Life as we know it is ©BioWare
She had always seemed so strong. "Strong as the Stone", as the dwarven saying went.
She had hacked down more than her fair share of enemies on the battlefield. She had gathered and held together their strange little band of misfits, had made all the hard decisions he had forced on her when he refused to step up after Duncan died. Even though the threat of death was around every corner and the world itself seemed set against them, there had been something indomitable about her. As though she could have defeated the whole Blight through willpower alone.
That was why it was so unreal to see her lying there, still as the Stone from whence she came.
It was such a simple, silly thing that had felled her. She had landed wrong. The ogre had been enraged and grabbed her up, and she stabbed at the huge paw that held her, so fast that her hands were a blur as the double daggers she carried made a pulpy mess out of what used to be its thumb. Wynne and Morrigan both had tried to cast paralyzing enchantments, to give her time to pry herself loose, but the ogre had screamed in pain and fury, and thrown her as hard as it could.
She had flown end over end through the air like a ragdoll, trying to right herself, trying to aim for a bush or perhaps a miraculous pile of pillows; but air was not a familiar element to dwarves.
And she landed wrong.
It had taken them a while to realize their fearless leader hadn't jumped back up to join the fray. They'd finally felled the creature, panting from exertion, resting their hands on their knees or plopping down on the ground to catch their breath and recover. One by one, they noticed she was still missing, and began to wade out through the tall grass in search of her, kindhearted jokes that she must have been tossed very far indeed, given her small size and how long it was taking her to make her way back.
Morrigan found her.
The others' attention was immediately drawn to the witch, alerted by the sudden stillness of her movements, the stiffness in her shoulders, though she didn't make a sound. They made their way slowly to her, not wanting to acknowledge the panic rising in their bellies. What game was she playing, they wondered. What sort of trick was this?
They came upon her then, crumpled in the tall grass. She looked strangely beautiful beneath the bruises and the blood. Her eyes were glassy and half closed; her lips partially open, questioning. Her neck bent at an impossible angle.
They had all seen death; up-close, personal, violent death. They had all killed. If you counted darkspawn and other fell creatures, they were each potentially responsible for ending hundreds of lives. They had seen fields choked with mangled corpses, had watched the color drain out of a person as a knife slid into their belly or a poison swelled their airway shut. They shouldn't have been troubled by this, something so small and clean.
Wynne had hurriedly dropped to her knees beside the small body, blue healing magic reaching out, desperately seeking a spark of life, an anchor to cling to and breathe life back into their leader, their friend.
It was not to be.
They weren't sure how long they stood over the body, how many minutes or hours passed in stunned silence. It was Sten who finally broke the stillness; he scooped her up, cradling her broken form with surprising gentleness and took her back towards camp. Alistair had cursed himself as they followed; he should have been the one to carry her, should have stepped forward and made some sort of decision. He owed her that much as a fellow Grey Warden. As the last Grey Warden.
Sten laid the small body out at the center of camp; stepping back, he had fidgeted in a very un-Sten like manner, for the first time unsure of what to do. None of them had known what to do.
Bodahn, their traveling dwarven merchant, described dwarven death rites to them. They were far from the resting place of her ancestors, and they didn't have the means to construct the stone sarcophagus that her people normally used for their dead. So they did the best they could; they found a place near camp that was mostly stone and took turns hacking into it, trying to make the grave as deep as possible both to protect her remains from scavengers and to place her as close to the Stone as they could. They covered her with rubble and rocks, careful not to use any dirt.
When they were through, they all stood silent and awkward around the small grave, some weeping, some dry-eyed. It was the moment Alistair had been dreading; she had been the unquestioned leader of their small band. She had gathered their disparate companions and held them together, sometimes through sheer force of will alone. Now that she was gone, now that he was the last, he wasn't sure what would happen. Sten might try a hostile take-over; Zevran might take advantage of the vacuum of power and complete his original mission by killing him and returning to the Crows. Or they might all just drift away, one by one.
"Where next, Alistair?" He looked up in shock. Morrigan, who had said not a word since discovering the body, who had made no eye contact with anyone, was now staring at him purposefully. She was naming him leader; she who despised him, whom he had expected to be the first to abandon them.
When he took too long to answer, Sten stepped forward. "We should move on from here. We will honor our leader's memory by completing her mission for her. Do you not agree?"
And there it was. Their little band would stay together (at least for now), and they were all looking to him to guide them. Alistair suppressed a shudder. No, he would be strong. He would not disgrace her memory by allowing all that she'd built to fall apart. Clearing his throat, he said with more confidence than he felt, "Yes, you're right. Let's pack up camp and get back on the road. We continue on to Denerim."
After all the supplies had been gathered and everyone prepared to leave, Alistair approached the grave to make a final, private good-bye. He reached into his pack and withdrew the rose he had found in Lothering. It was still inexplicably fresh, even after all this time, though he could tell that it was beginning to wither. He had linked the rose to his fellow Grey Warden in his mind; a thing of marked beauty, of hope even, amongst the decay and darkness. It seemed sadly appropriate that with her passing the rose, too, would begin to fade.
He stared down at the gently wilting rose, reminded of the almost-feelings that had begun to form in his heart. He had cared for her, maybe more than cared. Besides missing her strong presence, her unwavering support, he would always wonder, he knew, what might have been between them. He swallowed thickly and placed the rose gently on her grave.
"May you find your way, as you helped me find mine."