Guest Prompt #5: There is no love without sacrifice.

A Willing Sacrifice

"Are you sure you don't mind?" Carys asked again.

She was currently laying half across Alistair's chest, her fingers idly tracing along the lines of the griffon tattoo that lay over the left side of his chest. He'd always been interested in the curving circles and lines of her own vallasin, and she encouraged him to get something that had meaning for him. Eventually, he agreed, and had asked Zevran for help, which the assassin had willingly given.

It was the tattoo that had prompted her to ask him that question again for what seemed like the hundredth time.

"Why do you keep asking?" he replied. "You know I don't."

She laid her head on his chest, the smooth skin warm against her cheek. "I feel selfish," she confessed. "I'm taking you away from everything you're ever known and I don't even know what I want to do or where to go."

"Is that what you really think?"

"Yes. All you've ever known is Ferelden, and you did everything with me to save Ferelden. And now we're leaving."

"Because you don't want to stay. I understand that, Carys." He shifted slightly beneath her, pulling her completely flush against him and rubbing her back. "Do you want to talk about it?"

She shook her head, then nodded, then sighed. "There's just so much pain back in Ferelden. I lost everything there. We lost everything there."

"Not everything," he murmured. Smiling, she kissed the skin beneath her lips.

"No, not everything," she agreed. "But first it was Tamlen and then my clan. And then the Wardens. And then it was nothing but fighting and death. And in the end…everyone else left." There was sorrow in her voice at the last part. Maybe it was foolish, but she had thought she and the others had grown close enough that they might want to stay. But one by one, they had said their goodbyes and left for distant shores.

"There are just too many bad memories. I want to start fresh somewhere—just you and me, in a place where there are no bad memories or monsters waiting for us.

"But it means taking you away from your home and the Grey Wardens. You love them. And I don't really have the right to ask that much of you."

"You say it like that's some great sacrifice," laughed Alistair.

"Isn't it?"

"Not really. Look at it this way: I don't want any harm to come to Ferelden or her people. That's part of the reason I fought, yes. But the two places I ever called home—Redcliffe and the Chantry—never felt like homes to me. They weren't really. So what I am in giving up? Not much, especially not when staying upsets you.

"I want to be where you are—it doesn't matter where that is. I would give up anything and everything for you. Ferelden will always be there waiting if we ever want to return, and so will the Wardens."

He yawned. "Now go to sleep. The morning tide is early tomorrow and we don't want to miss our ship."

"All right." Carys settled against him. "Are you really sure—"

"Go. To. Sleep."