You Think You Know Someone
The Circle was in chaos and overrun by abominations. Through sheer stubbornness, and nothing short of a miracle, her team managed to kill Uldred and save First Enchanter Irving. Wynne, the mage she had met briefly in King Cailan's camp, had joined them in the tower which made keeping the party healed much easier. That was all well and good, but the business with Cullen was completely unnerving.
Irving and the team made it back to the main hall of the tower where Knight Commander Greagoir was waiting. He seemed genuinely relieved that Irving was alright and then Cullen had to open is big mouth and cause trouble where there wasn't any.
"Uldred tortured these mages hoping to break their wills and turn them into abominations. We don't know how many of them have turned." Cullen was practically shouting in the Knight Commander's face.
Irving glared at him, "What? Don't be ridiculous."
"Of course he'll say that! He might be a blood mage! Don't you know what they did? I won't let this happen again! They may have demons within them lying dormant. Lying in wait."
"Don't you think that sounds a little paranoid?" Alyssa said, "You can't just kill every circle mage because you have a hunch."
"Apostates aren't given the same benefit of doubt!" He drew his sword and lunged at her, but before he could lay the killing blow the sound of metal on metal rang through the hall. Zevran had leapt between them and blocked Cullin's sword with his twin daggers. Alyssa stared open mouthed at the assassin.
"Enough!" the Knight Commander yelled, "Tell your man to stand down!"
Alyssa narrowed her eyes and snarled. "Call off your dog and he will."
Greagoir dug his nails into Cullen's arm and growled low in his ear, "I am the Knight Commander here, not you. Lower your damn sword." Cullen stepped back and Zevran did likewise, but kept himself between the mage and the Templar. "She is a Grey Warden. If you can't show respect then you damn well better show some iota of intelligence!" The Templar sheathed his sword and stepped back, glaring at the elf and the Warden.
Zevran stood in front of Alyssa, so close she could feel the heat of his body, smell his armor. It smelled like him, oil and warmth, spices and musk. She curled the fingers of her free hand around his belt. She was shaking, but she didn't want to let the Templar have the satisfaction of seeing her rattled. Feeling the leather under her hands, something solid and strong, grounded her. Alyssa breathed in deeply and felt the calm wash over her, not questioning why, just embracing the fact that it was.
"Irving," she said, "Arl Eamon's son needs your help. He's possessed by a demon." Talk about sucking all the air out of the room. The three men stared past Zevran at her, realizing what she was asking.
"Killing the demon would mean killing the child," Irving said. He rubbed his chin. "We may be able to help, but it will take a lot of lyrium and several mages." He nodded, "We will at least try. After all, you did not abandon us when we needed aid."
"I'll also need the mages help against the blight."
"You will have it."
Wynne said, "Irving, I have a request. I seek to follow the Grey Warden."
"Wynne," he frowned, "we need you here. The Circle needs you."
"I appreciate the sentiment, Irving, but this Circle will do fine without me. This woman is capable of great things and if she will have me, I will help her accomplish her goals,"
It was with a heavy heart that Irving let her, "You were never one to stay in the tower when there was adventure to be had. I give you leave to follow the Grey Warden, but know that you will always have a place here."
You mean a cage here, Alyssa thought bitterly. The sooner they were rid of this place the better.
"Thank you, Irving," she said. Wynne nodded to Alyssa and followed her, Zevran and Sten back to the mainland.
It was only when the boat reached the dock that Alyssa felt like she could breathe without burden. Alistair and the others were waiting for the team to return. He rushed over to her, "Are you alright? You look upset."
She glanced at Zevran, but he made no indication that he heard Alistair. Instead he started chatting up Wynne, something about a bosom. "Cullen, I don't know if you know him." Alistair shook his head. Alyssa swallowed hard, "He tried to kill me, but Zevran, he…he saved me."
Alistair lowered his chin, "Zevran. Our Zevran? That Zevran?" He pointed to the elf.
She nodded.
"Just making sure."
