Disclaimer- As much as I wish otherwise, I do not own DAO. I do not own any of the characters there-in, including the female Cousland origin character, though I would like to think my interpretation of her is my own. I do not own the environment, events, dialogue, etc. I expect and will receive nothing from this story but the joy of paying homage to excellence. (Imitation, after all, is sincere flattery.)
Nonetheless, I do work hard on my little stories, and I love them. Please don't repost or reprint them without my knowledge. Further, like all fanfic writers, I am fueled by reviews. If you like and want more, please encourage me by telling me so. If you see something you dislike or think needs to be fixed, I will be happy to learn...but please be gentle!
Note- This fic is part of my DAO Fic Fragments collection. These are little pieces of what or may not eventually become a longer, more comprehensive fic. If I waited until that fic was in a condition to post, I would never post at all, and I want to post.
The line about a gift and curse is borrowed from Monk (and a previous fic fragment). No infringement is intended.
Thanks to everyone who has added me or any of these fics to favorites or alerts. I really appreciate the interest.
Alistair pulled her up as they left the room, turning to pin her between his big body and the wall.
"There's no way you're taking that blow, Elan. I'm telling you that much right here, right now, and I mean it."
Elan looked at him, her skepticism clear, wondering if he could see her pulse pounding in her throat, a drumbeat of rage of desire so mixed and so frenzied, she couldn't begin to separate them. "Less than a week as king and already giving orders I see. Cute, your majesty, but you forget... when it comes to the Grey Wardens of Ferelden, I'm the one in command. Isn't that the way you wanted it?"
"No!" he shouted.
Elan just looked at him, waiting.
"Well, yes. Maybe," Alistair admitted. "At the time. But not like this!"
"Well, this is how it is," Elan said practically.
He loved her practicality. It was his pride and joy, the light of his existence.
Until times like this. When it was the bane of his existence.
He hated her practicality.
It was a gift. And a curse.
"You asked me once why I became a Grey Warden," she said suddenly.
"Yes," he said slowly, reluctant to follow where she might be about to lead. "And you didn't tell me."
Her grin flashed briefly, and he was startled by just how good that swift flicker of approval made him feel. "Oh, so you noticed that, did you?"
"I've noticed a lot of things about you," he countered honestly, before his head had time to catch up with his heart. "I find it hard not to."
The look she flashed him then very nearly set his hair afire. And Maker help him, he couldn't help but welcome it. He stepped forward, nearly ready to crush her in his arms and kiss her into submission.
He knew he could, and he wanted to. Oh, how he wanted to.
He just wasn't sure he should. What he wanted and what he might have to do... they seemed so different. So far apart.
"Well, this is why," Elan said simply, and it was a shock to remember she was standing right in front of him. And, yet, he had never forgotten. All he had to do was lower his head and...
Alistair struggled to stop thinking of kissing her senseless long enough to try to make sense of her words... and found he wasn't having much luck with it. "Come again? Are you telling you became a Grey Warden because you had a burning desire to commit suicide by archdemon? You certainly seemed surprised when Riordan explained the process... not to mention, there are easy ways, surely?"
Elan smirked at him. It was quite like old times. Only in the old times, terror and anger and grief and regret might have been present, but they weren't tied quite so directly to the things he felt when looking at her expression. "Well... when you put it like that... yes."
"Yes," Alistair repeated dumbly. "Uh... to which part?"
"All of them," she said, the corners of her mouth turning up at the corners, just slightly, in that way he loved.
"Well, that's just bloody barking," he said in frustration, then looked around to be sure Woofus hadn't heard him. "Isn't it?"
"Absolutely," Elan agreed, her grin deepening subtly.
"You're saying you joined to do something you knew nothing about?"
"Exactly. You know, I've said it before, and I'd say it again if I were going to live through this. You don't give yourself enough credit. You're really quite brilliant."
"Hey! There's no need to make fun of me! Even if there was... is this really the time?"
Elan shrugged. "Alistair, I assure you, I'm completely serious."
"Right... and if I'm so brilliant, why is it I can't make heads nor tails out of what you're saying? You're just trying to talk me in circles until I give up and you get your way. Well, I'm on to you and your wiles, woman, and it won't work. Not this time."
Elan sighed and rubbed the back of her neck. "I'm not saying I wouldn't do that if I thought I could, Alistair. After all, I'm a Grey Warden. We believe we're in fights to win them, don't we? By any means necessary."
Alistair flinched at the words. It bothered her that she felt less than bothered by his reaction, perhaps even a little vindicated. A little soothed. She didn't want to hurt him. She didn't want to enjoy making him as uncomfortable as he'd made her in the last few days. And yet... she did.
