English is not my first language so I apologize in advance for any mistakes. If someone wants to point them out, they are welcome.

A sad little something I wrote because my current world state frustrates me. Like, really. So basically, my City Elf Warden replaces Stroud/Loghain/Alistair in Inquisition.

Current world state:
Kallian Tabris, rogue, Assassin, romanced Alistair, hardened him, spared Loghain and married Alistair to Anora. Bhelen is King, the Anvil is destroyed, the Werewolves are cured, the Mages are saved, Loghain is Kieran's father, the Architect is alive.
Marian Hawke, Blood Mage, romanced Anders, killed him after the destruction of the Chantry, killed the Arishok, sided with the Mages.
Ellana Lavellan, Mage, Knight Enchanter, romanced Cullen, allied with the Mages and the Grey Wardens, Celene and Briala rule together, Inquisition disbanded.
1 out of 3 who gets a happy ending. That's not bad, I guess.
Am I pro-Mages? Nooooo, absolutely not ;D

Chapter 1

Skyhold was cold.
Alistair tightened his leather coat around his body, trying to retain whatever remained of warmth in his limbs.
Damn.
He missed Ferelden. Denerim and its damp, yet warm weather.
Did the Inquisition really needed to establish its stronghold in those bloody mountains?

He was being unfair, he knew it. The weather was not the only reason for the coldness that seemed to seep into his flesh. The Calling at the back of his mind, whispering its poisonous tune, was not helping.
False.
False Calling, he had to remind himself. He was not dying. Not yet, anyway.
The Inquisitor had affirmed as such. An infect parody, created by an Ancient Darkspawn Magister, to lure the Grey Wardens into desperate measures. Into betrayal.

He could not take out the cold out of his bones.
He had not been an active Grey Warden for then years, and yet...and yet he had been reminded of his inexorable fate with most displeasure. When the time comes, he would have to go to the Deep Roads, and die. Being the King of Ferelden would not save him in the end. He would die alone under a rock. It was hardly cheering.
What a fool he had been.
You can't leave the Order like that, Alistair.
Oh yes, I can.
She had been right, ten years ago. She had been right.
A fool, indeed.

The Inquisitor reminded him of her. Not because of the similar shape of their ears or eyes, but because there was a fire, a fierceness in Ellana Lavellan that matched the one that had been burning in Kallian Tabris' heart. A fire he had extinguished, he knew it.
He had not seen her in ten years. Nine years and a half. Once, in Amaranthine, after the Blight. And her eyes had been cold and dead, showing no sign of love or acknowledgement at his sight. And he had been too deep in his resentment to care.
He had cast her aside, or perhaps it had been her who did.
It had seemed a good idea, at the time. She had spared Loghain Mac Tir, after all, stabbed him in the back at the worst moment possible, and that was something he could never forgive. And she had put him on a throne he did not want and put a crown on his head that was too heavy for him to bear and shattered his heart in hundreds of pieces.
It had seemed fair, to do the same.
A fool.

Afterwards, he had seen Sten's disapproving look, Morrigan's poisonous glares, Leliana's sad eyes and Zevran who was playing ostensibly with his daggers while staring at him. He had heard Oghren's disgusted snorts, and Shale's mumbling about crushing it's head until there's nothing left. And then the dog who would not even let him stroke him behind the ears as he used to do, and Wynne...
Oh, Wynne had been the worst. The closest thing to a Mother he had ever had, who simply looked disappointed. He had disappointed Wynne.
I was afraid that she would be the one to hurt you, she had simply said. I was wrong.
And she had left, and they had never spoken again. She was dead, now, Wynne. And she had died in the arms of her son, her real son, and by that time she had needed him, Alistair, no longer.

He had deemed them all unfair, at the time. He had cursed them to the Void, for turning their back on him. He had pretended not to care, even though it hurt just as bad as the day Eamon had sent him to the monastery.
And he had resigned himself bitterly to his royal fate, and had not been at their, her side to take down the Archdemon. And knowing that she, them, all of them, even Loghain, had survived...it had seemed unfair, too.
And she, they, had all left. And he had remained.
Alone.

Well, not exactly.
He had inherited of Anora.
He had expected a nightmare.
It had not been.
He liked her enough, ten years later.
Not love.
Love he could not.
But like...
She was sweet, in private. Strong but sweet. She had been hurt. She liked power and he had given her that and so they had gotten along quite well in the end. Ferelden was prosperous again.
He was content.

Anora had given him a son.
It seemed that after all, Anora Theirin, née Mac Tir, widow of Cailan Theirin, was not the barren one.
There had been suspicions of course. But the boy was his, there was no denying it, even with the Taint in his blood. His sweet little Duncan, who had his eyes and his freckles and his dimple at the corner of his mouth. His son, that he loved more than anything, and who yet was the living proof of the promise that he had broken.
You're the first woman I have ever spend the night with, and if I have my way, you'll be the last.
He still remembered the first time he had woke up alone in his bed and searched frantically for her between the sheets, finally to remember that she was not there and never would be anymore. He had felt so lonely. And then, there had been Anora and well...
He was a weak man.

