Welp…I think I got those Lolita stories out of my system after posting Fairy Tale. I pray I never have dreams of a little Haruno Sakura being preyed upon by a creeper Kakashi or kidnapping Itachi EVER again.
Something cool and rough was the first thing that Aria could register in her thick, heavy mind. It brushed so softly against her forehead she almost didn't feel it over the ticklish sensation of stringy hair being pulled out of her eyes. The roughness halted as she let out a moan of pain as the throbbing of her cranium was the next thing that broke through hazy thoughts.
"Aria?" was muffled somewhere close to her. She grunted this time for the muffled sound of her name, no matter how soft it was, grated on her sensitive head.
"Aria, you're waking up right? Please, wake up!" the voice pleaded, it was much clearer and the gentle touch of what she thought must be a hand was cupping her face. The hand was warm to the touch and dry compared to her icy skin, wet with sweat.
Through the throbbing pain of her skull eyes squinted open to a blurry world. There was a happy noise.
"Aria, Aria can you hear me? It's Alistair!"
She bit her bottom lip as she tried to form a coherent response to the Warden.
"Mmgur…" she mumbled after a pause. There was a snort before the hand on her face patted her sickly cheek gently.
"Glad to see you so eloquent with your words."
Vision clearing inside the darkness of wherever she was, Aria let her eyes adjust and her mind to clear as she slid her arms sluggishly out of their fuzzy blanket to push herself up.
"Alistair…I'm…I'm alive?" she almost couldn't believe it as the blond man wrapped his hands around her to help her sit up. She moved her legs to the edge of the cot she was laying on and let stale, cool air numb her toes.
"Yeah, but it was a close call." He breathed a sigh she guessed he had been holding for a long time before he pushed the blanket around her shoulders to keep the elf warm. They sat in relative silence as the human watched her blink and wake up after what must have been the worst sleep of her life. Flashes of her vivid dreams clashed with her clearing mind and made her flinch. She had witnessed so much violence, the monsters had clawed at her, tore her skin away. Her body tingled in memory. It all felt so real, like she really was being eaten alive by old gods and their minions.
Other parts of her dreams were filled with battles and disgusting, green magic that make her own twist around inside her in agony.
The dreams had affected her in such a way she could never think possible until realizing she survived the Joining. The blood of those beasts that haunted her dreams was now coursing through her and trying to force its way into the arcane part of her, trying to taint and corrupt that magical side of her that could so easily destroy her. She needed a moment to adjust, but the concerned look Alistair was giving her gave her no time.
"It's trying to take me over…the taint." She supplied him.
"That…shouldn't be possible if you survived, the corruption should have been conquered." He hissed.
"Yes, but you don't have to deal with energy from the Fade running though you, keeping you vulnerable to thinks like corruption and possession…I my need a moment before…" she trailed of and the warrior furrowed his brows.
"I'm not leaving you, You've been out for two damn days screaming your head off from the nightmares! Andraste's flames! You had every Grey Warden and soldier here wriggling in discomfort until you stopped, we thought you died!" He yelled at her with a childish cross of his arms.
Aria flinched.
"T-that bad?" she whispered. Alistair say the look of hurt in her eyes, his warm brown ones softened as he laid a large hand over her head and rubbed.
"At least your heart never stopped beating, Duncan let the biggest sigh go the moment I told him you were still breathing."
"…Soo, two days?" she shrunk in on herself as a wave of nausea churned in her gut. She would win against this blasted blood now that she at least knew she hasn't died.
"Yeah…How are you feeling? Is your magic whatever…uh, adjusting?"
"…I'm going to be sick." She warned, turning a sallow color. The man jumped up with wide eyes before thrusting a large lipped bowl in her direction. Not a moment sooner did the young woman grasp the bowl and hurl her little heart out. The bile was acrid and metallic tasting, it burned her insides as did the moment the blood from the Joining go down her throat two nights prior. What came out of her was nothing short of grotesque.
She could feel the Wardens' eyes on her as she vomited thick black, terrible to taste, vile. Sweat one more broke out against her flesh and she could feel one of her companions hand rub her frail back as she heaved and choked. Tears pricked at her eyes and when she finally stopped to cough and suck air back into her lungs, Aria was left holding a defiled bowl of vomit mixed with blood and some kind of build up that had the constancy of tar.
