A/N So, back by popular request, a few more 'slipstreams'. I felt guilty about not doing updates on either my 3:10 to Yuma fanfic or my Spiritus Mundi so this is what you get. I'm sorry but I've been hitting the writing so hard and heavy the past few weekends I needed a bit of a breather--Plus, between Return to Ostagar and Mass Effect 2 both coming out, I'm um.. distracted. Enjoy either way!!
Alistair didn't even want to open his eyes. He could both see and feel the intensity of the light glaring down on him clear through his eyelids and Maker's breath, his entire body ached with pain, like Flemeth had snapped him up in his mouth and shaken him as though he were nothing more than a mabari hound's chew toy. The strange sounds all around him hurt his ears, clanking of metal, the gurgling of some thick, viscous liquid, a continuous beep, beep, beep, all made his head ache worse than it ever had.
"We did it. We really did it," he heard a man's deep voice say with something approaching reverence.
He could not believe the amount of effort it took to pry his eyelids apart and when he did, they burned like Andraste's flaming pyre. Slowly, the world around him came into focus, the drab bleak grey of the ceiling above obscured by the man's face hovering over his.
There was such sorrow and compassion in those dark, expressive eyes—here was someone who knew what he was going through because he had experienced it himself at some point in time.
"Welcome, Alistair, to the real world," he said solemnly.
The twisted ruins of a steel city sprawled all around him, as far as the eye could see. All but lost amidst the vast destruction, Alistair had never felt so completely, utterly alone. There were no birds twittering and no insects buzzing. The only sound was the quiet whisper of the wind, stirring up eddies of dust and soot.
What else could he do? He slung his shield over his shoulder and sheathed his sword and walked eastward. The clattering shuffle of his boots over the ravaged ground seemed abnormally loud in such silence. Occasionally he would glance downward and see remnants of the city's previous inhabitants, the distinctive shape of their charred bones poking from beneath rubble, the gaping empty eye sockets of their skulls staring into eternity, teeth bared in the blank grin of death.
A prickling sensation tickled the back of his neck and he instinctively knew he was no longer alone. Something moved up ahead of him, a vaguely humanoid shape that was the same color of metal and dust as everything else around him.
"Hey!" he called out to the figure, beyond relieved to see that he wasn't the only living thing in this city of the dead.
It whipped around to face him, the curved metal dome of the head glinting in the sunlight and the eyes glaring a bright, angry red as it stared back at him. It wasn't a man, but some kind of golem, and it immediately started walking toward him, raising a massive barrel of an arm to point in his direction. The arm twirled in place and began making a loud RAT-TAT-TAT-TAT of sound, tiny explosions suddenly erupting in the ground right in front of him.
He was so surprised he forgot to move, and suddenly something hit him from the side—hard—bowling him over and knocking him behind a stone barricade. Alistair stared in surprise up at the figure and thank the Maker, it was another person, his spikey brown hair poking up from the thick scarf he had wrapped around his face.
The youth yanked it down, his blue eyes intent as he growled impatiently, "Come with me if you want to live."
It reeked of blood and sweat and death and piss and a myriad of other stenches that Alistair could not put a name to—and wasn't sure he wanted to. He was in a long, dimly lit corridor with stairs climbing upward surrounded by other men, all of whom were armed with heavy tower shields and short spears, clad in chain hauberks and wearing a wide variety of battered open-faced helmets.
There was nonstop thunder, a roaring sound that surged and ebbed in waves of sound, all around, powerful enough to make the walls and the ground shake. He had only heard a sound like this one other time in his life right before the Battle of Denerim, when he had been stirring up the armies of men and dwarves and elves right before charging the darkspawn horde. It was the sound of thousands of voices cheering.
A door opened at the end of the corridor and all of the men, himself included, trotting up the stairs. He got the feeling none of them had any more of an idea what to expect on the other side of that door than he did. That wasn't very reassuring.
The roar of the crowd became almost deafening when they emerged out onto the sandy, flat surface of what could be nothing other than an enormous arena, one that would put the Proving Grounds of Orzammar to shame if the dwarves ever saw it. Outdoor coliseums were very popular in Antiva and the Free Marches, where spectators could go see both men and women pit their strength and skill in fights to the death against each other and large predators.
Alistair's blood spattered armor made him and sword made him stand out among the other men, but either no one noticed or no one cared. They were all staring up in amazement that the throng of people, screaming and waving their hands at them as they clustered together in the middle of the arena. One other man beside himself was clad different from the others, a man with the squared shoulders and bearing of one who had been in the military a long time. He wore a black, hardened leather breastplate with the emblem of two rearing horses and his helmet all but obscured his face from the nose up.
The men around Alistair lined up in ranks and he instinctively moved in among them, finding himself in the front row. The crowd started chanting, "Caesar! Caesar! Caesar!" and everyone, including Alistair and the men looked up at the ornately decorated balcony ahead of them. A man, woman and boy all came into sight. The man had a simple leaf crown of sorts on his head and though he smiled and waved at the crowd, his blue eyes were hard and cruel. The boy was almost beyond himself with excitement, grinning broadly and looking everywhere as though trying to take in too much at once. The woman was beautiful, with dark, lustrously curly hair. She held back from the edge of the balcony, a slightly indulgent smile on her face, but her deference to the man spoke more of unease than affection.
The Warden darted a quick glance down the line at the men with him, and his attention immediately was drawn to the expression of the man with the leather breastplate. He was staring intently at Caesar, his blue-green eyes lit up with barely suppressed hatred and rage, his jaw set with deadly determination.
The rest of the gladiators—for only that could be what they all were—raised up their spears in salute and Alistair fumbled to draw his sword, lifting it up right as they said in unison, "We who are about to die salute you!"
This doesn't bode well, he thought to himself.