At the Border (and In-Between)
III
Alistair was a little relieved when he woke to find darkness still outside the single window to the cabin. A deep blue indicated hours before sunrise. He found himself glad he didn't have to face the usual disappointment of feeling like he'd slept half their precious time away. A drifting snore sprouted behind him and he carefully turned.
He knew he'd find her, as he always did, huddled up close against his back. Rotating to her, he carefully craned an arm over her head to draw back a few rebellious strands of hair. She didn't stir, and he was cautious not to wake her. He allowed himself the selfish pleasure of watching her sleep for a few minutes, finally able to catch every single wrinkle and line that hadn't been there before. But in her peace, she proved still unmistakably recognizable. Not as the Hero of Ferelden... but her.
He monitored her breathing, watched the gentle rise and fall of her chest as her war-weary body bowed into the mattress along her side. He contested with himself for quite some time about whether he could tear himself from her. He wanted to be there when she first opened her eyes, but if he waited to fetch breakfast, he'd risk using her waking hours instead of her unconscious ones.
With a scowl, he decided, and bent to kiss her hairline softly before slipping out of their nest. He dressed quickly in his trousers, and the discarded shirt by the table, but left his loud armor behind. If she did wake, at least she'd know he hadn't left.
He did have to maneuver his tool bag to retrieve it silently and carry it with him through the exit.
He closed the door as lightly as he could, and tread into the dark wee-morning hours. He moved quick, quiet, through the mossy oaks, searching for a good spot. Eventually he found a downed log, large and long-hallowed, and set up his kit just inside one end. His fingers had once been clumsy with traps. He still had a couple scars from a premature clamp of metal teeth. Now he was precise, even on auto-pilot, as muscle memory took over.
After a few brief moments, and the placement of the last of the cooked carrots he'd pilfered from their meal, he wandered off a good sixty yards, and found a relatively dry place to sit along the end of the treeline. The morning dew still clung to the fabric of his clothes and chilled his skin, but he knew it was temporary.
He found a view of a small meadow on the other side of the trees, where he could watch the fog begin to form over the grass blades. With steady breath, he watched the mist discolor as the sun grew closer to the horizon. In such an unpopulated area, at such a perfect time, he knew he wouldn't need to wait long. An hour. Maybe more.
But he needed the time. To pretend time had stopped. They only ever got one night together. And it was over. Everything now lead up to their next parting.
When I'm done here, I'll be with my love again. For good this time. The moment he'd said those words to the Inquisitor, it felt... like denial. But he couldn't face another option; still couldn't.
He'd feared his lineage would dictate his life since he were old enough to understand what a bastard even was. Becoming a Warden had nearly freed him, and then finally did at the Landsmeet, able as he was to publicly renounce any chance of being dragged into that life. But then... to be the most senior Warden in a country of so few. And more recently, the most senior ranking Warden in Southern Thedas. It was a mantle he'd risen to without regard to the weight. And now, like being a Theirin before, it commanded him.
A sharp snap ricocheted between the trees from the direction his setup, and he swallowed as time ticked over again.
She remained unmoved when he creaked the door open to peak inside. With a subtle smile he stepped through, leaving the hare he claimed as a prize outside. He started the fire in the hearth back up, then returned into the morning to clean breakfast. He eagerly worked, wanting her to rouse to the smells of crackling fat and meat. With a hooked knife, he skinned and gutted the rabbit, then set about breaking the meat down to smaller pieces so they'd cook faster.
He gathered the spare parts and fur for use later, and skewered the muscle for over the hearth. Dawn began to rise in a rosy glow by the time he was ready to return to the cabin.
Alistair's luck held. He got the door to close again, and while she shifted in her sleep, her lids remained firmly closed. He slipped his boots off and padded his way to the fire, adjusting and arranging until the meat poked over the flame just so. As long as he remembered to rotate his makeshift tools every once in awhile, they'd be fine.
It was too much to hope she'd sleep until it was done. The smell hadn't even risen from the meat yet when her eyes slowly slid open and sought him.
"Hey." He hauled himself from where he sat working the sticks, and came to her side for a good morning kiss.
"Mmm, hello to you, too." A sleepy smile spread across her cheeks. So perfectly content at the moment.
It proved infectious, and he smiled into another kiss, holding her head close with a large hand as his thumb traced the forward edge of her ear.
"Have sweet dreams?"
"No dreams," she replied groggily, her eyes slipping closed again for a few moments. "For the first time in a long time. I slept so deep."
"Good."
