I apologize in advance for any misspellings, please PM me if there are any.
Chapter 10:
Your life can pass you by if you don't stop to breathe once in a while. We didn't have time to breathe. Before I knew our group had grown with the additions of Oghren, Zevran and Shale. Our lives faded into day after day of trekking, fighting and the occasional rest stop. Eventually I stopped keeping track of my time in Thedas, washing away the marks on my arm.
And, sadly, going home became a far away dream.
Every time I closed my eyes I saw things my worst nightmares on Earth couldn't have conceived. Thousands of monsters bowing down to an Archdemon that roared out brimstone fouled breath. The ground shook and the walls threatened to crumble around us. Sometimes I would see the Brood Mother with her bloated purple-black limbs, red oozing suckers like an octopus slapping wetly on a cavern floor. It reached for us, howling in outrage, screaming with an inhumane cry that left me quaking in fear. The demon in the orphanage, skewering Ser Otto with malicious glee, it's voice booming off every wall in echoing stereo.
Other times the spider queen. The queen herself had larger than any spider I'd ever seen before, or would see after. A head so massive it could have been a medium sized dog and so many eyes there was one for each of us. Her body, long, brown and furry rivaled that of the boulder she sat on. Under her a gruesome meal of hurlock split open, guts liquefied into a gelatinous black mess that she slurped down greedily.
Branka's maniac smile as Aedan agreed to allow her to live and begin making golems. Werewolves lying dead on the ground blood spilled around them in dark crimson puddles. Shrieks slashing nightmare blades, emitting ear splitting, disorienting cries in the darkness, appearing out of nothing to stab and kill and maim. The horrors that came down from Arl Eamon's castle lit afire, and dripping with malice.
I'd begun to sleep less and less, too afraid of my nightmares.
Seeing my reflection in a mirror at Eamon's Denerim estate was a shock. The round, green eyed face with a tiny smattering of pale freckles I'd grown used to for twenty odd years didn't look back at me. Constant exposure to the sun left my skin honeyed warm, and my freckles more prominent than ever. My hair no longer looked like a mix of moonlight and sunlight, instead looked a bit like pale wheat colored strands. At some point between arrival and the moment I stared at the stranger in the mirror, my baby fat left me. Muscles from the constant walking, the repetitive fighting and the struggle of a hard rode life gave my body an entirely new shape.
That, unfortunately, was where the good ended. My cheeks, once round with baby fat were gaunt, my face drawn. Exhaustion colored every movement I made. Heavy dark circles under my eyes and a faint handful of scars crisscrossing my bare shoulders.
A shriek got in a good few hits in the deep roads.
Aedan's hands slid over my arms, "We can rest for a little while." He dropped a kiss to my neck, arms wrapping around me. "Maker, finally, I can be alone with you." It frustrated him that we couldn't have time for the two of us on the road. If we did it tended to leave certain people red eared and blushing, or other people commenting on our performances.
Zev's favorite past time since he no longer killed people for money.
I smiled at him in the mirror, ignoring how tired I looked. How tired we both looked. "You don't say."
"You make it easier for me," he words tickled the fine hairs on my skin, "having you makes it all bearable. I cannot imagine doing this, any of it without you."
Turning in his arms, I pressed a kiss against his lips. "Warden, I think your stint in the keep has made you mushy."
Aedan scoffed, "Never."
My fingers slid up his sides lightly tickling him, forcing him to grip my wrists to stop me. "Woman," he groused with a smile, "if I didn't love you…"
The butterflies in my stomach danced whenever he uttered those three little words. I loved him too, so much the feeling had rooted itself deep into my soul. The intensity scared and excited me at the same time. The enormity of letting my world go, giving it up, didn't escape him when he saw my bare arms.
"I will marry you," he promised me that evening with the Brecillian forest cloaking our camp in the still of night. "When this damnable blight is over, Elyria I am going to marry you."
Still the butterflies came. Maybe because the idea made me nervous, maybe because not being from Thedas and deciding to stay scared me. He loved me. I loved him.
As I began to divest him of his clothing, Aedan groaned. "I would if I could Elryia. I need to speak with Eamon, Anora and Alistair about the Landsmeet tomorrow. We must go over what needs to be presented in order to oust her father."
