.14 Forlorn
Running like the wind simply didn't seem possible in the heavy armor the Wardens were clad in, yet their attempt in reaching a similar speed seemed fruitful. As Carver led the way to the Kirkwall Harbor, they barely spared the decency to avoid running over the numerous fleeing residents. They held a tempo so fluently they proved to be the well-oiled machine they were, instead of a group of individuals within the same order who only met each other recently. In war, victory. In peace, vigilance. In death, sacrifice.
Alistair was grateful to be guided by their youngest recruit, recently sent on his path by his friends from their expedition to the Deep Roads. Nathaniel and Oghren had been kind enough to watch over the underground post in his stead to allow him and his fellow Wardens some time on the surface. Although Alistair had felt sorry to have his companions replaced by vague acquaintances, merely bound to him by the duty they fulfilled and the tainted blood they shared, his feelings were forgotten there and then when the youngest Hawke proved to be of good use.
If Alistair were desperate to be reunited with his love, Carver undoubtedly must have been eager to see his sister again, who was rumored to be deeply involved in the Qunari rebellion.
Alistair had only once saw one of the foreign giants before; a caged murderer, outcast by the people of Lothering before their hometown was overrun by the blight as a condemnation for killing an entire family. After a small conversation, it became apparent the monster had shown no regret, and a coolness that had run shivers down his spine.
His kin were similar in manners and tactics, a prospect he would have considered daunting in other circumstances. Yet the templar only had eyes for the horizon, where ships were burning at the docks and the sound of fighting seemed the loudest. By the looks of it, he still made a chance.
When the innocent eventually made way for the guilty the Wardens pulled their arms from their sheaths, allowing their blades to cut down everything on their path. Never ceasing to reduce their tread, the order seemed nothing less than a whirlwind, cleansing Kirkwall on their way to who knew where.
As they neared the docks, the homely smell of burning wood grew stronger. Although Alistair had never been delighted by the destruction of the homes and possessions of civilians, he felt his relief was strengthened by the conclusion it could only mean the routes out of Kirkwall by sea would be stagnant. Stroud seemed to think the same thing and nodded at him in approval from under his heavy mustache. It took everything for Alistair not to smile and count his victories there and then.
As they fought their way across a small courtyard, they noticed their progress became even speedier than before. As he shoved the last horned giant from his blade Alistair glanced at a small party, covered in blood and gore as proof they had been fighting at their side. As he faintly recognized the similar features in the woman's face, despite the paleness of her hair, he politely stepped aside.
"Somehow I knew it would be you."
The grin that played around Carver's lips was brief, and his tone oddly belligerent. As soon as Alistair realized this had to be what sibling rivalry sounded like, he couldn't help but listen in.
"Are you injured, are there more of you?"
Marian Hawke's voice sounded dignified, and a world apart from her brother's. Although Carver's attitude had seemed rather normal to him during the days they have spent together, Alistair felt that compared to the well-spoken woman in front of him, her sibling's attitude had grown from a rebellious nature, most possibly fed the fact she was born a mage and he was not. Despite his occupied mind Alistair could not help but pick up the intriguing facts around the woman they had investigated. He then shook himself, and decided to mingle into the conversation.
"From the list of things that I thought might happen today, a Qunari attack would have been near the bottom."
As he caught himself dramatically wiping the sweat of his brow, he suddenly felt sorry for allowing this distraction more than he was willing to give. However interesting it might have been to see Marian Hawke in person, he numbly reminded himself recent events had cleared her from all suspicion. Yet finally meeting the subject of their research had intrigued him, allowing her the politeness she deserved despite their urgent endeavors, however briefly.
"Thank you for your help. I don't think we've met; my name is Alistair."
He impatiently paced towards the way down to the harbor as he spoke.
"I'd like nothing better than to stay and help, but unfortunately the mission we're on can't be delayed."
"There is something more important than an invasion?"
Hawke sounded full of disbelief, if not slightly offended. If Alistair had still had any doubts left the woman was what he considered high-born, they had evaporated there and then. Carver exclaimed they couldn't talk about it, for the first time sounding compassionate towards his sibling.
"Can't say more than that," Alistair pointed out thankfully as he scanned the horizon once more through the rising smoke. "I wish I could, but I swore on my pinky to keep the Warden's secrets."
A brief silence followed, and Alistair felt compelled to lead the way and get what he came for. Hawke on the other hand, seemed unwilling to close the conversation just yet.
"I thought your order was more, serious."