Alistair handed her a small jug of water and she gratefully eyed it as she set the bowl down next to her to flushed out her mouth of the taste of the taint that tried to take control of her. It took a few mouth fulls and spitting into the dirty bowl before she thought her stomach settled enough to gulp down the rest of the water that had been offered to her. Thankfully, Alistair stayed silent through the whole ordeal with only one or two disgusted looks at the thick, fowl smelling substance in the bowl before them. When she had well and truly settled down with a slouch he finally cleared his throat.
"That was…uh, new?"
"…Sorry…" she mumbled guiltily for making him watch such an undignified display. He shook his head.
"I don't really want to know, but I've got a terrible habit of asking things I shouldn't so, what the hell did you just upchuck into a once very nice bowl?"
Aria looked at him just as grossly curious before running through what little knowledge she had from the Circle on Darkspawn and their effects on the populace.
"Um…I think maybe the part of their blood that turns women into Broodmother's." She rubbed her raw throat as she croaked. Alistair made a sickening face.
"Broodmother's?" he asked, Aria shrugged.
"I read something about women taken by Darkspawn turn into monsters." She elaborated, "I don't know anything beyond that other than a Deep Roads survivor's journal calling them Broodmothers."
"Ok…I wish I never asked. How about we get you out of your almost death bed and get you cleaned up? You look…well…" Alistair scratched the back of his head awkwardly.
"I look like I came out of the Fade possessed by all sorts of evil, don't I?"
"You said it, not me." He smiled and held a hand out to help her to her feet like the gentleman he is.
The touch of the ground beneath her bare feet was cold and hard, the dead and partially frozen grass gabbed into her tender feet like little knives and she flinched.
"Your boots are by the bed if you want them." Alistair informed softly, she eyed them, but shook her head. With her legs as unsteady as a newborn fawn, she doubted she would be able to stand back up again until every bit of her was back in working order and not a taint sickened mess. Never mind the whole fact she beat and concurred her taint, it still made her body feel as crappy as a mage just beaten into submission by an overzealous Templar.
Leaving the boots and leaning more onto Alistair than his nervous heart could take, he lead her out into the crisp air of Ostagar. It was cold and frigid breezes sent teases of the warmth of nearby bonfires. A few people stopped in their choirs to take note that the newest Grey Warden recruit had finally woke up from her two day nightmare. There seemed to be relief as well as curiosity in their studious eyes.
By the time Alistiar had lead her to a long, thickly layered tent where he explained baths had been set up, her feet were numb from the cold. He sent her in with a towel of his and told her to come meet him and Duncan by the same bonfire as before.
It took a few minutes to heat the water with a mild fire spell before the mage stripped to nothing and sank into the bubbling water with a tired sigh.
After a very embarrassing experience in seeing her first dangly bit from a warrior coming into the bath tent after a hard day, both perpetually screaming their heads off, Aria swiftly ran from the tent, fully clothed and drying her short, ruffled hair back to the tent she awoke in to pull on her boots.
Riding her memory of the experience from her mind she walked quickly to the fire where Duncan and Alistair sat over a fallen column with a bowl of stew. Despite the still uneasy twist in her stomach it growled. Not eating for two days affected her greatly as she scampered over to her superiors just as Duncan noticed her.
A tired smiled greeted her.
"Good, you finally join us I see." Duncan's voice greeted her as he handed her a filled bowl of stew that made her dry mouth water.
"I will require your presence tonight at a meeting with King Cailan and Tern Loghain." He reported. Aria raised an eyebrow silently in question as she chewed.
"For some reason the King wished for your presence specifically among the Wardens." He elaborated.
"…As you wish." She murmured unsurely. She was but a new Warden…an elven mage at that! What could she possibly have to offer the King and his allies that a more senior member of the Grey Wardens couldn't provide?
Still, as the cloudy sun set to rise up a cloud covered moon and lanterns were lit Aria followed Duncan down the uneven cobblestone path surrounded on either side by sturdy bottom halves of what were once very tall columns of chiseled stone. Her nerves, still shot from waking up after the Joining, were even more frazzled as she walked with stiff steps and a small stride. Duncan had tried to reassure there was no need for her nervousness and to just be silent and listen to the strategies they would be going over in the wake of battle.
