Disclaimer: Bioware owns Dragon Age: Origins and its characters. Etc.
"You say that as if I'm giving you a choice."
With those words, he was gone, and the world changed. No, it changed not an hour before that, when Riordan failed, poor man. One of us died at that moment, our bodies just hadn't figured it out yet.
Anora is surprisingly sympathetic; she, too, had lost a man she came to love, even if wasn't the towering romance out of tales that Alistair and I shared so briefly, like a fierce fire. She promises me that both Grey Wardens will have statues. She did not mention one to her father at the time.
No one else seems to care. Was I the only one who called him friend? Wynne, Leliana , I thought they at least cared for him. Wynne seemed to be the grandmother he never knew, even when he learned more of her past. I understand, barely, the stoic Sten, who seems to think there could be no greater glory. Shale has always been contemptuous of others, and Oghren spends so much time in the ale barrel...
Still, it hurts.
But I have a secret. After I limp my way through the celebrations, secure promises for more freedom for my mage brethren, receive a title that means less than nothing to me now... I realize that I have missed my last moonblood.
The impossible has happened – it is tough enough, as he told me once, for one Grey Warden to conceive a child, let alone two. And one an elf and the other a human? I think back to Morrigan's deal that I could not take, and wonder if she bestowed a different parting gift that night in return. A child of that last, desperate love-making. What was the line ... "Before we spill our blood in battle, let us feel it pulse in our veins?"
After Jowan, I don't know how much I trust Irving, and if I go to Wynne, he will know sooner or later. So I go to Eamon, a man practiced in keeping royal bastards safe from a possibly hostile throne. I deal with the Orleisian Wardens when they arrive; we work together on building the order up. I know that he would have been disappointed in me, if I did not.
I name the boy Alistair. His eyes swiftly darken to that golden brown I know so well, though his hair remains very blond; I'm told this is common and it will darken with time. I don't know how much time he has – he is doubly born of the taint, and I fear he has been born to it. He is always awake when I come to him in the morning, as if he knows I am coming, even though he is only a toddler.
Thirty years is more than some mothers have with their sons, and I mean to hold all of it close. I must be careful that I don't smother him with it.
It is far, far longer than I had with his father.
Author: This story is dedicated to a friend of mine, named Phil. He was diagnosed with Cystic Fibrosis before he was a year old. He was born with a death sentence on him, and he was lucky to make it to twenty seven. I think he would have enjoyed this game; when he died, we were halfway through playing a Dungeons and Dragons adventure in his hospital room with him.
This idea was burning a hole in my brain, so no one has beta-read it for me, so please let me know if I have any stupid grammar problems. It's embarrassing.