Disappointment made me frown, "Alright, go play your game of thrones."
The corner of his mouth quirked up, "Game of thrones. I like that."
"Popular book series where I'm from," that I'll never get to finish.
He kissed me once more, donned a loose fitting shirt and left our room. My reflection caught my eye again. We were going on nearly six months of fighting the blight. Winter turned into spring and then summer in what felt like the blink of an eye. We'd climbed the mountain to obtain Andraste's ashes, and gone to Arl Howe's estate to free Anora, stopped the slavers from taking the elves in the alienage. The story line of DA:O was slowly winding down to an end. I hoped that maybe once this story ended it wouldn't mean I'd be dropped back into my world with no more ceremony than I'd been dropped into this one.
Zevran, never one to knock, entered the bedroom. "Ah, there you are. I had begun to wonder if you and the warden had decided to engage in-"
Blushing, "Zev!"
The former assassin paid my embarrassment no mind as he inspected the unused bed. "Are you certain you would prefer I not give you pointers? I think perhaps you might be in need of them. This room is much too…" he searched for a word, "intact for two lovers who have not been afforded privacy these last few months."
"Or," I countered, "unlike some people we are just not into wrecking rooms while we get off."
He pouted. Honest to god pouted. "Elyria, my dear, friend, you wound me."
"Next you'll want to rest your head on my bosom for comfort." I pointed a finger at him, "and no, that was not an offer."
"Bah," he slid into the chair to the other side of the fireplace, "you are terrible to me, truly. It is a wonder I put up with you at all." He took Herbert from the stuffed bird's resting place, "this meeting tomorrow, it could go badly for us all, you know this."
He had absolutely no idea how right he was. "I know Zev," I ran a brush through my hair once more to ease the tangles, "but this has to be done. You've met Loghain-"
The former assassin chuckled darkly.
"And you know he's full of crazy right now."
He put my owl back on the night stand. "That is, how you say, an understatement. I would not trust this man enough to enter into a meeting with him, no matter the number of witnesses."
"He won't outright murder anyone in front of the other nobles. That would just make him look guilty."
"One does not need to worry about guilt if one eliminates the competition completely."
How terribly right he was. Thankfully the game's story line writers had never taken that route. I cringed to think of what they could have written if that idea ever came into anyone's head. The very idea sent horrified shivers down my spine.
Another knock at the door turned both of our attention toward an awkward looking Alistair. For once his armor was absent, replaced by embroidered finery. Whoever the shirt had been made for didn't have his shoulder span, however. One of the seamstresses working for the Arl must have let the shirt out a bit, but clearly not enough. Alistair looked miserable in his green, gold and brown clothing.
Zevran, ever the observant, "My friend, I would hope that I am not the first to tell you this, those clothes do not suit you."
Alistair scowled at him, "Tell me something I don't already know."
The elf opened his mouth to retort, probably something dirty and sexual to force Alistair into a blushing, stuttering stammer. Zev's other favorite pastime. Mine too, but that was beside the point.
"Boys," I used my mom voice, imitating not my mother but my grandmother, "if you're going to have a pissing contest go outside. I'm sure the women of Denerim would appreciate the show."
"Ah, Elyria, you would enjoy seeing me naked, yes? This is your way of telling me?" Zev asked me with a flirtatious smirk.
Alistair on the other hand groaned, covering his face with one hand. "Elyria…"
"No Zev, I do not want to see your scrawny elven bottom. And what Al, you didn't come here to banter. What's up?"
"I was wondering…" he frowned, his forehead furrowed while he mulled over whatever it is he wanted to say. "I wanted to ask if you'd…" Again he thought better of his wording choice.
Zev and I exchanged a glance.
Alistair opened his mouth again only to close it a half second later.
This time I groaned, "Al, out with it, already."
"A month ago I asked the Warden if he would go with me to visit my sister. He told me the next time we were in Denerim, but," Alistair shrugged, "with the Landsmeet coming and the Blight, he must have forgotten. Do you think…" he took a deep breath, "do you think you could come with me?"
Oh. Well shit.
