A Choice of Duty
By Deadly off Topic
Rage was an easy word to say, but an even easier emotion to cling to it if one didn't have the will power, the mere presence of mind, to force it back into the churning, tumultuous depths it had come from. Why bother with it, why not let it surge and throw itself wild like the waves of a ferocious storm at sea? Because only a fool railed against the wind like a madman allowing himself to burn, to let himself be devoured, destroyed, by that chaotic madness. But Alistair pushed at it, held it back with a barely controlled line of forced calm... though barely. The line was thin, brittle... anything could make it snap... anything he carelessly let in... like Elissa.
"I don't get her. This is NOT like her, it's NOT right!" Righteous anger hung in his words, words he knew he had every right to spit tooth and nail at, but dare he say more... reveal the betrayed, suffering man this newly made king was. Gah! It was all wrong anyway. Why did it matter to hold onto what little self-control he had? "I should have known it would come out like this. I NEVER get what I want." Lowering his head to the cool, familiar feel of stone, Alistair rested for a moment against the curved window that brought in the heady, autumn air. He didn't look out, knowing full well that to take in the evening's daily salute of nightfall, retreating beyond the valleys and hills still visible from this side of Eamon's castle walls, would make him feel no comfort at all. He was trapped in this gilded cage, there was no mistaking that.
"Alistair, I'm sure there are reasons for what she felt she had to do." Wynne's matronly voice, soft and soothing as honey, drifted between them as she laid an outstretched hand onto his shoulder. Though she wore her formal robes of red silk fastened with a cord of gold, her silver-white hair was held back into a tight bun making her appear a lot sterner than her voice and her demeanor allowed. Instinctively, Alistair stiffened at her touch making Wynne draw away with pity in her face. "You don't need to shut the rest of us out too, Alistair. This is NOT like you."
"I'm not. I just... that is... I don't know who she is anymore," the whisper was hoarse, aimed more for himself, as he turned about to face the mage. "Why did she do this? Why side with Loghain after all he's done - all he's betrayed?" The stone behind him cut into his back, its hard substance an unwieldy reminder of how unmovable things - people - could be. "I thought she understood... I thought we shared an ...understanding," and here he dare not mention the word love in all it's painful incarnations. Nor of hot smouldering bodies melting away the last of fall's lingering chill or of intimate conversations where souls were bared, swallowed whole and intertwined.
Wynne's fingers were dappled with age and yet still retaining a firmness - a toughness that came from the strong woman within - as they dared to move forward again to, this time, brush back a loose strand of golden brown hair that had fallen free against Alistair's face. The gesture was both a reflex of matronly care and a friend's condolence. It was also a gesture that sapped at the boiling rage that had been pounding away at him, leaving Alistair to feel a disquiet weight of emptiness come slowly in. He didn't like the feeling. It left an ache that was too big to close. "Whose is to say what she thinks, Alistair. She has never been one to share her thoughts. She has tried countless times to go at this thing alone... to work, as it were, in the shadows as if she were the only one there. In that regard she is too similar to Morrigan, a trait I wish they did not share."
Looking up into Wynne's wise, experienced eyes and knowing full well that his meager attempt at shielding his own trouble pain was all too visible, Alistair wished he could grasp at the floundering spark of rage and to rekindle it. He needed it so much right now. This was NOT the time to drown in despair and heart ache when he had no other choice but to be a strong king leading his subjects to victory against this darkspawn blight. Yet, he was only human. It was impossible or Alistair to be both filled with light and be a beacon of light when his whole purpose of being had ripped out and stomped on by the one woman in the whole world he had devoted his soul, his reason for existence to.
But Alistair was going to have to do something though. Exert a hell of a lot of control over his thoughts, perhaps herd them together and buried them. To tied them with cord... the way his warden would do if she was in this position. NO, she wasn't HIS any more! And yet that pounding of rage that Wynne had unfairly stolen from him, left him weak... his voice when he spoke again was too pained, too self-reflective. "I run the Landsmeet in my mind over and over again - I try to read meaning into a word said here, a word there... I try to curdle all arguments and figure out what went wrong... I find no way to - to..."