And had she not broken her promise as well?
There had been rumors, whispers in the street that he had at first refused to hear, but that had still found their way and crept into his heart like poison.
That she had bedded Teagan Guerrin the night before the army left Redcliffe to march on Denerim, something that his uncle did not even bother to deny. A few weeks, and she was already in another man's arms.
That she had taken lovers, in Amaranthine. Sometimes, it was the Howe whelp, sometimes the serial-escapist Apostate, whose name he could not remember. Sometimes both of them at the same time.
Sometimes it was about Loghain, who should have been sent far, far away in Orlais by the First Warden, had she not fought tooth and nails to keep him by her side.
And sometimes, Zevran's shadow that...
Sometimes.
It brought pictures in his mind, that burned behind his closed eyelids even as he did not wanted to see. He would press his fists against his eyes, hoping that it would make them disappear. But it would not.
And, Maker forgive him, the very thought of her, bare and offered, body arching beneath someone that was not him, beneath hands sliding over her skin that were not his own, was enough to make him feel sick.
But she was not his, never his, and so he had no right to expect her to respect an oath he was himself no longer entitled to.

He had his son. He had his wife. He had Ferelden.
He did not had her, he did not even know where she was, if she was safe, if she was hearing the Calling as well. And she did not need him, had not needed him for ten years, and it was what was best.
He was content.
But right now, he was cold.
Dammit.

The fire was running low in the latge stone chimney. The Inquisition had given him a spacious and elegant room, with a large four poster bed, a desk and even a balcony. Fit for a king, one could say. Lady Montilyet was delightful host...and a wise tactician. She knew how to wrap her guests around her little finger. Let alone the royal kind of guests.
He thus had appartments with a view, as far as he could gaze, upon the Frostback and what was beyond. Ferelden. His entire kingdom seen from the top of a mountain.
It was breathtaking.

He also had a sight on the gardens, but he avoided looking down there. Because Morrigan seemed to have elected the place as her personal study. And every time he would venture on the balcony, she would lift her head and glare at him with her cold golden eyes, as if she wanted to set him on fire. Which she could probably do, but that was not the point.
The Witch had changed.
They had barely spoken, since he had arrived to Skyhold with his suit and soldiers. Curtesies. Nothing more. Yet this Morrigan was not the Morrigan he had travelled with and hated with all his heart ten years ago.
She was softer. Quieter. She no longer seemed to rejoice in the pain that usually came in people's eyes with every single venomous word dripping out of her mouth. Her thorns seemed to have dulled with time.
The child was certainly no stranger to this.
Yes, Morrigan had a child. A rather sweet boy of something like ten years old, who looked and behaved nothing like her. A boy she doted upon and looked at as if he was the greatest wonder in the world. It was...disturbing, to say the least. But he remembered the birth of his own son and how he had instantly fallen in love with the tiny pink bundle writhing in Anora's arms.
Somehow, he understood.

A decade and a child. That had been enough to change him. Why would it not be the case for her as well?
He was still uneasy in her presence, but the change was not unwelcome. Perhaps, with time, they would one day be able to lead a civilized conversation, like old friends.
He had no idea who the boy's father was, though. Knowing Morrigan, he in fact did not want even to know. At all.

Alistair wandered to the balcony, tightening his furred coat around him, and looked over the railing with caution. There she was, the Swamp Witch, on her entitled stone bench. Except that this time, she did not lift her eyes to prey over him.
There was someone sitting on the bench with her, whose conversation apparently seemed more worthy of her attention than him. He felt a bit slighted.

Alistair squinted his eyes. Too far beneath him. He could not distinguish the person's features, that were hidden under a cowl. But he, or she, more likely she, was wearing a Grey Warden armor, the blue leathers and silver griffons shining under the pale winter sun.
Another Warden.
Another poor soul that was likely tortured by the insidious song of the false Calling, seeking refuge in Skyhold instead of Adamant Fortress like her brothers and sisters.
The Inquisition's famous Warden contact, perhaps, that had uncovered Corypheus' plot, and whose name and identity he had not been given access to.
Maker.
He missed wearing the Grey Warden uniform, so light and supple. So much better than the fancy silk clothes or the heavy plate armors adorned with gold that a King had to tuck himself into. But he was a Grey Warden no longer, except for the Taint running in his blood. And he could sense the Taint in the Warden below too, calm, dormant almost. At least, he had not lost that.

Alistair saw the lad, Kieran, running through the bushes, right into the arms of her mother, and the Warden pat his head awkwardly. The King sighed. He missed his son, too. His laughter. His smiles. His sweet little boy.
The Warden sat up and said something, and Morrigan laughed and waved. Little Kieran took the Warden's hand and followed as she turned away, the boy hopping by her side.
And then...
What guidance did you find in those swaying hips, uh?
Curious, to think of Wynne, dear departed Wynne. What did it had to do with...

The King raised a hand to shield his eyes from the pale morning sun. He needed to see better. The Warden had a slight limp, but he indeed knew the sway of those hips. He had felt it under his gaze and in his hands, warm flesh and bones rolling beneath his clutched fingers. Once. In another life.
No, no, no, I wasn't looking at her...hindquarters. I gazed...glanced in that direction.
How innocent he had been.

His fists clenched convulsively, and so did his heart. There was only one person in this blighted world that Morrigan was close enough with to entrust with whatever child she would have.
Kallian Tabris.
The Hero of Ferelden, Arlessa and Warden Commander of Amaranthine, was there, at Skyhold, and he had not been informed of it. A flaw in Lady Montilyet's plan? Or perhaps in Leliana's? She, too, had changed. She was no longer the sweet and shy Chantry sister he had met in Lothering. She was cold now, cold and hard as steel, and she frightened him.

In the garden, Morrigan lifted her head from her book and looked at him, malevolent golden eyes veiled under her thick lashes like those of a predator. One of those wolves she could take the shape of. The B...Witch of the Wilds was probably smirking.
He could not be sure.

There should be five chapters, maybe more...Give me your thoughts! What do you want to see next?