"Really?" A familiar voice sounded behind her. Alistair turned around, and not completely unsurprised, saw the man he had met only moments before. Anders eyed him challengingly as he spoke.
"I thought the Joining was a laugh a minute."
Alistair raised his eyebrows, calling his bluff seamlessly. "Hmm, I get that a lot."
Now the silence was impregnated with rivalry. As Carver seemed determined to look anywhere but at his sister, Hawke's other companions, an elf with blue markings and a sturdy built woman clad in the armor of the city guard, looked uncomfortable. They picked up on the atmosphere no doubt, but had been able to piece the puzzle together by then or were using the dreading silence to figure it out. None of them, Warden or no, seemed willing to provide an explanation.
Just as Anders took the lead to continue their journey to the higher regions of Kirkwall, Alistair spoke.
"Wait, maybe this might help."
He reached into his armor, pulling out an amulet he had treasured dearly during the days since Elissa's departure. As he presented it in his palm he felt a pang of regret, soon softened by the doubtful reassurance he would be reunited with the real thing only moments later.
"This belongs to the love of my life," He said as he gave the amulet to Hawke. "But she seems to find stuff like this everywhere she goes."
He briefly looked over Marian's shoulder to glance at Anders. He impatiently leaned on his staff a few steps away, but Alistair sensed the defeat in his being. Carver must had too, because he quickly said his goodbye's before he once again took the lead of his party.
Before Alistair drew his sword again he turned around.
"Maker watch over you my friend. And over us all."
He then picked up the pace and continued his relentless descent to the Kirkwall Harbor.
They found the docks all but empty. As the Qunari compound had been bordering the Kirkwall Harbor, this is where the fighting had been most severe. As Alistair uneasily stepped over numerous bodies, human and those that followed the Qun, he was ridden with guilt and anticipation. Anticipation, because he didn't see any sign of Elissa. Guilt, because the losses Kirkwall had endured were little more than a feint throb in the back of his head.
As they reached the boarded shoreline the smoke became thicker, stagnant by the lack of a welcome sea breeze. Those tending to the survivors or their possessions were coughing and calling out for their loved ones because their vision was obscured. Alistair decided to do the same.
"Elissa!"
His call seemed to strengthen others to follow his lead, once again exclaiming names or outcries of fear, anger and pain. But that moment Alistair felt his cause was more urgent than anything else, and he called again.
As he waited for a movement through the thick fumes he deliberately wiped the blood of his sword and the sweat of his brow. When he decided looking presentable in these circumstances would be folly, he yelled again.
"Elissa, come back!"
He didn't know what to yell publicly to provide the reassurance he wanted to give. To convince her that whatever task she felt she had to solve, they would be able to solve it together. The anger that drummed in his heart would be resolved later, yet he doubted that he would feel still the necessity after he found her safe in his arms again.
Yet her voice didn't call him back.
Carver, who had felt in his element guiding his fellow Wardens through Kirkwall, now remained silent. Stroud walked up to him and clapped him on the back for a job well done. Alistair paced towards the docks again, almost stepping off them in the process. He cursed, but found himself surprised as someone grabbed him by the shoulder.
"Wotcher now, don't fall in. The sea's for the dead or so it seems, because our ships have been commandeered or burned. Dreadful Qunari, they..."
Alistair, shocked to hear a man's voice instead of that of his love, interrupted him shamelessly.
"Have you seen a young woman? About this high," He marked the air, but as he realized the man might not be able to see it through the thick smoked, he grabbed his hand and touched the side of his palm to his chest, where the tip of Elissa's head would be.
"This high, she's around here somewhere."
The man pulled his hand back, but chuckled manically, crazed by the situation or maybe long before that. "Have you checked down below? You seemed willing enough to take a look there a second ago!"
Alistair looked quizzically looked down. Although the heavy fumes obscured most of his vision, he easily recognized bodies floating under the docks. He shook his head again, as he forced his muttering into words.
"Man, listen!" He exclaimed as he raised his voice. "She's not one to die in skirmish like this; in fact she was looking for a ship across the Waking Sea. As I mentioned, she's about this tall…"
The man coughed loudly, calling Alistair a halt. Whether he was offended or not, Alistair could not tell, as he continued: "A woman looking for a boat you say? Well if she returns, tell her and that harlot to bring my ship back safely! If that is indeed your friend, I expect you to pay a compensation for leaving me high and dry, back on land!"
Alistair smirked, but wasn't amused. He opened his hands and held them in front of the man's face, shushing him more urgently than he normally would have.