"Ah! Excellent, I shall go as well. To tell the truth I have been curious to know what kind of people you come from my dear Alistair." Zev ducked away from me before I could smack him upside the head. He danced away, out the door past Alistair, calling back, "I shall retrieve Leliana, yes? We cannot venture outside the estate without a fully armed escort for the future King of Ferelden, no?"
The templar's shoulders sagged, "Why do I get the feeling this could be bad?"
Hugging him seemed to make him feel better. He hugged me back, letting go of a deep breath he'd probably been holding a while.
"It will be okay," I lied, "but do me a favor. Go change into your armor. If you're going to meet your sister and her family for the first time ever, don't you want to make a good impression?"
He stepped back, looking down at the clothes Eamon's servants probably forced on him. "I thought I was supposed to look like a future king?"
"Do you feel like a future king in that getup?"
"No, I feel like I should be on display in a shop."
"Would you feel better knowing you're in your armor and you don't have to take shit from anyone?"
"Good point. I'll change."
Over the din of Denerim's marketplace I could just barely make out Gorim's voice as he hawked his wares. The last few times we'd been near his stall I'd been tempted to go over and ask how he was fairing. He had a child on the way now, from what I remembered and would be a father soon.
Goldanna's house looked just the same as all the other little houses and shops all smashed together along the marketplace. Hers even had a small sign by the door indicating the prices for her to wash someone's laundry. Alistair stood pensively in front of the door staring hard at the weather beaten wood for several moments. He looked as if he might be trying to figure out whether to ding dong ditch or suck it up and deal.
"We do not have to do this now," Leliana told him soothingly, "after the Landsmeet tomorrow you might feel differently. Perhaps we can come back then."
"Our lovely archer is correct, my friend," Zev added, "If you do not feel up to it, perhaps coming back another time would be best."
"Will she even know who I am? Does she even know I exist? My sister," Alistair looked almost elated to be saying the word. He sounded it out, wrapping his mouth around the vowels. "Sister. Siiiister."
I rolled my eyes, shouldered between Zev and Alistair and knocked.
The three of them gave me nearly identical looks of outright horror.
"Band-Aids come off faster if you just rip," I said right before the door opened.
Goldanna was, in a word, pretty. Not phenomenally beautiful, but pretty enough for a woman whose life had been difficult. While Alistair leaned toward his father's side of the family, Goldanna no doubt looked more like their mother. I could see the very faintest signs of her in Alistair with high cheekbones and an almost Roman nose, which he'd probably be overjoyed to hear.
If they hadn't launched into the dialogue already, I might have said so.
The pensive, nervous but slightly excited expression Alistair had been wearing crumbled into saddened and lost in the handful of minutes we were in her sister's home. As bad as Goldanna seemed playing the game, she was worse in real life. The disgust written on her face when she began complaining about money and her life while she blamed him for killing her mother made me really, really angry.
"Oh please, like you have it any worse than anyone else in this world. There are a lot of motherless children, most of them with no one to give them any help."
"And who in the Maker's name are you? Some tart-"
There was more to that sentence, but she had a hard time talking after I punched her in the nose. My hand didn't even hut afterwards. Halle-fucking-lujah, my gloves are finally good for something other than deflecting a blade.
"Elyria!" Alistair cried, going to his sister's side to help her up.
She shoved him, "Get away from me!" Her lower lip split slight to the left of middle, her green eyes narrowed in anger. "Out! All of you out! And you," she shoved Alistair's shoulder hard, "Never, never want to see you again, do you hear me? Never!"
"Do you think we should give her some money?" Alistair asked, his voice low and reserved.
"Not a single dime," Leliana replied before I could nix the idea.
"I didn't expect my sister to be so…" Alistair shook his head with a dejected sigh, "I'm starting to wonder why we came." He rubbed his forehead, "That's not what I expected to put it lightly." Al gestured toward the closed door, "This is the family I've been wondering about all my life? That shrew is my sister? I can't believe it."
"What were you expecting, hmm?" Zevran asked as we walked back toward Arl Eamon's estate on the other side of the marketplace.