"Give it an outcome other than what has happened?" Her voice was soft, kind - much the way he'd think his mother's voice would be if his had lived. Even Wynne's touch as she adjusted his dark clothing, smoothing the collar and fixing a billowy sleeve, made him feel like a little boy. "You shouldn't be doing this to yourself Alistair. It's already said and done... torturing yourself will not bring her back. You won't get her back like that."
"Who said I want her back?" But he knew that he trembled when he said the words and that turning from Wynne to stare out at the courtyard outside was his small attempt to bury the truth of what she has just said. "I am to be king and I can have anyone I want. I might be spared with a little grace in choosing a wife for now, but what does it matter. In time Arl Eamon will no doubt suggest I wed - if not Anora, some other noble household's daughter. It would serve her right if I did." The venom in those words left him breathless. "I wonder how she'd feel with me and another woman... I doubt she'd care."
"For love of both you and her, I rather not answer that question, Alistair." Her dark red robes shifted against her feet as she drew away a little, as if to pace. Wynne was clearly agitated. "It would not be fair of me to take sides. I love you both... dearly."
"Oh Wynne, I didn't mean it as a... I don't know." His frustration made him stiffen, placing both palms flat on the cold stone of the window ledge. His dark eyes, unreadable. "I'm just so... I haven't been this angry since Eamon sent me to the Chantry... I feel so -so"
"Betrayed?"
"Ugly word that is, but... I guess your right." He shifted again and sat himself on the ledge, arms crossed against his chest folding the rich fabric into a multiple of distorted creases. When he spoke there seem to fall a numbness, a sort of false calmness that his yammering heart ironically contested against. "She betrayed me. The woman I loved most in the world has stabbed me in the back. But hey, why should I complain? I got made King out of it, something I have NEVER wanted and she knew very well I NEVER wanted it. Surprisingly, I am taking it pretty well."
Wynne was quiet a moment. What could she say to that when everyone in their small, closely knit party knew Alistair's feelings about being king. When she found her voice again, she seemed subdued. "I don't think the shock of most of it has worn off yet. Alistair I-"
"You don't think? Ha, if this is just the tip of the iceberg, I don't want to know what the rest will beach up." It might not have been the full-blown rage breaking and snapping that fine line of control, but the anger that had come was welcome to him... it gave Alistair something to feel instead of the empty despair chewing him to bits. This at least filled places in him that let Alistair move forward - to do SOMETHING. He just had to go with it, let it feed him enough so that he could at least carry through this night and the ensuring battle that would follow after their forced march to Denerim tomorrow. "But you know what bothers me more than letting that traitor live... the fact that they made both made him a Warden... Being a Gray Warden is NOT a punishment!" He ground the words when he meant to just whisper them so they echoed in the chamber as if he had thrown an accusing finger into the air. "She went against everything I believed in. Every grain of it. You can't forgive that can you? You can't just say, "Hey, dear, I understand you had a moment lapse of judgment," right?"
"But that's what you want though." Cutting words so sharp that Alistair's wounded look left Wynne feeling a tad guilty though her words had been necessary to snap Alistair out of this on and off again roller coaster ride of emotion. "And don't look at me like that... you look like one of my students who just got caught with his hand in the cookie jar he was told he could go into."
Alistair slid from his sit and adjusted his tunic that had ridden up before drifting slowly towards Wynne. "I just feel like one second I can talk to you and then the next I get this slap in the face as if I should know better." He could hear the growing sound of footsteps that were echoing from the open door leading to the hall outside and it made him wonder who else was awake this night. By the sound of it, they were coming quickly.
"Perhaps you should- Good heavens, Leliana? What is the matter? You're shaking and so white." Whatever Wynne might have said to Alistair was lost after that as they both stood watching the bard panting deeply and crouched over with her hands resting on her knees.
It took a good handful of seconds before Leliana could stand and speak which gave both Alistair and Wynne more than enough of an opportunity to see that the woman was geared up as if she expected a fight to erupt - or as if she expected to soon join one. Thick dark leather clothing, short swords and daggers belted at the waist together with a quiver and bow slung over her left shoulder. She definitely was going all out. "'lissa's gone. She left us behind!"
"What do you mean gone? This is some mistake, yes?" Wynne sounded doubtful, but Alistair already knew and it didn't take that gut wrenching, sinking feeling to strike it home either. Although it was there, heavy in his body.
