Pacing in the Twilight Garden
The full moon was bright against the darkness of the night sky. Stars winked at the world below and at one young lady pacing in the darkness. Veridise stepped carefully trying to step in the footprints of her previous cycle around the fountain as she tried to calm her mind and lose herself in the ambiguity of her steps.
"How did I know this is where you would be?"
She stopped, staring at the next footprint for a moment before facing him. "Creature of habit, aren't I?"
"Not nearly as much so as you would like to have people believe. What are you doing down here?" he asked as he approached. She became certain by the slight change in his smile that he noticed and recognized the footprints. Alistair took her hand in his and kissed it gently. "Truly, my dear, is there something wrong?"
Veridise considered her answer for a moment, knowing the truth as well as skirting it would cause him more strain. "Denerim causes my mind to race. This is the only way I have found to adequately calm it," she revealed softly.
Alistair nodded and sat on the edge of the fountain. He glanced at her feet then looked at the tracks to confirm his initial impression. Then he gazed up at her waiting for her to continue.
"During that expedition back to Haven my mind was focused and certain. As it was during the Blight. But with no calling, no threat, my mind is free to replay past events and suggest my failure."
"How do you mean?"
"When we sought the Urn for Eamon, I chose to align myself with Father Kolgrim and agreed to something I had no intention of doing. I lied to him to achieve safer passage to the Ashes. But when the expedition got to the Temple on the mountain top, they were gone. Did I skirt around the test? In making a deceptive choice did I prompt the Maker to remove the ashes to keep people like me from them? Those that, like me, would pretend at worthiness?"
"Now, stop." His voice held more vigor than she remembered. Alistair stood and looked down at her, seeming more like her king than he had in any of his dealings with her. "You did not gain access to the ashes through deceit. You gained access to the temple. You were allowed to approach the altar because you are worthy."His hand grazed her cheek and his words were that of a commander as well as a lover.
"The guardian was gone," she replied softly. "The gauntlet lay complete. No tests and yet the fire still burned before the barren altar."
"This is your fault how?" Alistair asked holding her cheeks in his hands. "It cannot be the fault of one. If the Maker removed the ashes, then it is the fault of us all. Not you." He looked into her eyes for a moment as he watched his words sink in then he kissed her lips softly. "Mmm. I've wanted to do that since I received word of your approach."
Veridise leaned against his chest and hugged him tightly as his arms wrapped around her. The beat of his heart pounded in her brain.
"I did not realize that you had kept any of the Legion of the Dead's armor," he said resting his cheek atop her head.
She loosed her grip and looked up at him again. "They are very much like us, like the Wardens. Kardol mentioned the make of the boots, the soles of which are made in such a way that the footprints show neither forward nor backward, there is only the now." She paused looking at the tracks she had spent nearly an hour laying down in the dirt and grass around the fountain. "Only now and the heroic death that is owed," she said wistfully.
"That is very much how things were. But do you really feel there is nothing more than the now?"
Her eyes met his again, and there was something there that had not been there before their encounter with the archdemon. "I have found that whenever I look ahead my eyes are quickly directed to the past-to my missteps. And even when I do venture to think about tomorrow I am quickly reminded by my own pulse that my time is set out before me. My days are intricately numbered-"
"As are mine," Alistair interrupted sharply, but his voice softened. "As are the days of all who live."
"Yes, but you and I know how many we have left. We know with greater certainty when we will die. To some extent we even know how we will die, though I feel that my death will be less glorious than yours," Veridise muttered looking away from him.
"How do you figure?" Alistair hooked his index finger under her chin and guided her eyes back to his.
Veridise began pacing again, gesticulating as she spoke. "Do you not remember Hespith's tale? How the women were groomed? What they became?" her voice was calm and even. She shook her head and looked down into the fountain, at the moon's reflection in the rippling surface. "I will not take that chance." There was a renewed strength and determination in her words, as she trailed off into memory. "Survive the bloody murder of my family and friends, slay an archdemon, only to become mother to the very things we have fought to destroy. That will not be my fate." Veridise looked at him sharply. She turned away and set her foot in another print, taking up her cycle around the center point of the garden awash in twilight. Alistair was quiet until she rounded the fountain back to where he stood. "Shale seeks release from the stone that binds her spirit. She is tired."
"This is not something I want to hear is it?" Alistair replied sitting again, resting his forehead against his knuckles.
"If no release can be found," his lover offered, her fingers threading through his hair as she stood next to him. "She has agreed to accompany me into the Deep Roads, to where the Anvil rested. There we will meet Cairidin."
"Why did you not speak to me about this?" he barked impatiently as he looked up at her, his pain clear in his bright eyes.
Veridise moved to stand before him, stroking his face with her fingertips as she looked into his hurt-filled eyes. "How could I ask you to kill me?" she asked in a voice above a whisper. She was silent for a moment. "You are a just man, my love. I could not ask you to go against all you know to be right. And though your compassion and love for me might make you agree, could you really kill me? I know you are strong, so much stronger than many give you credit for. But there are few who are strong enough to plunge a blade into the heart of one they love."
"You could."
It felt like an accusation, and it was, though not solely directed at her. Veridise knew that in that moment he was accusing her of being cold enough to kill him if he asked it, while accusing himself of being too weak to end the suffering of the woman who held his heart. She swallowed hard and nodded closing her eyes for a moment before looking back at him. "I could. But I am not you. My definitions of life's fundamentals are much more… tenuous than yours could ever be. I live in the gray, while you life in the light."
He looked up at her for a few moments. "Is that why you spoke to the Orlesian Wardens and asked them to curtail the recruitment of female wardens?"
She nodded. "I spoke to the Warden-Commander in great detail about my concern. There is no way of knowing that a female Warden could be taken and used in such a way. And there is no guarantee that she could not. But I suggested that only the most promising of females be inducted. And that it becomes customary for female wardens going into the Deep Roads to meet their end not to go alone. Made them understand that whoever accompanies them must be willing to kill their sister."
Alistair leaned his forehead against her waist. "Another harsh truth of being a Grey Warden."
"True," she sat beside him and leaned against him for a moment before unfastening the heavy plate boots she had been tromping about the garden in. "But you are right, there is more than just now... Past, present, future-it all haunts me. But I can only calm my mind when I can concentrate on the now, which is why I keep the boots."
"Well, I must say, perhaps with a few ribbons they could become quite the fashion statement."
"Did you really come all the way out here just to critique my footwear?"
Alistair grinned at her, happy to put away the weightier topics that all too often accompanied his conversations with her. "Quite the contrary. I came to woo you."
"Truly?" she asked as her fingertips slid down his neck.
"Most definitely," he grinned kissing her playfully. "I have great hopes of being a complete and utter slave to desire."
"That sounds quite tempting," she whispered against his lips as she pressed her body against his.
They kissed on the edge of the fountain for a time, but a playful bark interrupted. Cur's excitement got the better of him as he bounded through the fountain rather than around it to get to his master. "You just wanted to play in the fountain, didn't you?" Veridise asked rubbing at his ears as she bent toward him. The mabari barked excitedly. "And now you are all wet." Another joyful bark. "You cannot sleep on the bed all wet." He whined a little. She leaned her forehead against the top of the mabari's head. "We will play in the morning, old friend. But now it is time to rest."
"And dry off," Alistair added shaking his hands in a wide gesture.
Cur growled at Alistair for a moment before nuzzling Veridise's hand and trotting back through the water, seemingly taking great joy in each splash. Veridise picked up her boots, but Alistair took them from her and held her hand tightly in his as they made their way back into the palace. "Seems many of us have missed you," he whispered into her hair as he reached past her to open the door.