A/N: Thanks to everyone who reviewed/followed/faved! I'm glad there is still interest in this storyline!
"Your Majesty? Your Majesty?"
"Huh?" Alistair muttered distractedly as he sought retain his focus on the matter at hand. It was rather difficult when he had spent the last two hours listening to increasingly boring reports on the status of foot bridges scattered throughout Ferelden.
"I feel as if I don't have your full attention, Your Majesty," the man standing before him said with a hint of annoyance.
"Oh you do, Master Gareth, there is nothing I find more thrilling than a full and total immersion into the precarious state of the vastly important footbridge," he replied as he rubbed his hands against his face in an effort to wake himself up.
"One would hope so, considering a goodly amount of trade crosses over them and into your hands, Your Majesty," Gareth replied with precision.
"And while I can appreciate that," Alistair said, his words leaning towards the harsher end of politeness, "I find it difficult to believe that I need to hear about every, single, sodding one of them."
"Your Majesty-"
"Is this really a matter I should be attending to? Is there an epidemic of twisted ankles and muddy boots sweeping the nation due to the lack of proper footbridges? Has Ferelden really succumbed to such a dire state?" he asked with raised brows.
"With all due respect-"
"Oh, stuff your respect, I'm done. Eamon, give him whatever funds he needs and let's be done with it."
The former Arl sighed but obeyed, gesturing for Gareth to follow him to the doors. As soon as he had shut them away in solitude, he turned on the regent with a reproachful look.
"Oh don't give me that look," Alistair spat as he rose from his chair, "you were five seconds away from nodding off yourself."
"Your Majesty, perhaps now would be a welcome time to discuss your…lack of decorum in these meetings as of late," Eamon hedged carefully.
"My lack of decorum? To whatever do you refer, Eamon?" the king replied with feigned ignorance and scandal before letting his face one more settle into a bitter and dark expression. "I thought a King was supposed to owe fealty and deference to no one save the divine."
"Be that as it may," the man replied, his temper fraying, "do you wish to be remembered as a King who ruled with a gentle hand and humility or a petulant boy-regent who openly insulted his subjects?"
"I'd rather be remembered as a King who's time wasn't wasted with fucking footbridges," Alistair growled.
"Enough!" Eamon roared. "She is gone, Alistair. She has been for months, and it is high time you stopped mourning and started playing the role she bloody well bestowed upon you!"
"I told you not to bring her up, Eamon," Alistair said after a tense pause, his words a warning, but the tone empty of any true anger.
"My apologies, Your Majesty," his chancellor replied stiffly.
"Is there anything else?"
"Yes. I have received word that the improvements to the Alienage have finally been completed and are ready for your inspection at your leisure."
"Then I think it's best I see them now…I could use some fresh air," Alistair muttered as he strode to leave.
"Unfortunately, that is not possible;" his uncle replied regretfully, "the Lady Cousland has only just arrived and is waiting for you to properly receive her."
"Do you really think I am in the best of moods to meet my future wife?" Alistair asked, "I'm like to scare the girl off with my lack of decorum."
"Alistair-"
"Fine…I'll give the Lady a few moments and some pretty turn of phrase, but then I am going to the Alienage, Eamon. Harlow may be gone, but someone has to stand witness for the promise I made to her people, may as well be me."
Eamon watched helplessly as the King trudged out of the room, his posture hunched like a man defeated. The former Arl had always held a great deal of respect for the Hero of Ferelden, finding her a keen intellect and gifted warrior, but upon watching Alistair's slow decline into bitterness and despair ….there were days that the man cursed Harlow Tabris for ever coming into the King's life.
~oOo~
"Are you sure the man is real, Fergus?" Elissa asked after they had been sitting in one of the castle's receiving rooms for over an hour, "I'm not entirely convinced the nation hasn't all been the victim of some mass hysteria. It is the only logical explanation as to why we've been sitting here for so blasted long."
"He is the King, Elissa, we wait on his sufferance and pleasure," Fergus murmured as he gazed up at the ceiling.
"Have I mentioned how very grateful I am to you for betrothing me to such a caring and thoughtful man?" she asked dully as she rose to pace about them room. It was well appointed, the furniture of sturdy and good make, and it boasted a breath-taking view of the castle's courtyard garden. But for all it's niceties, it still remained a rather dull space to pass an hour in, and Elissa was reaching the breaking point of her patience.
"Sod it," she said after another twenty minutes had passed with no indication that their waiting was drawing to a close. As she stomped towards the door, Fergus shot to his feet and rushed to intercept his sister.
"And where would you be off to, little sparrow?" he asked politely as he whirled her about, hands gripped hard on her shoulders.
"Why, the privy of course," she replied, her words all innocence and purity.
"Nice try, Elissa, but you can't- OOF!" Fergus' admonishment was cut off as his sister quickly stomped on his foot and hastily pushed him to the ground. Before he could even get his wits about him Elissa was running through the doorway, her laughter ringing a bright taril behind her.
With her skirts hiked high and her mahogany hair rippling down her back, Elissa ran through the halls of the palace, seeking to stay ahead of her put upon brother who was now following her, threatening bodily harm and divine intervention if she did not come to her senses immediately. Servants and nobility alike were startled into rushing out of the siblings' path as they tore through the castle, shocked to see such a spectacle.