He came to stand between them, a tall figure between the shorter two, and his face looked suddenly aged beyond his years. "Not only does she stab me in the back, but she's gone off to deal with this without us. ... like Howe's castle." Absently his hand clenched at the side as he remembered the self-inflicted pain she'd tried to drive into him - into all of them - to trick them into not going with her to face that murderous bastard Howe. "I should have seen this coming."
"She can't protect everyone if she goes alone. Surely she knows the Blight has numbers that will overwhelm her." Wynne's practicality makes him wince, but her next words slam him below the belt. "This is crazy. That's a suicide mission if I ever heard one. Is she going there to die?"
"When it comes to her heart, she's far from practical, Wynne." It's Leliana whose spoken, her Orlesian accent making the words stick in their smooth tone. "I know the both of you think she's some cold, calculated thinking machine, but she's more than that... she's always been thinking ahead. Always doing stuff to protect us. You know how much she cares about us Wynne...how much she loves you, Alistair."
"Love? Right." But though Alistair's words sound full of bravado, he instead is feeling the all too real need of wanting to bury his face in the sand. Run away! Leave it all behind and to NOT care about what happens... especially to her... let it go. Deep down though, he knows that what Leliana has said is true. Everything Elissa has ever done in any way or form was always to protect those she held dear - those she loved. Top of the line and always. And in the blinking of the eyes, Leliana's brash, quick words had done something that Wynne in all her subtle, matronly kindness could not have done. Given him the key to Elissa's motive.
What better way to protect someone by making them think you didn't love them. And by the Maker, Elissa was very good at making someone think she didn't care. So good that Alistair had brooded and raged in this room for most of the night while she slipped out the other end of the castle undetected. How in the Maker's good name had she been raised to shoulder the brunt of everything and NOT let anyone else in to help.
Before he can speak though, Leliana shifts towards the doorway and looks nervous, "There's more. When I found out what she did, I went to check on the others quickly, that's why I was out of breath getting to you. Zevran, Loghain and Riordan are gone... so is most of your army." Leliana's face had paled unnaturally so that it was stark against her blood red hair and clear blue eyes. "She's gone ahead to deal with the Archdemon herself with Arl Eamon and his soldiers."
"By the Maker!" And the thin line crack, exploded and flew apart under his oath. If he could have hit something, he would have done so. "What? Did no one stop her, think to come tell their king, "Hey, this female Warden has stolen half your fighting force?" His face was purple with unbridled rage. "What are these people doing here? WHAT IS SHE DOING?"
"Sounds like she planned to leave us behind and that she convinced the Arl to do the same. I can say that might make sense in wanting to keep the king alive," and Wynne had the good grace not to look at Alistair as she said this, "but she took the others... Without us... what was she thinking... if she should fall in battle, she has no healer. She needs a healer."
Alistair's heart had exploded in his chest, something he was shocked to realize he still had beating in there despite the number of times it had hammering into his throat. "She took, with the exception of Riordan, two men who have tried to kill her, over me. Over us," and though he amended the last part, he saw the look Wynne and Leliana shared. Saw it and didn't care. Didn't have time to. If he was to get to Denerim, he'd have to start now and that meant getting his armour and his weapons as well as a very fast horse.
"Where are you going Alistair?" Wynne called back and for the first time Alistair realized, he had walked out the doorway and into the narrow halls of the corridor with his head held high...with purpose.
"I'm going to get MY warden back and I'm going to kick the ass out of any darkspawn who get in my way."
Author's Note:
Plans: Two parter if possible.
Reasoning: There were several things I wanted to do with this story, half of them of I haven't even touched on yet, but with respect to Alistair... I wanted to show his suffering and I also wanted to give him a viable, legit reason to take back the Grey Warden he feels betrayed him. I think the problem for me stems from reading too many fanfics where Elissa and Alistair part badly after the Landsmeet only to get back together afterwards with her treating Alistair poorly over decisions SHE MADE and with Alistair only being too happy to forgive and forget. Oh, I'm quite sure he'll take Elissa back at some point, but he needs a pretty damn good reason to after she comprised his morals.
Time worked: September 15, 2010/October 12, 2010