She tried, really she did. For about five seconds before a hard fist slammed into the war table, a feeble wooden one that wobbled. Aria jumped and looked up with wide eyes at Duncan who just sighed as he lead her by the upper arm to the king and other important people. Her brown eyes obviously flashing with her want of not being there.
"Loghain, my decision is final." was King Cailan's stern voice as the Wardens approached the table. A couple others turned to grace them with a nod before turning back to watch the argument unfold. The fist that had slammed against the table had been the kings; he was glancing up at an older man with lank black hair tried out of his sternly set black eyes. They both wore heavy armor, one more polished to hid the many scrapes and repairs, the other, golden set, too polished and with no blemish to hide.
"You risk too much, Cailan! This is no time to prance around with the Warden's to play hero with an oncoming Darkspawn Horde." Argued the man with the scratched armor in an even, if demeaning tone.
"We don't even know how big their numbers are Loghain, it could be little more than a small army for all I know." King Cailan shrugged as he turned to the presence on the late arrivers.
Somehow, from the look Duncan shot the King she doubted this was more than a 'small army'.
"I do not think you should assume so little of the threat of a Blight my King." Duncan nodded to the older man named Loghain before he turned to her.
"I have brought my newest recruit, a mage." He pressed a reassuring hand over her tiny shoulder when all eyes turned to her. Aria gulped as she looked up, wide eyed and unsure of her reasons for being brought to the table as steely black eyes looked down upon her.
"Ah, great! Wonderful for you to join us Sira Aria." King Cailan smiled down at her boyishly. Duncan cleared his throat to gain the attention of the gathered group once more.
"It is actually quite a good idea to bring her along." He started, the look in Loghain's eyes towards her didn't think the same however.
"Then enlighten us Duncan, what use is a fledging mage Warden amongst a party of season warriors?"
Aria flinched.
"It has been brought to the attention of many Warden Scholars that Warden's with closer ties to the Fade and their dreams are more sensitive to sensing the taint of Darkspawn. Aria, more than any other Warden here will be able to grasp the number of Darkspawn that we have been sensing getting steadily closer to us for the last eighteen hours." He revealed. Aria craned her neck up to her Commander with frightened disbelief as the churning in her stomach started once more in familiar signs of vile wanting to rise to her throat as the pen prickles across her skin that had started in her toes rose to such an intensity that she tried to rub the sensation from her arms with her hands.
Duncan eyed her with a grave and knowing look.
"…Like pin pricks across your whole body growing stronger and sharper is it not, Aria?" he murmured. And faintly, she felt herself nod.
"It…it started out as if there was a whirlpool in my stomach, then pin pricks on my toes." She murmured to no one in particular.
"Go on." Her commander pushed. Aria gulped as the sensations of pain and sickness washed over her like filth.
"The more I focus on the feeling the more intense it becomes, it feels like claws running down my back, invisible arms grasping at my sides….oh Gods….Duncan…" the elf's blood ran cold as horror filled her with ungodly visions she interpreted as how the Wardens sensed the Darkspawn. She unsurely grasped onto her Commanders arm, shielded by chainmail as she felt her knees grow weak.
The two most imposing men in the group stared at her differently.
"Speak, dear girl." Duncan commanded her and she wished with every fiber of her being that what she felt and was she was visioning was a lie.
But, somehow she knew it wasn't.
"It is more darkspawn than I have ever seen….hundreds…maybe thousands, Duncan, please!" She whimpered meekly.
"I don't like this, it makes me sick." She gasped. Duncan squeezed her shoulder tightly to steady the small mage before turning his attention back to the King.
"How many Aria?"
"…."
"Aria."
"….A horde, they far outnumber the forces here." She admitted.
There was a heavy since that befell the men and women around the wobbly war table. After what seemed like hours King Cailan was the first to speak.
"If that is the case, then maybe we should wait for the Orlesian forces to join us after all."
