The warm body that slid into bed next to Zevran was just a little too furry, the hair close-cropped and coarse under his hands. Cassius didn't wait for the elf to fully rouse, instead licking his face and whining pitifully. Zevran tried to defend himself, pushing the dog away, and Cassius moved obediently but whined again, which answered the first question he meant to posit the beast with
Muscles ached in protest when he sat up, but Zevran pushed himself up and out of bed regardless. After their first stay, just before the Landsmeet, Eamon personally had a talk with Zevran about Fereldan morality and just what was an appropriate state of dress to venture into the halls in during the middle of the night. If anyone but Eamon himself had asked, Zevran would've defiantly continued to demonstrate the inherent dignity of the masculine form (no one would've looked twice in Antiva, save in appreciation). Now, he went searching for a tunic just long enough, and belted on his daggers out of paranoia. Ridiculous as it might look, he wouldn't leave without them.
Once Zevran opened the door for him Cassius bounded out and ahead, eagerly running down the hall and back, then waiting at the next door, while Zevran strolled down the hall, stretching languorously. Zevran planned to let him out through the kitchen entrance, as usual, but found it held ajar with a loose cobblestone pried from the courtyard outside. Lunging, he caught Cassius by the collar just in time to keep the mabari from escaping, and lurked around the corner listening, the dog looking up at him in confusion.
"Not a statue." Cadryn's voice, that peculiar accent that only an outsider to the language could really detect thicker, diction faintly muddled. "That seems too... pretentious."
"You think?" Zevran risked peering around the edge of the door, looking through the thin sliver out into the courtyard. Alistair and Cadryn sat on the front stairs, the not-quite-Templar a little further up, his bad leg stretched out. Cadryn sat further down, propping himself up on elbows braced against a step behind him. The mage was wearing plainclothes, but the pose still made the harder-than-expected lines of his body more prominent and striking. "Not a statue of him, at least. You're right about that." Alistair held out his hands as if straightening something on a wall. "Maybe just a plaque, with the Warden's heraldry. Do you think I could find someone to write some poetry, perhaps?"
"Just the oath," Cadryn said, and while they spoke neither of them really looked at each other, but Alistair stared off into the courtyard and Cadryn up at the stars. "It seems impersonal, but it should be. He wasn't the only one who died at Ostagar."
"You're right," Alistair conceded. "Very right. Maybe with a list of names? Didn't Riordan take an accounting of the dead?"
"I have it. With the rest of his papers. Do we still have his sword and shield?"
"They're in my room," Alistair said.
"Have them mounted. We'll display them in the Keep. That will be his personal memorial."
Zevran finally let Cassius go, and the dog wriggled his way through the door, bounding out. He gave a soft bark, perhaps in greeting, before running off urgently to do his business. Both of the men on the stairs looked to the open doorway, swinging back to close on the stone, and Zevran ducked out of sight.
"Zevran must have let him out. That means it's late. We really should head back in." Neither of them moved, and it seemed the words evaporated like mist almost as soon as they escaped, as neither of them acknowledged it again. They sat in silence for a while, and by the time Zevran resumed his spying, Cassius had padded back over and settled his massive bulk across Cadryn's legs, the mage idly scratching the mabari's head.
"We should do just the opposite," Alistair finally said. "The sword and shield get displayed in Highever, and the plaque at the Keep. That makes more sense."
"Where in Highever?" Cadryn asked. "Do you know anything about him? Where would be appropriate?"
"I'll find out," Alistair insisted, determination hardening his voice and his gaze momentarily. Cadryn just nodded, and they sat in companionable silence for a long while, during which Alistair turned his gaze upward as well.
Zevran became uncomfortable with the hour, afraid of being found by the kitchen staff when they started moving again, and uncomfortable with this eavesdropping. These were his friends, yes, and one of them his lover, but what had happened at Ostagar was a part of their lives he could never touch, aside from the ugly scars on Cadryn's chest, three arrow wounds and nearly his death save for Flemeth's miracles. That they'd repaid her with death at Morrigan's behest still didn't sit well with Zevran, but he could live with the decision, and trusted whatever logic lead Cadryn to it.
