, one she'd used before. But today he couldn't feel her touch through the armor – the golden armor of Cailan's she'd convinced him to wear. Kingly armor, she'd said. Alistair held in a twisted huff of a laugh. Some king. None of this was as he'd expected. He hadn't expected much – but not this. Anything but this.

The entire chamber stood silent now, a hush falling with one word from Elissa. The sudden absence of sound was more unnerving than the previous clamor. They stared at them, waiting, as if time itself was holding its breath. He looked into Elissa's eyes and saw tears welling there. 'Trust me', they said. A surge of anger filled him and he wanted to shake her, shove her backwards, anything to stop her from looking at him that way. She shouldn't be able to look at him like that, not when she was betraying him. Not when everything they'd worked for, lived for, loved for – he held back a choking flash of pain – was turning to ash around them.

"Alistair," Riordan's accented voice curled gently around his name, echoing Elissa, asking him to understand.

"No." The word tore from his throat, raw and anguished. "You… You all said I should be more like my father, make the hard decisions. Well, I'm making them now. I've heard what my father did to the Banns who betrayed him. The ones who betrayed my grandmother, and let her head be put on a pike." His voice shook with anger, "Loghain betrayed my brother, the rightful king, just as he betrayed the Wardens…Duncan—" his voice broke off and he pointed a gauntleted finger at the man bowing before them on his knees. "He should die a traitors death, and if you won't do it, I will!"

There was a singing, sliding sound of steel on steel as Alistair drew his sword from its sheath, twisting away from Elissa. With a long graceful move, as if he'd practiced it all his life, his sword lifted high and then came arcing down towards Loghain's neck. Shock coursed up his arm as Elissa's blade met it, the two swords scraping, ringing out in the quiet room. An ache blossomed in his chest, as if she had run him through instead of blocking his strike. Loghain hadn't even flinched, his pale blue eyes regarding him impassively. Inhumanly. He wanted to call back his anger, to strike again, but all he felt was defeat. It was over, everything was over.

Alistair let his blade drop to the ground, clattering in front Anora, who stood as impassively as her father, as if she'd not called for his death moments ago.

"Alistair," Elissa stepped toward him, repeating his name again like it would matter. Like anything would matter again.

"I had these dreams…" he heard himself saying, "they don't matter now."

Elissa reached out, as if to touch his face or grasp his arm, but she stopped. The ache lanced through him and he wondered if he had taken a sword sometime during the fight. It could be the only explanation for the crushing pain that squeezed around his heart like a parasitic vine. He opened his mouth to say something witty, something cutting, but no words came out.

Even now with blood smudging her cheek she was beautiful. She'd won the Landsmeet and dueled Loghain all by herself, garnered every treaty herself. She didn't need him.

"Take care of yourself," he said. He didn't even pick up his blade. It had been his father's, after all. And who was he compared to his father? Apparently nobody. Not looking at anyone else, he turned and strode from the room, throwing the chamber doors open in front of him.

As they closed he heard the rush of conversation fill the room behind him, like surf rushing in to fill a void. Anora's strident voice called out, commanding attention. She wasted no time, he thought bitterly. The traitorous harpy. She probably conspired with her father to have Cailan killed. Now she had what she wanted – she was Queen of Ferelden and her father would be hailed a hero, instead of the murderous bastard Alistair knew him to be. Traitors, all of them.

A guard blocked the main doors, holding up a hand. Alistair didn't slow his pace.

"Stop," the man said, continuing to hold his hand up.

Alistair didn't stop. Instead he drew back his fist and punched the guard in the face, slamming him into the door behind him. He felt a satisfied crunch as the man's nose gave way under his armored fist, quickly followed by revulsion as blood poured down the man's face. He wanted to say sorry, but he couldn't. Instead he thrust the door open, clenching his jaw and refusing to look down at the guard, now trying to staunch the flow of blood with a dirty glove.