"He jumped between us. I didn't even see it coming." She rubbed her forehead. "It would have been over in seconds. Everything we've been trying to do would have been completely unraveled."
Alistair pushed a tangle from her face, "Are you alright to head back to Redcliffe? We can stay here at the inn if you need to."
She smiled, "I'm fine, Alistair. Thank you. We should press on. I don't want Bann Teagan to wait longer than he has to."
The team was on the road to Redcliffe when Zevran heard someone call him. "I owe you an apology." Alistair was walking alongside him and smiling. Sten and Morrigan walked ahead everyone else, Leliana and Wynne just behind them and Alistair, who had hung back to let Zevran catch up. Alyssa was near the back of the pack with Ashfur, Sandal and Bodahn in tow.
Alistair chatting him up was completely unexpected. "Me? What for?" Zevran asked.
"For protecting Alyssa. I don't know why you did, but I'm glad of it. I realize now that I underestimated you. I'm sorry."
Under the gaze of this smiling oaf, Zevran felt heat creep up the back of his neck. He couldn't look Alistair in the eye when he replied, "I owe her a blood debt and you Wardens are the only thing between me and the Crows. It serves me to make sure you live."
"Of course it does."
He wasn't about to let the Warden control this conversation. "You know I could just be trying to impress you, my dear Alistair." Pieces set.
"How'd you mean?"
Rook takes pawn. "A handsome young man like you must stoke the passions of women and men alike."
"I…what?" Alistair's cheeks flushed with color.
Rook takes Bishop. "How do you know that my new found loyalty isn't some master plan to lure you into my tent some chilly night?"
"Your... your tent?" he stuttered. "You're having me on."
Rook takes Queen. "I might be, I might not be, but I assure you the massage techniques I have learned are enough to alight the desires of even the most chaste of men."
Checkmate.
Alistair blanched, "I, I'm going to stand over here now!" He scurried over to Leliana and Wynne as fast as he could move in all of that armor, which was pretty fast considering.
Zevran rolled his eyes.
"Stop confusing my Warden in tarnished platemail."
He turned his head, "My dear Alyssa." Zevran grinned broadly, surprised at just how glad he was to see her. "I have a question, if I may?" Since Alistair brought it up, Zevran was thinking more about the oath he had sworn to Alyssa and what that meant to her.
Alyssa shrugged, "Sure."
"Well, here's the thing. I swore an oath to serve you, yes? And I understand the quest you're on and this is all very fine and well. My question pertains to what you intend to do with me once this business is over with, as a point of curiosity."
"Do with you?" she laughed. "What are you? Luggage?"
"Oh I imply nothing specific of course. One simply assumes that once your Grey Warden business is finished you would have no need of an assassin to follow you about. Am I wrong?"
Alyssa cringed, "This whole serving thing, I don't feel comfortable with that."
"What should I call it then?"
"I mean...it's just," She paused. Running her hand through her hair, she sighed heavily, "Look, can we start over?"
The assassin cocked his eyebrow. "Do you want me to try to kill you again? Believe me, I had my fill the first time."
"You're gonna drive me to drink, you know that," Alyssa laughed. "I mean I don't want you swearing an oath to me or anyone. It's enough that I have play pied piper on this ridiculous quest. I can't handle," she gestured with her hand between the two of them, "this as well."
Zevran felt his stomach twist and struggled to keep his face stoic as he stared head, "Do you not wish for me to stay then?" This wasn't what he had in mind.
"I didn't say you have to leave, but don't stay as a slave or a servant."
He looked at her, questions of his fate burning in his chest. "You say that so easily."
"Not everyone operates with ulterior motives, you know," Alyssa said.
He snorted, "Most of my life I have had decisions made for me. Never once have I been my own man and here you blithely say things like 'do not serve me' and then treat me as an equal. What am I to think?"
"You can think whatever you want. I'm not your master, mistress, whatever. Do what's best for you."
Ashfur ran between the two of them, hot on the heels of a stick that Sandal had thrown.