"I joined the Grey Wardens to do my duty, Alistair."
"You're not the only Grey Warden here, you know. Don't get greedy. It's my duty, too."
Elan shook her head. Slowly, resolutely. "No, Alistair, no it's not." She stopped, tilted her head back, considered. "You have a duty... as a Grey Warden. It's your duty to live. To be king. To lead your people. But... it's my duty to be a Grey Warden. That's the reason I joined. The only reason. Because I was a Cousland... and Couslands... always do their duty."
She sighed softly, and relaxed back against the wall. Alistair could see tensions he had never even noticed she carried slip away, as if melting into acceptance... sliding into peace. As if she slept. As if she dreamt. As if... she'd already set one foot in a pleasant little field in the Fade.
The sight absolutely terrified him.
He didn't want to speak and didn't know what to say, but hoping the sound of his voice might break the spell, he muttered, "You're still not making the slightest bit of sense, you know. How in the name of Maferath could joining the Grey Wardens have been your duty?" Then, softly, so softly they both knew the answer to this second question mattered less than that of the first, if it really mattered at all, "Do I... even want to know?"
"I told you, Alistair," she said without opening her eyes, her voice heavy with patience. "Duncan saved me."
"Right. Sounds familiar," he agreed impatiently, obviously at a loss as to why she would be bringing this up now, as to why it would matter at all. "He saved me too, remember... Chantry? Lyrium? Endless tedious existence as a templar? Ringing any bells here?"
"Well... maybe that wasn't accurate," she said distantly, as if lost in thought, as unaware that he had even spoken. And yet her words seemed almost in answer to his, a parry and a counterstrike in one. "Duncan didn't save me, not really. At least... he didn't save me... the way he saved you."
"Um, okay..." now he just sounded deeply confused, and perhaps a bit hurt as well. "I'm not sure why you'd bother to lie to me about that exactly—I'm sure you had your reaso—"
"Maker's Breath!" Elan's eyes wrenched open to glare at him. The frustration on her face was difficult to comprehend in its enormity. "I didn't lie to you! I just didn't bother to tell you how Duncan sodding well pulled me away from my home! Everything I'd ever loved or valued was there, Alistair! I damn well didn't want to leave! I didn't want to be saved!"
Alistair may have staggered back a fraction of a step as if her words had hit him in the solar plexus. Or his armor may simply have thrown him off balance when his natural balance shifted. Or perhaps he had never really moved at all... though, somehow, it simply seemed that he had. Their eyes locked for a split second that caught their breath and held it suspended between them for what felt like an eternity.
"Duncan didn't save me," she repeated, as if the words were a lifeline. As if they were they only thing she could cling to, the only thing that made sense any longer. "Duncan didn't save me, Alistair."
Fear gathered in his face, in the stance of his body like a storm about to break. She moved closer, reached out as if to put a hand on his forearm, and then, just as they could both feel the touch whisper across their skin, her hand fell away. "He stole me," she said.
Alistair blinked at her. "Stole... you..." he repeated slowly, as if trying to puzzle out a phrase in Qunari or Antivan or Orlesian... His brow began to furrow slightly-prompting Elan to compose a silent imprecation in her head against him for being so damned adorable when she wanted, needed really, to be angry-as he repeated the words again, more coherently, as if they were beginning to make sense. "Duncan stole you? What is that supposed to mean? How could he steal someone? Even if he needed to? And he... wouldn't... need to, that is. What about the Right of Conscription?"
"If the Right of Conscription worked on the Grand Cleric, no doubt it would work on anyone or anything," Elan admitted wryly. "Except death."
Alistair crossed his arms and glared at her. "Oh, very funny. Wynne's already told me this one... snatched from the jaws of death by a benevolent spirit..."
"Yes, well... loathe as I am to injure your image of the man, I don't think I'd call Duncan benevolent," Elan snorted. "He didn't invoke the Right of Conscription. Not officially. He'd told my father he wouldn't and he kept the letter of his word... if not the spirit. But he..." she paused as she searched for words and tried not to see the muscles working in Alistair's tightly-clenched jaw.
"He did have the ability to give my father something he desperately wanted... to grant his last wish, really. And instead of doing it, just because he could... doing it... with no strings attached... Duncan...Well... he did his duty, Alistair. His duty as a Grey Warden. He did what he thought it would take to defeat the Blight. I don't begrudge him that, truly I don't. In fact... though I didn't at the time, I think I've come to admire him all the more for it... because he was a good man. I know he didn't want my father to die. I know he wanted to save my mother and me... but what he wanted wasn't as important as what he needed. And what he needed was me. My life. The one that was about to end. The one that only he could save. And so he took it, Alistair. He took me."