Eventually the Warden-Commander searched the room, eyes falling on his clothed body, and his gear set against the fireplace. He knew she didn't need to sit up to put it together.
"Mm, you left?"
"As briefly as I could." He chuckled and found one of her hands to kiss her knuckles.
"Alistair..." She whispered his name, and edged nearer. Instinctively his arms found their way around her, even at the awkward angle, he managed a hug.
"Want to keep me company while I manage breakfast?"
She nodded, and he tucked the blankets around her in a cocoon until she laughed in her throat, and he took her with him. He deposited her into the chair with a chaste kiss and went back to his spot on the floor to twirl skewers between his fingers.
Again, the familiar heat of her sight set on him lined his skin as much as the amber light of the fire. Moments passed, but he knew it was only a matter of time before-
"Are we gonna talk? About... anything?" She anxiously tucked hair behind her ear. What loose style she'd had it in last night long destroyed.
Guilt pooled in his stomach. "I got the impression you didn't want to."
"I... don't want to scare you."
"Nor I, you."
Their eyes met, and his lips formed into a thin line. The crackle of fat dripping onto embers and sizzling away pulled them from their reverie, and he snapped back to shifting meat. His woman readjusted the sheet tucked under arms and around her.
"Can... we talk around it?"
"How?" He set his elbow atop a knee patiently.
The Mistress Warden eyed his weapons off to the side, and the few clanged out dents in his armor.
"So," she started, "you met the Inquisitor."
He huffed, amused and saddened at the same time. "Oh yeah. She's... capable. But... she wasn't the most interesting person I ran into there."
An elegant brow lifted, and his lover crossed her arms under her chest as she listened.
"Our Leliana practically founded the thing with the Right Hand, and still serves near the head. I also ran into that Templar we rescued in the Tower..." He drifted. "And Morrigan."
"What?" She instantly gasped a stressed response. They hadn't muttered the woman's name for years. "She's..."
"Yeah, helping the Inquisition."
He let her process. He himself had needed some time to do so after he learned of the witch's presence in the same hold as he.
"Did she- I mean, did you see- did she have...?" Words sputtered in pitiful failure. But he knew what she needed to know.
"Yeah. A son."
"You met him?!"
Her brows knit together at her tone. Was she upset, or full of wonder? Too much emotion dripped her words and she retreated back into her seat a little at his expression.
"Um... Only from a distance. I got the impression if I spoke to him, he'd somehow know."
"I thought she never planned to tell him."
"She didn't. She hasn't told anyone. I just don't think it would matter. He's... different."
Small hands absently wrung together, and stress pooled under glossy eyes. "Is it.. something we need to worry about?"
Alistair hummed thoughtfully, prodding once more at the fire. "I don't think so. She's... different, too."
He barely caught a glimpse of his love blinking away tears and stubbornly swiping them away. She looked so sullen when he tossed her a concerned scowl.
"I don't regret anything. It just... doesn't seem fair does it?"
He sighed, and abandoned his post. She fell into place at his chest once he knelt before her.
"Does it bother you?" She finally asked when he found no words of comfort.
"That I have a child by a woman I'm barely cordial with, and I can't with the love of my life? Of course. But it's not the boy's fault. And whatever her motives, Morrigan is the reason we're both still here."
"Her intentions for the ritual honestly never really bugged me as much as..."
"It was years ago now." He stroked her hair calmly. "I only bring it up because she asked after you."
"You spoke?"
"Tersely, in the open. She knew better than to ask to get in touch with you. But... she cared enough to ask."
Alistair never approved of the volatile friendship his fellow Warden had crafted with the apostate. But in the Fifth Blight, he'd had no right to deny her allies where she felt she could find them. And for a time, Morrigan did willingly shed blood at their side.
The small woman cuddled against him didn't respond further, so he gently squeezed. "Would you believe our Leliana is in contention for the Golden Throne?"
"Really? To be Divine?"
"Mmhm," he beamed. "It appears we have friends in high places, these days."
"Yeah, her and Hawke; they're each practically a storm upon themselves."
The elf laughed it off, but the human faltered at the name. "Yeah..."
He couldn't tell her without telling her everything. But now that she had touched on it, was he officially hiding something from her?
"Hawke was a better friend than I gave her credit for."
"Was?" His love made no move to end their cuddle.
"She... found a calling of her own, as it were. She's either got a long fight ahead of her, or..."
"Oh..." He felt fingers along his spine over his shirt. "I'm sorry to hear that."
"Not many have heard yet, so-"
"I won't tell anyone." She easily finished.
Well done, Alistair thought to himself. Perhaps he wasn't totally without tact.
