Alistair knew how sacred a beating heart could be.
He had felt too many stop; young or old, brave or meek, kind or cruel, tainted or clean. Sometimes the beat was only just starting, and sometimes it had gone on for far too long. Sometimes it ended with a bang, with bloody temples and gasps of triumph. And sometimes it ended with a whimper, with cracked lips and fluttering eyelashes.
But if one thing was certain, it was that the beat always, always, stopped.
Alistair had felt his own go out, that night at Ostagar. On the lightning-struck tower, overrun with the corrupted beasts who shared with him not only blood, but also the desire, the need, to destroy the other.
This time, they succeeded.
The man's heart stopped, and with it, his mind and body followed.
Only somehow, he awoke. At least, most of him did. His body was functioning; the shooting pain in his shoulder could tell him that much. His mind, too, was processing his surroundings: twisted, dying trees, puddles of dark water, an orange sun blurred by heat waves on the horizon... the Korcori Wilds?
But his heart had not stirred. Yes, it was beating, if one could call the slowest crawl necessary to maintain life a beat. For all Alistair cared, it had stopped on the tower, forever gone with the hearts of his brothers and sisters on the battlefield below. With the heart of the only father he had ever known. And perhaps, with the heart of the newest Warden who had fallen beside him.
Until the creak of an old wooden door split through the suffocating silence. The noise sent a jolt through Alistair's chest, as he turned, hating himself for hoping...
And he saw her. Standing in the frame, bruised and battered, but very much alive.
It was rare enough to find one beating heart. But here they were, both of them, beating. And maybe his was barely hanging on, and maybe her's was too, but somehow, they hadn't stopped.
Some say it was fate. Some say luck, and others, skill. Like any of it mattered. A heart was far too fickle, too fragile, to be argued over. Either it was beating, or it wasn't. There were no rules on how or when or why it stopped.
A lesson that Alistair had learned too well.
And yet, here they were.
Both of them.
Beating.
And so they set off to save Ferelden. An inane task, pursued only by those who had nothing else to lose. By those who had heart beats so close to stopping, but had refused to stop.
But as much as they clung to their own lives, it was inevitable that they had to end others.
Because they were killers.
They killed.
The tainted blood that ran through their veins stained their clothes on a daily basis. One hundred, two hundred... Alistair lost count of how many darkspawn they had slain.
But it wasn't only beasts. There were people, real people... anyone who was unfortunate enough to cross their path. Anyone who wasn't deemed important enough to survive in the larger scheme of things.
As if any heart beat was worth more than another.
Everyone had a story. The girl with the curly hair, done up in pigtails by her sister, who already had wrinkles lining her freckled face. Because their mother had disappeared.
Both of their hearts, stopped.
The fisherman with eyes as blue as the sea, who had never laid hands on a weapon, but had charged into the darkspawn ranks, swearing to defend his village.
His heart, stopped.
But then there were the few who did survive.
The man, who's wife had died to save him. Who had taken Alistair's hand and mumbled in his ear, "we believe in you."
The chanter, who continued to tend her garden in front of the Chantry even after it was left in splinters.
The huddle of children, playing with the blocks of burned wood that had fallen from their roofs.
Alistair knew that he would have to kill again. The ultimate goal was to end the greatest heart beat, the one that pounded in his head and corrupted his dreams, and he would do whatever it took to achieve it.
But despite this larger plan, this epic story of heroes and monsters, he couldn't help but get caught up in the little villages.
The darkspawn would come and turn everything to dust. But in between the wreckage there were sparks of light.
Of survivors.
Of heart beats.
And Alistair learned that the combined beats of these survivors would grow to be much louder than any Archdemon could ever be.
If Alistair would have to sacrifice his heart to stop the Blight, he would do it.
But with the new-found knowledge that his duty was less about ending heart beats, and more about saving them.