Part 13: Seeking Alistair

Sheri woke the next morning to the sound of birds, and something else. A deeper, louder, throatier call. She sat up, surprised and embarrassed to find herself naked. She looked over and realized there was a fire burning merrily. She felt a sudden surge of gratefulness as she saw the cooking kit.

It had included a flint and tinder, as well as a knife and several other cooking tools. But her stomach screamed in protest at just the thought of food, and she realized that, despite the fire, she had nothing of the sort.

Alistair was lying across from her, though he wore his clothes again. Fortunately, so far as she could tell, he was dry and clean. She got up and wandered over to the sea, quickly bathing to the best of her ability before climbing back out of the water.

She saw her clothes nearby, laid out under stones to dry on large rocks. She smiled. Leave it to Alistair. He was a bit of a geek, granted, but he was a practical, intelligent geek.

She got dressed quickly before heading back to camp. She was grateful for all that he'd done or her, and she was sure there was more that he'd done that she couldn't remember.

"Alistair?" she reached out to shake him awake to let him know she was going to look for water.

His skin was hot, very hot. He jumped and looked at her with startled eyes filled with madness. "Sheri?"

Then his face clouded with anger. "You betrayed me." The accusation was flat, yet all the more filled with fury for its lack of inflection.

"I'm sorry, Alistair," she told him. "More sorry than you know."

"That's not good enough. I don't want to see you, ever again." He rolled over and went back to sleep.

Sheri knelt beside him in the shaded sand and cried.

Finally, she went in search of water, knowing that if she never returned, he wouldn't care. But she would, because she had to. Carrying the canteen, she walked along the cliff, uncertain of where to even look for water. She knew they couldn't drink from the sea, but beyond that, she had no idea.

She was a Circle mage, raised in the same single building for her entire life. She'd not been beyond its confines until she was an adult, and then only for limited excursions. Everything she knew, she knew from books or lessons… so she was very afraid here.

She followed the line of rocks until they dead ended at the sea. She stood staring at the line of massive rocks and boulders, until she finally decided she would try to climb it. It rose slightly as it came out of the sea, and she could barely make out that there was grass on the top.

Maybe that meant water. So she began to climb, scared but determined. She was near the top when she heard the loud, deep call again. She turned to look and saw the griffons again. They were gliding high above her, and she watched in awe.

They were not extinct. She shaded her eyes to watch as they called again, then whirled and dived, swooping and playing in the open skies.

Smiling, she turned and climbed higher up the cliff. She found an outcropping, and just in time. She hadn't realized how far up she was, and she laid back on it, panting after having made the mistake of looking down.

She rested, looking up and watching the pair of playing griffons. They were both white as far as she could tell, but they were too far away to be sure. She rolled over and prepared to get up to continue.

Then she froze. Lying only a few feet away was a nest with three large white eggs in it. Now, Sheri wasn't a stupid mage. In fact, she was considered brilliant by her instructors. So it wasn't hard for her to recognize two things simultaneously.

First, that this was food. She and Alistair had to have food if they were to survive.

Second, that these were griffon eggs. She would have to kill three griffons in order to eat. If she wanted to survive, she would have to decide between them, and herself.

She looked back at the flying griffons. A tear slipped down her cheek, and she looked at the eggs. Lifting her hand to her lips, she blew them a kiss. Then she walked past them and climbed further up the cliff.


Part 14: Seeking Alistair

There was no way, in that moment, that she could hide from the truth of what she was doing. She was once more betraying Alistair. She was putting the life of these griffons ahead of his.

But in her heart, she knew something else. Just as she would never forgive herself, he would never forgive her if she killed these beautiful, rare creatures. So she labored on for several more hours.

Fear gripped her continuously as she climbed. She focused hard on not looking down, and kept climbing. The sun was throwing long shadows across the land by the time she finally reached the top. She had been forced to follow a winding route in order to be up the steep cliff, and it had been hard.

Now she stood looking out across a plain of low grass. Small white, pink, and yellow flowers dotted the area. Most reassuring, though, was a very small pool of water reflecting bright orange in the setting sun.