Finally, he detangled himself, though it was hard to leave her side completely. "Come on, let's get you fed. I want to make sure you're eating, at least while you're with me."
He recovered the fresh meal from the fireplace and offered a stick of brown, juicing rabbit meat to her, which she took from where she sat. But her eyes avoided his after his comment.
"It's not a lack of access to food, Alistair," she defended. "Just time."
The hallows of her throat and shoulders were starting to protrude. Just a little, but it was enough to find her excuses feeble.
"Is it really so pressing and dangerous you don't have time eat?" He didn't mean to sound annoyed.
"Yes!"
They both paused then, regarding each other with pained expressions.
She crumpled first, sagging her seat and all but dropping her picked-at meal in her lap. "I'm sorry, Alistair. It's just..."
He saved her skewer, setting it carefully on the bed stool behind her, and returned to wrap her up in his arms again.
"Stress, I know."
After years of giving everything to the Wardens, they only wanted the chance to have a life together. For life to so consistently and constantly threaten that felt like a war they were winning, but they were exhausted. Each time he touched her now, he worked harder to commit the feeling to memory. In the dread that inevitably, this, or the next hundredth time, would be the last. Even now he squeezed her, but convinced himself it was for her benefit, not his. That he'd hold her again after today.
"You're not coming with me, are you?" Tight words mumbled into linen-clad shoulder.
He'd hoped maybe she would have gleaned that without him having to declare it. But... "No. I'm sorry."
He could almost feel her wince, and he sighed, his breath sweeping the planes of her back.
"I'd hoped... after the Breach and Corypheus was dealt with you would..."
"I know." His brows knit together and his eyes slid shut with regret. "But we may be the highest ranking Wardens outside of Weisshaupt now. I have to go, there is no one else."
"Weisshaupt?" She breathed. He hated how it rattled through her chest. "That's... so far."
"I... if I, if we don't- it could be decades before there are Wardens in Orlais or Ferelden again. Perhaps in Thedas. What we learned... they have to know."
She went quiet for a long while. He'd dreaded this conversation, but like so many others, it proved beyond their control.
His forehead scrunched tentatively as he briefly touched her chin. "And you can't... are you close? Or can you spare the time to come with me?"
She slumped a little in his arms, eyes downcast to his chest. "Alistair... close or not, we don't know how long we have. We're losing time every day-"
"Yeah." He didn't want to hear it. "Yeah, I know..."
He clutched her bone-crushingly close and kissed her forehead.
"You know I'm coming back to you as soon as I can."
He nodded numbly, thumb brushing over her shoulder as he held her.
The truth was, it always ended too soon. They stretched out the next hour and a half or so as long as humanly possible. Moving slower than turtles, they dressed, and dismissed the near-overwhelming sadness as the armored shell they showed all others fell neatly back into place, submerging all vulnerability and heart back into their chests with the weight of an anvil.
Coal and embers sputtered and died. As gear was gathered, the door opening and closing danced ashes across the floor. They left no other evidence. Empty packages were collected, animal remnant properly cleaned and tacked away. The single blanket that remained property of the cabin left folded at the bed's foot.
Their last embrace, outside in the bright mid-morning, became suffocatingly tight as each tried to choke off the tears before they reached eyelids. Alistair held her as long as the world allowed, but it just kept spinning out of his control.
They said their 'I love you's and their 'I'll see you soon's a dozen times over. Each time, a caress, a stroke in the hair, another squeeze, tried to make it sound more convincing.
They took turns watching the other leave, and this was his. He remembered vividly every single time she walked away from him and he could not follow. He counted breaths, not the months until they might see one another again.
If he had to watch her body grow smaller as she tread away, he'd imagine the web of bruises he'd left her to find in the following days. Imagine the small smile that might grace her lips. The reminder that she was so desperately wanted and needed at home, with him.
He stifled a sound in his throat when she finally disappeared behind the far brush, heading back into the West, into a danger from which he couldn't protect her. A hand covered his mouth as he fought the urge to be sick at how wrong it felt...
Before he turned on his heel, and left the clearing toward the East, back into the glen, and into the hum of forest insects.
Whew! Okay, I'm going to be honest guys, I missed writing, but I still only really came back because I was so honored that after five years people are still reading my stuff! I'm so humbled, and more than anything, I wanted to thank you. So I hope you enjoyed it!
Also, if you live in Biowareland with me, keep your eyes open the next week or so, as I take a moment to brush on Mass Effect: Andromeda. How could I not? ;)
Please drop a review to let me know which Bioware Universe you'd like to see more of!