He tried to keep tone out of his voice, but some of his anxiety broke though. "I don't know what that means." She was starting to frustrate him. "You could be telling me to stay or to go, I don't know which." Taking stock, he realized just how many people wanted him dead and his charm wouldn't be enough to save him. Not only that, he honestly didn't want to leave her company. When that Templar pulled his sword, Zevran didn't think, he just acted. She was starting to make him a different kind of nervous from when they first met. She could be so careless with her trust and one day it would get her killed. Then where would he be?
She watched Ashfur wrestle the stick to the ground. "If you're going to be with me, then be with me as a friend. Be with me because you want to. That's all."
His ears picked up. Back at the Circle he had felt her clutching his belt. At first he thought it was to push him forward if the Templar attacked again, but instead she had stopped trembling and was pulling him closer to her body. "Do you mean the group or you?" A small piece of him thought long since buried dared to hope it was the latter. He forced it away. There was no place for such fantasy.
She smiled when the dog and Sandal started a tug of war over the wood. "Hmm?" Her eyes fluttered. "What did I say?"
"You said, 'be with me.' Three times in fact." Zevran could feel his heart beating a little harder, holding his breath a little longer, as he waited for an answer.
"Oh. I meant, us, the group." Alyssa turned her head, letting her hair fall in her face so he couldn't see her eyes. "Anyway, I wanted to talk to you about what happened at the tower." He was about to tell her the same thing he told Alistair, but she said, "You asked for mercy on the mages behalf. I didn't expect that."
"Why because I'm an assassin? I suppose that would be a surprise."
"No, not that." She pushed her hair back from her face, "Wynne I could understand wanting to save the mages, but I was surprised that Morrigan was fine with killing them and you argued against that. I thought Morrigan would want them defended. I didn't think you had an opinion either way."
Zevran smirked, "Realizing I'm more than just a pretty face, are we?"
"If you want to be blunt, yes. Have you ever seen the damage that a blood mage can do? It's terrifying. Blood Mages can invade your mind to control your thoughts and they kill as efficiently as I can heal. Stitching Sten up after taking down that sloth demon wasn't easy." The Qunari had taken a very bad hit while they battled in the Fade, but Alyssa was able to close the wound and get him back on his feet even amidst all the chaos. There was blood stained all down her robe, dried and brown against the dark blue. If you died in the Fade, you died in the waking world.
Zevran shrugged, "Lots of things can kill, my dear Warden," he said. "Magic can kill. Knives can kill. Even small children launched at great speed could kill. Why single out the wielders of one and not the others?"
She closed her eyes and shook her head, "I don't even want to know where you got that last example." Alyssa put a hand to her lips trying to hide a grin. The crinkle by her eyes gave her away.
"Just to seeing if I could get you to smile."
"And?"
"You do not disappoint." She lowered her hand, resigned to giving the assassin what he wanted and not looking too put out for it. "My original point was not disputing the killing or not," Zevran said. "It was to point out that there was no fairness in killing already caged creatures and the seeming biased nature of who should live and who should die. You spared me after all."
"And it was the best decision I have ever made." Alyssa squeezed his bicep gently and let her fingers trail down his arm until she was holding his hand.
This wasn't good. Couldn't she have grabbed his ass and made a lewd comment instead? That at least he could work with and a good tumble would be most welcome. His mind screamed to back away and yet he didn't want to let go, even though he'd be doing her no favors by encouraging this reckless behavior.
Zevran slowed to a stop and touched her chin. She allowed him to gently guide her face toward him. "Be careful."
"Of what?"
He was silent for a time, considering the advice he was about to give. "A leader has to be strong and command respect. She who wears her heart on her sleeve risks having it broken."
The moment he said those words, he realized he had misspoke. Her eyes clouded over and she pushed his hand away slowly, pulling hers from his light grasp, "Duly noted." She increased her pace until she was walking next to Leliana.
Zevran sighed and shook his head, cursing his clumsy words. He was a liar, a thief and a murderer and didn't deserve her kindness. So why did his chest ache?