"I have a... a weird question." Curious as he was about Alistair's uncertain tone, Zevran turned to leave, not wanting to silently intrude on a private moment any further. He owed them that much respect. Cadryn acknowledged the question with a curious, "Hn?" as was his standard response for idle questions.. "How old are you?" That made Zevran pause, when he realized he had no idea. How little any of them knew of the Warden, when he had so easily pried their secrets from them, and held them in confidence and respect.... Zevran had gotten quite a bit, but it wasn't the whole of the story, certainly, and he got the impression Cadryn was hoarding the knowledge for some reason other than mistrust.
"Does it matter?" He tried to sound exasperated, but sounded nervous to Zevran, who had by now perfected the art of detecting the Warden's misdirection and sweet half-truths.
"No," Alistair said, drawing the syllable out slightly. "But I wondered. It didn't seem relevant during the Blight, so I didn't ask. Look, I know you don't like talking about yourself, but it would make me feel a lot better. I mean, you know more or less everything there is to know about me."
"Guess," Cadryn challenged, a little more of the slur slipping into his voice.
"Twenty-six, at least. You're too grounded to be younger."
"That's why I've never mentioned it" Zevran could hear the smirk in Cadryn's voice without looking. "I turned nineteen on the second day of our forced march to Denerim. My Harrowing was my eighteenth birthday."
"You're kidding," Alistair laughed a little as he said it, a surprised sound. "Really?"
"Really." A heavy sigh, disappointed. "And if you make anything of it, I'll go to bed and keep everyone up all night, thick stone walls be damned."
"Happy belated birthday, I suppose?" Laughter in Alistair's voice, too, clearly taunting, uncaring of the threat that would've had him blushing and uncomfortable in other company. "What are they getting kids nowadays?"
With a scoff Cadryn shot back, "There aren't that many years between us, grandfather."
"Someone really should inform Zevran he's robbing the cradle." And Alistair couldn't hold back a little laughter once the words escaped him. Zevran chuckled a little at the joke himself, and finally resolved to let them be. Armed with this new information, he would find some way to use it for great amusement, but he expected they'd be done chatting soon, and a cold bed would make Cadryn suspicious.
Zevran had nearly drifted off when Cadryn finally came to the their room. Pretending to be asleep, he listened to the man shucking off his clothes and the mabari making a soft chuff as he settled down near the cold hearth. When Cadryn slid into bed and curled around him, Zevran settled into the embrace, looked up at him sleepily—which he had no need to fake. "Finally," Zevran muttered, playfully indignant.
Cadryn smelled strongly of alcohol, which explained the exaggerated care he paid when laying a kiss on the corner of Zevran's jaw, then trailing his lips up one ear, before burying his face in blond hair and inhaling deeply. "Finally," Cadryn echoed, a resonant murmur half-felt, pressed as Zevran was against his chest, so full of contentment it frightened and excited Zevran at once.
No matter how badly he wanted it, forever would be a very long time to spend tied to one person and one place. Staring that future down still terrified him, like staring down an approaching storm while ship-bound—the uncertainty of a course afterward, of remaining intact.
But pressed fully against the Warden, skin against skin, in so quiet a moment, the conflagration of emotions unbidden calmed, stilled to one thing: the storm was passed. This was the steady course onward after the storm. He needed no charts or guides, could navigate by constellations drawn in the scars and tattoos on his lover's flesh, by sightings made with emotions instead of cold logic. Cadryn understood how snarled things remained in Zevran's heart, no matter how many declarations of love and understanding passed between them, and he accepted that. The certainty of this lent Zevran some certainty in what he was doing.
It wasn't forever, then, simply forward, together, and that he could live with.