The bright sunlight outside was blinding, making his eyes water. Alistair wasn't sure where he wanted to go. Where could he go? There was nothing left. Pain unfurled inside him. Loghain was to be a warden. A warden. And Elissa was standing by his side. Alistair walked mindlessly past the stables, not registering the soft nicker his own horse gave as he passed by. He kept going, past the kennels, past the gardens, past the first stone wall and then past the second, walking straight through the towering gates of Denerim's Royal Palace.

Sometime later Alistair found himself on a beautiful cobbled street, elegant houses surrounding him. The sun was going down. How had that happened? The hazy blush of the sinking sun was too soft; its swirling colors sweet pastels. He didn't want to look at it. Instead he looked to the houses. It was suppertime, and he could see the glow of lights through the glazed windows. They seemed to taunt him with everything he would never have. A family. Friends. The camaraderie of brotherhood. He watched as the family inside sat down to dine. He couldn't see their faces or hear their voices, but he imagined they laughed, they were happy. Up and down the street lights were on, people were sitting down with their families.

At least it's not winter, he thought. I would be a frozen out here by morning. A man passed him swiftly by, glaring, and Alistair was forced to step back. His armor clanked into the lamppost behind him. Lampost. He reached his hand out, touching its smooth metal surface. His heart gave a strange twisting flop, remembering his conversation with Elissa. It had been back when he was still trying to figure out who she was, back when things were new, when just standing close to her caused a queer fluttering sensation in the pit of his stomach. It had been a poor metaphor, once he thought it out – but at the time it had been thrilling and made him think…. But none of that mattered now. He wasn't that young innocent flirting with a beautifully fierce noblewoman. He was just a tired and dirty ex-templar ex-warden ex-lover ex-bastard prince, although the bastard part was still true. He'd been ex'd out of his life.

The sky was darkening, the soft pastels losing their place to deeper purples and violets. That was better, it fit his mood. There was laughter and soft music coming from the house in front of them. The civil war and coming blight didn't exist for these people, they lived as if their world was unchanged. Maybe it was, but it wouldn't be for long. Pain and desolation would come to them, just as it had for him.

He'd come to count on two things in the preceding years, two things in the world he thought would never change. One was the Wardens, the other was Elissa. Loghain had taken both. He finally managed to rip everything away. And this time he hadn't even had to kill anyone to do it. Desolation comes to us all, he thought, looking up at the evening sky. Twilight shadows crept up around him, and stars twinkled into existence as he stood there.

How many times had they sat together at night, looking up into the sky? They'd counted stars together. She'd lain by his side by the fire, her head on his shoulder as they made up their own constellations and stories to go with them. She'd been softer at night, as if she could finally shuck off her burdens and just be herself. He'd loved her, in all her myriad of tempers and emotions, but at night… at night she was special. She'd whisper him confidences, even cry – which had made him feel good in a strange way. It had been nice to know he wasn't the only one. And then—

A horse jostled him, nearly knocking him over.

"Get out of the street, fool," an angry voice muttered as another horse and rider passed him by.

But Alistair didn't hear, the pain he'd been feeling since the Landsmeet exploded inside him, expanding like it would rip its way out of chest cavity. Then had come the night Elissa asked him into her tent. The memory ravaged him. He needed to tear into his chest, to let this pain out. Instead he stumbled, armor clanging, barely missing himself as he lost the contents of his stomach. Shaking, he slid down to his knees, new pains cried out at that, the hard armor cutting into his skin. He shook and sweat ran down his face. This was ridiculous, he told himself. But then his stomach twisted, and he bent over again, his throat convulsing as his stomach muscles squeezed tight, heaving, gagging, but there was nothing left to come out.

He lay there on the cobbled street, looking up at the stars. Even they betrayed him.

Another horse turned the corner, hoofs rapping against the stones. It gave a harsh neigh as its rider jerked the reins, trying to avoid running him over. Alistair sat up as the horse pranced around him.

"What are you, buggered in the head? Get out of the bloody street!" The man brought a riding crop down on his head.

This time, Alistair did just that.