Yet, Loghain sighed in aggravation still and pulled his judging eyes away from the elven Warden who was in the midst of a mini panic attack to glare at his nephew.
"It seems I must now repeat my protests to your fool notion that we need the Orlesians to defend ourselves!" the aged man hissed. Aria felt it was best to stay quite now in hopes of not gaining the attention of the two men as their previous argument she walked in on started up anew.
With an exasperated sigh, the king continued. "It's not a 'fool notion'"
"Our arguments with the Orlesians are a thing of the past…and you will remember well who you are disapproving of." Cailan ground out.
That seemed to be the end of that conversation.
"How fortunate Marric did not live to see his son hand Ferelden over to the ones who enslaved us for a century!" Loghain spat.
….Maybe not…
"Then our current forces will just have to do. Duncan, are your men ready for battle?" the King turned to the man.
Aria shivered. This was really it.
"They are, your Majesty." The bearded man nodded. The air around the table seemed to thin out as the tension left the golden king.
"There, now that that's out of the way, I understand congratulations are in order!"
With that, large, gloved hands came to clasp her smaller one and squeeze joyously. Aria's eye twitched at the slight pressure on her newly scared hand, its flesh still tender.
"You were the recruit I met the first day she arrived, it's a great pleasure to see you awake again."
Aria gave a questionable smile as she nodded her head slightly. She didn't trust her mouth right now, the experience was still fresh in her mind and the fact she just had to practically tell everybody of a higher rank than her that they were in deep shit with the Darkspawn closing in was not weighing right in her gut.
Saying there wasn't much of a choice when it came from either drinking blood or getting a dagger in the gut wasn't something she felt the need to reveal. However, with the king ever oblivious to her inner plight, took her silence differently and began to speak once more.
"Every Grey Warden is needed now. You should be honored to join their ranks." His smile towards her was warm and triumphant.
Truthfully, now she felt nothing more than fear for what joining their ranks meant for her health.
Aria was naïve and wistful, but blind she was not. This upcoming battle would more than likely kill her before she could do anything else Grey Wardeny.
The scoff from the man she now found currently scrutinizing her again seemed baffled she could even be considered a Grey Warden. With barely reaching the height of anyone's chest with skinny arms and a sallow complexion she hardly looked the threat the other warriors were going for.
"You fascination with glory and legends will be your undoing Cailan. We must attend to reality!"
"Fine, speak your strategy. The Grey Wardens and I draw the darkspawn into charging our lines, and then…?"
And so the meeting went on.
It was decided that two men from the charging side would head to a tower farther into the ruins of Ostagar to light a beacon to alert Tern Loghains men to charge from cover.
It was decided that Aria and Alistair would be the ones tasked with lighting the beacon with a few other men from Loghains ranks. Then, with a dire warning about the chances of an archdemon appearing from Duncan, the meeting ended.
Cailan gave a glorious speech about marching into battle with his idols. Aria tuned the overly exuberant king out and watched with weary eyes as the one she knew as Loghain turned his back to them. He took a few steps before muttering something under his breath that she could not hear before leaving through the cover of shadow.
War was on the horizon and she was anything but prepared.
It had to be well around midnight as the mage approached the bonfire that had become the meeting grounds for her, her commander, and Alistair. The blonde human stood with a jolt from his troubled restfulness as he heard the two approach. Aria finally gave him a smile of relief before bypassing him all together and slumping against the collapsed pillar that was their chair. She let her pale face burrow into her hands and let out a stress filled shudder and muffled sob.
The men beside her were silent until she felt the heat from Alistair's side shimmy up to her tensely.
She muttered something unintelligible through her hands. Alistair told her he couldn't hear her.
Finally letting her swallowed anger get the better of her, Aria looked up from her hands to send glaring eyes up at her towering Warden-Commander.
"Why!? Why did you make me do that? I didn't know what in the hell I was feeling, or even what was going on! Why did you leave it up to me to warn them about some horde? What is going on damn it!"
It was a shock to Alistairs system as he fell back in surprise at the normally quite subdued elf shouting in sudden anger at Duncan. He let out a gasp when his back hit the ground after falling backwards from the pillar and just looked up at the shaking shoulders of the newest Warden.