"I…I guess I was expecting her to accept me without question, isn't that what family is supposed to do? I…" his shoulders sagged, "I feel like a complete idiot."
"You're not an idiot," I told him gently, "naive, yeah, but you are not an idiot."
"One thing in this world you must learn my dear templar, most people are simply out for themselves. Nothing more." Zevran said the hardening dialogue so nonchalantly. I thought it might sound more somber, or gruff, but no…it just sounded disheartening.
Which irked me, "Not everyone." I corrected, looping my arm around Alistair's and taking his hand. "Not everyone. A lot of people yes, they are out for themselves and it sucks, but remember that not everyone is like that. There are the good people, like you, like us who don't put themselves ahead of everyone else."
From the look on his face I wasn't sure if my speech had softened the blow. He left our arms looped as we all walked back to the estate.
The books of this world reminded me much of the books written by Edgar Rice Burroughs, Poe, Mary Shelly and the Bronte sisters. Not so much in the way of content, but in the way that they'd been written. I could see books like Pride and Prejudice, A Princess of Mars, and The Fall of the House of Usher doing well here. Imaginations would spark and run wild.
Maybe after the blight I could write a book. I wondered if Aedan would enjoy having an authoress as a wife. As the wife of the Hero of Ferelden I might be more likely to get published rather than smiled at and asked when I'm going to have another baby. Yeah, it was that kind of world we lived in.
"Elyria," Alistair's voice roused me from my pondering.
The book I'd been reading in the library sat in my lap, ignored. I smiled at him, sitting up from my lounging position on the couch, "Hey Al. Feeling better?"
His mouth twisted into a grimace, "A little. I wanted to talk to you about what you said."
Uh oh. I sat up a little more, "Sure. Okay. What's on your mind?"
"I've been thinking," he settled down into the empty cushion my feet had vacated not a moment before. "When we left Goldanna's today, Zevran told me that I should look out for myself more than I do."
No, he didn't. He implied that but he never said it.
Staying out of it was so hard to do. Christ. It's like seeing the girl walk up the stairs in a horror movie and not run out the effing front door screaming like a friken banshee. Note to self, never put a scene like that in my book. Bad, bad, cliché idea. Excellent way to kill off an unnecessary character one needs to make an example of, but bad idea.
"Then you told me that not everyone is like Goldanna."
I swallowed hard, "Right."
His brow creased as he looked down at the floor, "I know I should look out for myself more. I don't want to be the person that puts themselves last every time. But then…" he shook his head, "but then I remember that you've never treated me like that. Like I was the last person. So I guess…I guess I wanted to say thank you. Thank you for being there for me and thank you for being someone I can rely on."
This is me, floored.
And kind of crying. After the initial shock set in, the warm fuzzy emotions built up in my chest until my throat tightened. There were tears in my eyes, "You're welcome Al."
"You're my best friend Elyria, you should know that. I'm glad you and the Warden have grown so close. After I marry Anora," he winced as he said the last two words, "you and he will still be here. I need my friends now more than ever."
Swiping at my eyes, "God, what would you do without me?"
He shrugged the corners of his mouth turning up, "Run away to Kirkwall?"
"Meet you at the Hanged Man. I'll be the one chilling with the broody elf and the dwarf that won't shut up."
What do you mean I haven't updated in a while?
Oh, yeah. I haven't have I? Right my bad. Sorry.
I was looking for a new job, started a new job, gave my two weeks at the old job. Then worked 15 days straight splitting the week between my new and old jobs, then finished at my old job only to have my new job fall through a few days later. So I am unemployed. My old job won't take me back and the new one didn't write me a severance check.
Screwed would be the term for my current predicament. I can't even go on unemployment.
Have some fiction. Enjoy it.
I just made some lasagna. From scratch. Yeah, I'm amazing like that. And I have that much time on my hands.
Also, a reviewer noted that since the dwarves hold the Grey Wardens in high regard they would probably have some sort of sleeping quarters for them. I figured that as well, but when it came down to it I also realized that those accommodations would be up to the King/Queen or deyshers and since there was a minor war going on in Orzammar, there wouldn't be any certainty as to where the Grey Wardens could stay. Hence my decision to let the group camp outside.