Elan rubbed her hand along her opposite forearm.
Alistair realized with a jolt that she was tracing a scar, the scar she'd shown him the night she'd first told him about the fall of Highever. Shifting his weight to keep her firmly in check, he reached down and covered her hand with his own. Hers was ice-cold, or colder yet.
He didn't want to think of that. He rubbed his fingers along the skin, willing warmth back into it. Elan's fingers yielded to his, let them interlace with hers, her thumb stroked an affectionate greeting along the side of his palm. But her voice was still a lifetime distant.
"I didn't want to sign my life to the Wardens... not that I was completely uninterested... I'd been intrigued enough to ask Duncan to spar with me earlier in his visit and I peppered him with questions. I just didn't want a new life... I wanted the life I already had. Or... if that life couldn't be saved... I at least wanted to be able to do my duty to myself... and to my family... and repay Arl Howe in blood and vengeance. But... my father insisted that my family's duty to the country and the king—in other words, to fight the Blight—superseded my duty to my family... I was a Cousland... and Couslands always do their duty. And so... my life... the life that belonged to me and to me alone... ended there in that night and in that moment. You won't be letting me die if you let me take that blow against the Archdemon, Alistair, because I'm already dead."
Elan's face was white, her voice hoarse and oddly wistful, as she continued, "Elan Cousland died, Alistair. She died long ago. Her ghost still walked and waited... waited for vengeance... until she drove her dagger through Arl Howe and paid that debt in full. And all that remains now is Elan the Grey Warden... who has only her vigilance to sustain her... and whose final purpose is duty... Sacrifice is all that she has left... and that is what she asks you... no she begs you to let her have... because everything else is already gone... and what have the dead to live for? You walked and fought among the Legion of the Dead... you know what I am telling you."
Alistair's eyes were knotted closed, his head moving from side to side, though whether in denial, or a vain attempt to clear the images that filled it, Elan couldn't be certain.
"Alistair." His name was a plea.
"You're... you're saying that this whole time... everything we've... all you cared about was duty... duty and revenge?"
She could leave it there.
She should leave it there.
For his own sake, for his own peace of mind, she should let him believe that, but, looking into his eyes, she couldn't bring herself to do it.
She just couldn't do it.
"Not exactly," she said. "No. I'm saying... Revenge is what Elan Cousland lived for... and duty, sacrifice... those are the reasons why Elan the Grey Warden even exists at all. There is-there was-another part of me. She... had... something else to live for. Someone else."
"Elan," Alistair rasped, her name little more than a drawn-out breath, low, hesitant.
"Alistair," she said gently, "I would live for you. I would love you and live with you and marry you... if I could."
"You can," he said, his voice fierce. "You will."
"If only I could," she repeated calmly, coolly. "But you heard Riordan."
"I heard him say he would take the blow," Alistair said. But he said it without conviction. None of them believed it would be that simple, not even then.
"I'll promise you this much, then: should he get the opportunity, I won't prevent him," Elan said. "Though I think perhaps I should. His knowledge and experience would be of far better use to you in rebuilding the order than mine. And, even if he manages by some miracle to take the blow, well... you said it yourself. You have duty to your throne. And that duty doesn't include marrying a Grey Warden. A woman without a family, without a name, and without the ability to give you heirs."
"You've never listened to me before. For the love of Andraste, why start now?" Alistair asked, somewhere between laughter and tears.
"Because you're right." Elan said. "I was stupid-in-love enough to turn a blind eye to duty once and only once, and that moment of blindness put you in a position that was-is-decidedly uncomfortable. And for that... I am sorry. But... when I die... You'll be free. No awkward and uncomfortable retractions or explanations necessary. Just a clear path to do what must be done. Be happy, Alistair, rule wisely and rule well. That's enough for me. I know you-"
"It's burning well not enough for me," he snarled. "I won't let you throw your life away over something I said. And... for the record, Elle, I never said I wanted to be free."
"Let me... let me?" Elan stiffened.
Suddenly, before he'd finished speaking, she had ducked up under his arm and spun around behind him, her boot on his ass, levering him up into the wall so that his last few words were muffled almost beyond recognition. "What makes you think you can stop me? What makes you think," she hissed, pressing up against his back, "you should stop me? This is for the best, Alistair. In the end, it will be for the best."
And with that, she let him go.
By the time Alistair had managed to regain his balance she was nowhere to be seen.
Elan Cousland, the Grey Warden, was gone. And he had no idea whether or not it was for good... and very little idea whether or not he wanted it to be.
Maker him help him.
Maker help them all.