After a few twists and turns, Elissa found herself spilling out into the warm autumn sunlight, the scent of crisp apples and fragrant Hyssop hanging heavy in the air. She smiled as she paused a moment to realize she had escaped into the very garden she had been admiring only minutes previous. Her merry chase all but forgotten she slowly wove her way though rows of monkshood, toad lilies, and Starkahven sage. Her brother appeared moments later, breathless and leaning against a shaded alcove as he fixed his sister with a stern glare.
"I suspect you enjoyed that," he muttered as he closed his eyes and willed his racing heart to slow.
"You know me too well, dear brother," she said with a smile as she plucked a handful of clematis blossoms from an overgrown vine and inhaled the sweet scent.
"I don't suppose in all the excitement of injuring me you stopped to think that the King could very well be arriving to greet his future wife only to find himself calling on an empty room?"
"Pssh," she snorted dismissively, "enough servants saw our little chase to fully inform him of my whereabouts. Serves him right for letting us cool our heels for so long. The man should have better manners than that."
"You forget, Elissa, the man was a commoner until not but two years ago," Fergus said with a sigh as he limped over to join her.
"But a templar trained commoner," she retorted, "and unless I am wrong in my insight into the chantry, the divine trains their soldiers to be the very model of chivalry and deportment."
"Well then I suppose it will be your job to educate him in the finer arts of etiquette," her brother said dryly, "just, leave out the course in which you maim innocent siblings in an effort to escape nobility."
"Oh innocent is it?" Elissa laughed, "I seem to recall a time when you replaced my cosmetics with stained pigeon shit because you were sore at me for beating you at diamondback."
"Okay, that's it," Fergus said with a grin as he began to tickle his little sister in obedience. She shrieked in protest and threw the handful of flowers she had been grasping into his face. He gave her a startled look before reaching down to grasp his own bunch of posies and soon the two were openly battling one another with flying petals. Their laughter lit the garden as they raced about the beds, each taunting one another with slights from their childhood. A gruff and commanding cough brought them up short and Elissa found herself grinning up a man of no more than twenty five years staring down at them on horseback.
"Good day to you ser," she said with a quick dip of a curtsey, her expression still bright and flushed from her exertions. She felt Fergus hastily reach up and pluck a sage stem out of her hair and she batted his hand away, turning to find him gone pale in embarrassment.
"Good day, would you perhaps be the Lady Cousland?" the man asked, his handsome face a study in neutrality.
"That I am, and who may I inquire are you?" she asked, breath coming in heavy pants as she recovered from her sport.
"Your Majesty," Fergus said before an introduction could be made, "I apologize for our absence from the receiving room."
Elissa's eyes fluttered at her idiocy and she quickly dropped into a low and apologetic curtsey. The king said nothing and she wondered if he planned on keeping her in such a position for the rest of the afternoon. When the seconds ticked by with no response from him, Elissa decided she had been sufficiently humiliated and rose without waiting for the proper command. Her eyes flashed sullen and reproachful as she brought her gaze to meet his, and was a bit surprised to see his face as stony as hers.
"You are forgiven," the King said, flicking his eyes to regard her brother, who still held his courtly bow. Fergus straightened up and spared an exasperated look with his sister before returning his attention to monarch. "Although I do wish you hadn't so thoroughly destroyed my garden in your haste to find entertainment"
Fergus blanched, realizing for the first time just who's flowers they had ripped from the ground in their little game of rivalry. Elissa herself did not so much as flinch but raised her chin in defiance. Her brother stifled a groan, knowing all too well what that movement portended.
"Perhaps we would not have been forced to seek such sport had we not been kept waiting for so long…Your Majesty," she said with soft civility. The King regarded her with shrewd eyes and the sound of cicadas humming through the trees seemed to grow to a deafening roar as Fergus waited for the reprimand that was almost surely coming.
"I can see Eamon was right about you, my Lady," the regent said sardonically, his eyes sweeping through her wild and petal strewn hair, "you are the very model of elegance and propriety."
"His Majesty is too kind," came her biting reply. The King narrowed his eyes and Elissa smiled sweetly under the scrutiny.
"I came to bid you welcome," he said at length, "and to offer my heartfelt joy over our pending nuptials. I am sure that you shall make an excellent wife and Queen."
"I wish only to serve his Majesty's pleasure and humbly thank you for such wishes," she said with the dull tone of a speech rehearsed.
"Well, now that we've gotten the pleasantries, out of the way, I really should take my leave. Good day, Lady Cousland, Teryn Cousland."
Elissa and Fergus swept him another bow, but she kept her head firmly upright, eyes never leaving his as he and his roan made their way stiff out the courtyard.
"That man is joyless prig," Elissa muttered as she rose to her feet.
"One you must learn to live with dear sister," Fergus said with a sigh, "although, after your little display of temper I wouldn't be surprised if he sent you packing before supper."
"He's more than welcome to," she snapped, "it'll save me the trouble of seeking a divorce when the man drives me to insanity."
Elissa stomped off in a righteous anger and Fergus watched her go with a weary heart. Plucking a wilted flower from his hair he stared after his sister and thought, The man can't drive you to insanity if you've already made it your home, sister.