She could barely get the canteen into it. She finally just cupped water with her hand into the canteen. Then, knowing it was unwise but too thirsty to resist, she stuck her face in it and sucked up as much as she could drink.

When she was done, she looked around. She hoped that the presence of moss on the rocks meant there was often water here.

She turned back and slowly began to make her way down the cliff. It was slow going, but she managed to get down to the outcropping. She set her foot down and heard a growl behind her.

Her heart stuttered and then hammered. She had no staff, but she could cast… she would cast, if she had to. But once more, she would be forced to choose between herself and these creatures.

She slowly turned and looked at the growling griffon. Its hawklike eyes bored into hers. Its feathers were standing up around its neck, a display of threat that she easily recognized.

Remembering something she'd read about dangerous animals, she looked down and away from it, trying to display submission, but not fear. She wondered if it could hear the powerful thundering roar of her heart.

She dared to look back up at it, avoiding meeting its eyes. It reached towards her, and much the way a human's nostrils might do, its nares flared and fluttered as it breathed in and out to sniff her. The slight fluttering motion seemed threatening to her, so she watched it as it began to slow and grow a bit calmer.

Then she realized something else about them. She didn't know a thing about birds that she hadn't read, but she'd always dreamed of having one for a pet. She remembered reading that one sign of illness in a bird was when the nares seeped with pus. Similar, she assumed, to a human having a stuffy nose. Except that birds wouldn't open their mouths to breathe, and could die if their noses filled with too much 'snot'.

She looked down and away again, hoping the creature would back off a bit. After a few moments, its feathers still mantled into an intimidating crest, it did slowly back away over to its nest.

Sheri relaxed and then slowly gathered magic power. Whispering the chant, she let a Heal wash over the creature. It blew and snorted, then cocked its head to contemplate her. Sheri knew that the spell would not make the creature well, but it would ease the symptoms and discomfort significantly.

She could only hope that might be enough to make it let her escape and go back down to Alistair. She had been gone too long, and she feared what condition he might be in by this point. But without water, he would die. That couldn't be questioned.

She'd had no choice, but now she felt a deep, pulling urgency to get back to him. Creeping slowly, keeping her eyes averted, she scuttled across the ledge and down.


Part 15: Seeking Alistair

She climbed down, panting and terrified, as well as sore and aching. The way down was treacherous and it was dark already. A steady fear ate at her as she slowly made her way down. She was now not only terrified of the climb down, but of the wild, powerful creature she somehow felt she had narrowly escaped.

By the time she got down, she had to sit and rest for a bit. But she knew she had to go back to Alistair, so she got up and trudged painfully back to their camp. To her very great relief, he lay much as she'd left him. She felt a moment of terror that he had died, and rushed over to him.

But when she rolled him over, he opened his eyes and looked up at her. "Sheri?" he asked dimly.

Taking in his dehydrated state, Sheri knew she'd gotten back just in time. He couldn't take much more of this without water. So she began to trickle water in his mouth. He grabbed her hands and tried to make her increase the pace, but she took the water away until he promised weakly to go slow.

Everything she knew, she knew from books. But that didn't stop her from following it, anyway. So she made sure that he got some water, but not too much, then she crawled slowly over to set another fire to stave off the growing chill.

She was very worried, and as she laid down to rest, she couldn't help but look back at Alistair, his face lit by the flickering campfire. His lips were chapped and cracking, with bits of skin standing up from them like scales. It was a sign of severe dehydration, and it scared her. Her heart sank as she realized she would have to go for more water the next day. He might not survive if she didn't, especially since they had to share what little water the canteen would hold.

It wasn't really enough for two people to live on indefinitely. That was the part that scared her the most.

She slowly slipped off to sleep, watching him the whole time. Even with his chapped lips and sunburned skin, and a good two or three days' grown of beard… he was incredibly handsome. She knew she wasn't ugly, but no matter how often she'd been told she was pretty, she just couldn't quite see it.

