Warning: cursing/swear word(s) ahead.
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Chapter 36 - Regrets and Recovery
She felt she had been played. Badly.
Her thoughts inundated her brain, and she did little to control this. She found herself looking back at the Joining and to the first secret that had been kept from her. The Joining had been life-threatening, and she had seen two men die on that day.
But her parents had trusted Duncan, and wanted her to become a Grey Warden.
Then live darling! Live and become a Grey Warden...
He had betrayed their trust, because he could not have known at the time if she was going to live or not. Yet becoming a Grey Warden had seemed like the correct choice for them. She would live even if her parents had to die.
They had not known that she could have died right after them. That becoming a Grey Warden did not guarantee life as they thought it would.
They thought they had been saving her from death.
She stifled a laugh and glanced at Alistair briefly, but he had not heard. He was sitting in front of the fire, still visibly upset.
She retreated into herself again.
Looking at Alistair brought the memory of her first conversations with him. That's when she had learned that she would die young. No dying from old age.
That had been the second secret.
She was surprised to see that it mattered little to her back then. She had thirty more years to live, give or take. What she did not see then is that they had told a lie within a lie.
Alistair's words came back to her. Words that had probably been told to him by Duncan or his other brothers. "We have the real nightmares then. That's when we go into the Deep Roads to fight our final battle before dying."
The final battle? The final battle against darkspawn, or against becoming darkspawn themselves? For she now knew that that was what would probably happen. She would change into something horrible and Alistair would probably become a hurlock, if he wasn't killed by one first...
But the one thing that had really gotten to her was the fact that the taint would keep her from enjoying the joys of motherhood. And that, until now, even with what she had just faced, was the worst secret of them all.
She would probably never become a mother. Never be able to give the man she loved a family he so desperately wanted and deserved.
She felt deceived and regretted accepting the offer Duncan had made to her in the larder of her castle the night her parents had been taken from her.
What other things had Duncan kept from them? What other dark secrets did they yet have to uncover?
...
She felt him sitting beside her, even though she did not look at him.
The silence between them held unspoken thoughts, fears and sadness.
He did not make a move to take her in his arms, and she felt something was very wrong. This was not him. Her Alistair.
She turned to look at him.
He was looking at her with fear and sadness. Understandable after all they had just been through.
She saw what was troubling him, then. He merely was trying to put into words what he wanted to say to her, and was trying to focus. It was still her Alistair after all.
"We need to talk," he said quietly.
She did not reply but waited for him to say what he had to say.
"I made you a promise," came the words finally. "I don't know if I'll be able to keep it, but it's there."
She nodded.
"I don't think it's advisable for me to take the throne," he breathed.
She did not say anything. She only continued to look into his eyes.
"What kind of king would I be? I can't even ensure that my reign will not end in a civil war, because I may not be able to provide an..." he trailed off. Unshed tears glistened in his eyes, as he fought to keep himself from breaking down.
An heir.
She felt a lump in her own throat and nodded again.
"So I really don't think that I'm the best candidate for the throne."
"You think that Anora is?"
He did not reply immediately, but chose to stare back at the fire, seemingly lost in thought again.
After a while, he spoke, his eyebrows knit together as he scowled and realized he really was the best option.
"She is her father's daughter."
"Which is exactly why she is not suitable for the throne," was Alyssa's reply. Strong and confident.
Determined.
He turned to look at her then, wonder in his eyes as he regarded her.
"How do you do that?"
"Do what, Alistair?"
"Be so sure of everything? Know what is right? Be so firm, so strong?"
She gave a bark of a laugh.
"I'm not so sure of everything. And I certainly do not know what is right anymore."
"Don't-"
"Don't what, Alistair? You tell me if you feel better after finding out that I will turn into a broodmother at the end and you will most likely change into a hurlock. You tell me if that is right."
His eyes widened in shock.
"We don't really know if that will happen."
"Oh, please! Weren't you there just now? Didn't you see and battle the broodmother? Didn't you listen to Hespith?"
"But that doesn't mean it necessarily happens at all! We are already tainted. With Hespith it was...different. She was raped, and Maker knows what else." He paused for a moment. "Our calling will be to travel here at the end, to battle the darkspawn one last time."
"That's what Duncan told you right?"
"Yes, of course..."
"And since it was Duncan, you believe it, right?"
She saw him flush and his eyes grew dark, clear signs that anger was taking over, but at the moment she was beyond caring. She had to make him see the truth, even if he hated her for it.
"Why would Duncan lie to me?" He snapped.
"Why indeed?"
Silence between them. The lull before the storm.
"My father lay dying in that larder. And Duncan told him that he would take my mother and me to safety only if father agreed to let me become a Grey Warden. Mother then decided to stay behind, with father. To give us time to escape. Her last words to me were that I should live and become a Grey Warden. They thought they were giving me to a noble cause that would guarantee my life, my survival."
All traces of Alistair's anger disappeared, and he moved to take her in his arms, but she shied away from him. He stopped and looked at her, pain and confusion in his eyes.
"You see? You want to protect me from the memory of it. See how bad it is? My parents thought they were giving me a chance to live, and Duncan did not say anything. Because I could die! I could die in the Joining! His silence led them to believe that I would live!"
She stood up, breathing heavily, anger washing away all her self-control. Alistair stood up also and again moved to calm and comfort her, but she backed away, and held up her hands to stop him.
"And if that wasn't enough, we will die young. But that shouldn't bother us, right? Because the real problem is that there is no final battle. There is no fighting the darkspawn, killing as many as we can before we fall, which would be a good death after all..."
She paused, her face red, tears streaming down, her breathing coming in gasps. "The real problem is that we will really be fighting ourselves! OURSELVES!"
Her last words ended in a scream.
Sten, Morrigan and even Oghren stood up in shock, wondering if they should intervene. They had never seen her so upset before and were worried.
"And to top it all off, you have to become king, and probably will need to annul our marriage because you need an heir for fucking Ferelden, so you'll have to find another wife to get an heir, because love is no longer important, and people you love and trust lie to you! All because of duty! Not love! Duty! And through it all, we are lied to, all because they have to keep their fucking secrets!"
She fell to the ground, crying and screaming, sobbing and cursing. "I hate politics! I hate secret orders! I hate DUTY! Fuck them all!"
He knelt beside her then. Tenderly, oh so tenderly, he took her in his arms and rocked her, stroking her hair gently. She clung to him, still crying and sobbing, unable to stop.
But eventually she did stop, and she did calm herself. Because of him.
Her love.
Her Alistair.
"Listen to me, my love. If I become king, if I do take the throne, I will not annul our marriage. There are other ways to ensure an heir to the throne. An heir does not have to be mine. We will simply have to draw up a will or testament, and decide who takes the throne after our reign before we leave. I will not lay with another woman. I will not love another woman. I will not leave you. I will not let duty come between us. You are my family. We are one."
She sighed into his chest, but did not say anything to this, merely held on tighter to him.
"Whatever we decide to do, it will be together. And as for the end, we will also face it together. Come what may, we'll face everything together, like we always have since Ostagar."
He cupped her chin with his thumb and forefinger, lifting her face to meet her puffy eyes, and looked tenderly into them. The love in his eyes was her strength. Her doubts and fears were slowly vanishing.
"It doesn't matter if they lied, if they kept secrets from us. What matters is that we are together, and that we love each other. And we will stand and face everything together... now, at the end and in between."
He stopped talking and brought his lips down to hers, and they kissed.
Her heart soared. And as it did, she knew it was on the road to recovery.
Because her Alistair had made it possible.
A/N: And this is the way I think a 'hardened' Alistair should act. :)
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