"Her and her friend? What are you talking about?"
The shipper must have considered Alistair's gesture a threat, because he cowered and his voice shot up.
"That Rivaini woman, all of Kirkwall knows she's up to no good. She's been staying at the Hanged Man for ages, blabbering about the ship she's lost. Today she and this other woman showed up, inquiring about a boat to rent, for far too little gold, I'll tell you that. I told them then and there they'd better not try pulling that trick on me, but then all hell broke loose!"
The man dramatically gestured at the empty dock before him, instead of at the floating corpses under his feet or the burning city behind him. Alistair nodded numbly, staring in the distance as guilt and despair ripped at him from the inside.
"I leave the docks for one minute and I see them sailing off, on my ship!"
As the man's bickering continued for what seemed endlessly, Alistair tracked the horizon through the glaze of his eyes. It looked empty and endless, yet he knew the smoke would easily be able to play tricks on him. At some moments he imagined a small ship with a woman on the bow, looking lost but determined. At others he imaged her voice whispering in his ear, not reassuring but pleading for forgiveness. At all times he felt numb with loss, and no will for anything else than to be with her. Yet the means were lost, fallen victim to circumstance. He was stuck.
And she was gone.
"Now good ser I know the circumstances might be dire, but do understand our situation here. Without a boat I cannot fish, without fish I cannot eat or pay the rent for my meager housing."
As Alistair absentmindedly walked down the half collapsed dock towards the sea, the shipper chased him with his undying chatter. The templar noted again that all the docks were empty; the ships that he could have used to chase her had set sail, or lay sunken in the shallows under his feet, manned by the dead.
He only noticed all sound had deafened into his ears until it returned, when Stroud strung the shipper up by his collar.
"Your ship has been lost to a commodity of the rebellion. Take it up with your Viscount. Leave this man be."
The Warden's threatening voice was enough to silence the man, and to chase him away. Stroud on his turn lay a hand on Alistair's shoulder to guide him back to the safety of the shore.
"We will get to the bottom of this."
Alistair nodded, putting all his effort to be strong and not to sink through his knees. When in fact, the world had crumbled away under his feet.
As she watched over her shoulder and saw the city burn, Elissa was more willing to throw herself into the flames and reunite herself with her love, than to fulfill the duty that destiny had assigned her. Isabella's heated calls sounded distant, yet the firm grip on her shoulder reminded her there was someone who seemed to want to leave the docks even more eagerly than she did. "Come on, we have to go, now!"
She allowed the Rivaini woman to pull her on board of the small fishing ship. She reluctantly looked back at the city, at the cliffs that housed the merchant's premises and her fellow Wardens. Her Alistair. Would they know there was an impending rebellion? Would he be warned in time?
"Come on!"
Shaken from her thoughts Elissa looked around and met the wide opened eyes of her new travelling companion.
"Don't let me regret this," Isabella pleaded.
Elissa turned around and reluctantly pushed the ship off the dock with her booted foot. Immediately the Rivaini's expertise took over; the boat rushed through the clutter of strangled oars and boats occupied by those fleeing the Rebellion by any means possible. Elissa ceased to notice them, and only had eyes for the shrinking shoreline of the city behind her.
Only when Isabella released the sail which gratefully embraced the impending wind with a loud clapping noise, Elissa was shaken from her thoughs. She once again stared at the burning city as she longed for her beloved, but did not expect to see him soon.
She expected to see him in the afterlife, and not before she had finished her task.
This is the end of my dragon age 2 story! I want to thank you for reading it. Please feel free to drop me a line!
Truth be told I found this story very hard to write. I picked this story up, planning to piece the loose ends Bioware had left us concerning our Warden together. In practice it has taken a lot of thought but has also proven a bit of a struggle. I thought I would enjoy piecing together an explanation for the Warden's disappearance, but truth be told, it became a burden at some point.
Although I have written pages of notes to make up a detailed storyline for the Warden and Alistair in thise case for what would be dragon age 3, I'm just not up to writing it as for now. Instead I might do some one-shots inside the storyline and characteristics I have provided myself and written down, or something less entwined with the general storyline like my previous story "Beyond Warden Duties". I don't shut out the possibilities to pick it up in a later stadium; as for now I'd like to read David Gaider's "Asunder" first, as I like to be fairly loyal to the dragon age lore.
Nonetheless it does me good to have finished this story because in the end it did what I asked for; patch up the questions I was left with concerning the Warden in dragon age 2. I hope you have enjoyed it too!