She was lucky that he did, though. But she rolled onto her back and looked at the sky, lit by moon and stars and nothing else. Sleep closed over her even as she felt tears come. Would this beautiful, good man ever be able to forgive her?

Would she ever be able to live with having betrayed him, not once, but twice?

With the wings of griffons flying above them, and the wings of death waiting nearby, she slept across from him at a steadily burning fire.

The next day, nature, perhaps in cahoots with the spectre of death, or maybe simply arbitrary and capricious, attacked them yet again. Sheri woke in earliest gloom of the new day to the patter of rain on her face.

Sitting up, she looked around for some sort of structure. Unaware, she and Alistair had disobeyed the first law of survival: They had failed to find shelter. Even as she tried to find a way to get them out of the rain, it began to increase, until even Alistair sat up, slowly and dizzily.

Sheri wracked her brain until she realized that there was a small outcropping some ways down the cliff. It might be sufficient at least to keep them dry. She dragged a protesting, obviously miserable Alistair after her and headed for it. She cast a Heal on him, and was gratified to see that at least some of his discomfort was alleviated. Like the griffon, she couldn't cure him, but she could make him more comfortable—for a time.

"Please stay here," she told him.


Part 16: Seeking Alistair

She was glad to see the small area sloped upwards. She laid Alistair in the back of it, gave him more water, and then went to see what she could do to catch some rain. When she got back, she set the pots out so that they would fill with water. Then she went to get some of the corn out of the stash—which seemed fortunately out of the rain, when she noticed the puddles of water on the backpack.

Picking up the rope, she moved further up the beach, to where the single, twisted, and stunted tree grew. Carefully, she used the rope to tie the backpack to it, with the top open. It was crude, and she couldn't be sure it would stay, but it was the best she could do.

And it saved her from having to climb the treacherous rocks in the rain.

She trudged back, finding one of the pans already partly filled with water. She picked it up and poured it into the canteen, then went back to sit beside Alistair, with the pan sitting right outside of their tiny little hamlet.

She woke Alistair and gave him more water. His skin seared her with its heat, and she felt a worried fear rise in her. She had survived it, but she knew by how weak she was that it had been a close thing. Would Alistair be so lucky?

She cast another Heal as he groaned. At least she could ease him and make him more comfortable.

But even as the Heal washed over him, he shocked her by sitting up and looking at her with fevered, bright eyes. Boring into her with those gleaming golden orbs, he growled, "You betrayed me! You betrayed Ferelden!"

He rolled over on top of her, and she felt a sudden desperation flare in her. She couldn't bring herself to attack back. This was Alistair, and feverish as he might be, she loved him and she couldn't hurt him—again.

"We needed—" She meant to argue that they'd needed Loghain. To try to present her arguments to him.

But his lips claimed hers and his leg shoved between hers at the same time. His lips, scratchy and dried, chafed against hers as he sought into her mouth with his questing tongue.

Fear blossomed beside the arousal as he roughly pulled at the skirts of her robe. He was ill and fevered and… yet everything indicated that he was ready to make her pay for what she'd done by taking her in the least sensitive or compassionate manner possible when the recipient is fully willing.

But then he had her skirts up and his finger was slipping inside her. She was already wet, her body hadn't needed anything but knowing this was Alistair to become aroused. Unbidden, her arms curled around his neck and she buried her fingers in his hair as her body arched towards him.

Then he pulled away and sneered down at her. "You would let me do anything I wanted to you, even knowing how much I hate you."

It wasn't a question, and his finger shoving roughly inside her told her it wasn't a compliment, either. She felt herself go pale with shame. He was right. She would. She'd probably even beg him to—even knowing he hated her.

He rolled away from her, leaving her body feeling bereft, ravaged, and achingly empty.

"Go away." It was curt and cold, and Alistair rolled away from her.

She stood up and fled, fighting with all her will not to cry until she was far enough away that he wouldn't hear it. She wanted him so much that half of her tears were from the sheer frustration of the incomplete encounter. The muscles between her legs twitched and clenched as if to find what they had been denied.

Her heart did the same, denied its satisfaction, as well.