She was far smaller than him. She was so afraid, he realized. For a moment, guilt crossed his expression. He had watched her so closely during the Joining. Every twitched, every frightened flinch. The ex-templar watched her eyes fill with terrifying realization as Duncan murdered the older knight for trying to run from his fate.
She had looked like she was going to be sick as droplets of blood flicked across the edges of her boots. Just like in the Wilds after burning the Emissary alive, she got sick then too.
Aria wasn't made for war. It was going to tear her apart until nothing but ashes and flesh was left.
But he didn't want that.
Alistairs mind was full of visions of the sweet little elf as she collapsed to the dirty stone ground and screamed with so much pain as she fought the corruption of darkspawn blood burning inside her. It was the worst thing he had ever witnessed, his Joining couldn't even compare as he had to hold her petite body down so the Healers could examine her to find out why it was taking her so long to wake up, why she screamed so much. It didn't even crossed his mind what dreams were like for mages.
The Healers from the Circle told him that dreaming was as real to a mage as walking in the waking world; they remembered every bit of their experience, every touch and taste. She was inside her nightmares and experiencing hundreds of years of the history of past Blights in first person they had said. And mostly likely the impending Blight happening in the present.
His own, unusually clear nightmares were nothing compared to her having to live through them.
He didn't leave her side after the screaming finally stopped. Alistair felt he owed her something, so he watched over her sleeping form and wiped the sweat from her brow and kept the other Wardens from peaking curiously at their newest comrade. She deserved her privacy.
So now that she had questions no one seemed to have filled her in on, he knew she deserved answers now more than ever before those thin shoulders shaking above him cracked and shattered into a million tiny bits.
"About a few hours after you lost consciousness after the Joining all the Grey Wardens in the vicinity of Ostagar started sensing darkspawn." Alistair finally gave her.
Aria swiftly turned to he's collapsed form with legs laying over the pillar in a haphazard mess. She gave him a twitch of up turned lips that did strange things to his stomach before gratefully helping him back into a sitting position.
"Duncan set a few Warden scouts in the direction we were getting that prickly feeling; they came back three hours later to report that a large gathering of the beasties were heading this way. A horde. We think it's the true start of a Blight." He revealed to her.
Aria sat there, still as a board as she let her companion fill her in on all the events she had missed.
"King Cailan didn't really believe this to be a Blight so we needed more proof other than the words of a few frazzled scouts. Mages…they have a closer relationship to the taint than any one man under the Grey Warden oath so…we needed you."
Aria blinked with obvious pain and confusion. Alistair gulped.
"You know the legend of how darkspawn came to be right?"
Aria nodded solemnly in understanding.
"Magisters tried to enter the Golden City of your Maker and became the first darkspawn…The first darkspawn were mages."
"And mages have the closest relationship with their dreams and sixth sense…" Alistair trailed off.
"I…see…." There was a pause as Aria took a few deep, steadying breaths. "So, me possibly being the only Grey Warden mage in the vicinity had a better chance at estimating our predicament against the number of darkspawn approaching?" she asked.
Duncan and Alistair nodded silently; she looked down and shivered at the sensation of the darkspawn drawing nearer with every step.
"I'm scared." She whispered with wide, fearful eyes. Alistair flinched, her voice was so small, the crackling of wood in the bonfire almost drown her out.
"We all fear the worst, Aria." Duncan spoke, "Our numbers only break the hundreds, you said to expect enemies in the thousands."
"This is a Blight, isn't it Duncan?" Aria looked up.
"Yes child and you are the one to warn us all."
Duncan uncrossed his hands as he peered over at the tense silence of the camp. Men were either in their tents trying to sleep or hastily preparing for the upcoming battle and shining and oiling armor.
"Prepare for battle you two. The enemy forces will arrive by tomorrow night if my instinct is correct and you two will need all of your energy." Their commander ordered. Aria and Alistair stood slowly and nodded before the larger of the two lead the smaller back to her own tent for rest she knew would evade her.
Next chapter will definitely be war, I promise. But jeez, that was kind of tense, wasn't it? I feel that I may just make Alistiars little crush on Aria a little troublesome later into the story, love triangles and jealously and all that, repressed Chantry boy sexual tension too~