Thank you for reading! Special thanks to my awesome beta, suilven! No update next week, but I'll be back the week after.
Lilias was finishing her meal in the main hall when the Inquisitor sat down in the empty seat next to her. She had been asked to do things for people enough times in Kirkwall, and before, that she recognized the look even before he opened his mouth, and held up a hand to keep him from speaking.
"Let me guess, it's an impossible task, but someone's got to do it?"
He laughed, his blue eyes lighting, and Lilias couldn't help smiling back, thinking what an attractive man he really was. "You've got me," he told her. "Although in this case it's an impossible task and only you can do it."
His eyes were on her, meaningfully, and she remembered the woman in the hall, the same woman from the Empress's ball, and she groaned. "What's he gotten himself into this time?"
"About a vat of Antivan brandy, if I'm any judge. And I don't know if you've noticed, but he's a bit of a lightweight."
Early Templar training and a certain innocence had kept Alistair unusually abstemious. Lilias sighed. "Where is he?"
"Last time I saw him, he was heading up toward the outer west tower on the battlements."
"You're not afraid he'll fall?"
"Not accidentally."
Lilias raised her eyebrows. "That bad?"
Thule nodded. "I've got someone watching him, but he needs to talk to … someone who cares about him. Now, I like Alistair, but he's not exactly my type."
"And so you came to me?"
"Whatever you might feel, there's something between you. Just—will you talk to him? As a personal favor to me?"
His pleading eyes were practically irresistible. Lilias was amazed that Seeker Cassandra had held out so long against them. "Fine," she said, "but if there's vomit, someone else is cleaning it up."
"That's fair."
She left him and climbed up to the battlements, finding Alistair leaning moodily against the wall and staring out across the icy mountains.
He eyed her warily as she approached. "What have you come to tell me? Go ahead, I can take it. All the rugs under my feet have already been jerked out. I'm down, I'm toppled, I've got no further to go."
"I came to tell you to get back from the edge before you hurt yourself and cause an international incident," Lilias snapped. It was cold up here, and she hadn't wanted to take the time to get her coat, and she was afraid from the way he was standing that he really had come up here to do something drastic.
"As if anyone would notice. In case you can't tell, Ferelden is running just fine without me."
"Having a little self-pity for dinner?"
Alistair laughed. "Why not? It's been my nightcap every night for … well, all my life, really. Except for a few brief months on the road during the Blight when I thought someone, finally, saw who I really was and cared for me. Turns out, she cared for no one but herself."
"My cousin?"
"Oh, now you claim her? Now when I can't stand to think about her?"
"Don't be ridiculous. Even angry at her, she's all you're thinking about," Lilias said.
"Yes. You know, that's true. I've thought of nothing but her for a decade. 'What would Leyden do?' I'd say to myself. And 'what would it be like if Leyden were here?' And 'oh, how I miss her.'" He snorted a laugh, an ugly, unhappy sound. "Do you know what they told me, those two women who shared the Blight with me? They told me she could have saved her life. All she had to do was talk me into sleeping with Morrigan."
"What?" Lilias wasn't sure she'd heard right.
But Alistair kept going as though she hadn't spoken, looking up at the stars. "Just sleep with Morrigan; that's all I'd have had to do. And I hate Morrigan, you know that, but I'd have done it. I'd have done anything you asked, and you knew it. But you didn't ask. You went to your death instead, because you preferred to die than to live with me."
Lilias felt a pain stab her in the heart. She'd envied her cousin, she'd disliked the image of Leyden she held in her mind … but now she hated her, hated whatever power it was that had created such a hold over this man. And over Leliana, if she understood correctly, and the assassin. And Cullen. Even the lady Morrigan still seemed to mourn Leyden's loss. Meanwhile, here she was, the former Champion of Kirkwall, all but dead in the eyes of the world, and the only thoughts anyone had about her were those of blame for an explosion she hadn't caused and a revolution she hadn't started.
"She never loved me," Alistair whispered. Then again, louder, "She never loved me!" A lifetime of pain was in those words. "My father never loved me, either. He left me in Redcliffe, living in the stables—and don't tell me he didn't know. Arl Eamon never loved me. He kept me in his stables, and then he packed me off to the Templars as soon as his wife objected to my existence. All this time, all these years … I can't think of a single person who ever really wanted me around. And I thought—I clung to Leyden's memory because I thought she had, and now … I built my life on a lie." He turned to look at Lilias. "Do you know what I'd give for friends like Varric, or Merrill? Neither one of them would ever let anyone hurt you, unless you wanted them to."
Lilias crossed her arms over her chest. "I wanted you around, Alistair. And you pushed me away because I wasn't good enough—because I wasn't her. How many other people did you push away?"
He looked at her. "Do you know, that's a very good point. And … you're still here. Why are you still here?"
"Here in Skyhold? Because I have nowhere else to go. Here on the battlements, listening to you whine about my cousin again? Because the Inquisitor sent me."
"Why did he send you? He could have come himself."
Lilias sighed. "He thought someone should come who cared about you."
"Do you?" Alistair blinked at her owlishly. The maudlin phase of his drunkenness seemed to be passing into the sleepy phase. She'd have to get him down off the battlements before he fell asleep here.
"Yes, I guess I must, or I wouldn't be here," she told him, grabbing his arm and tugging him along. "I'm taking you back to your rooms."
"I could sleep here."
"No, you couldn't."
She got him back there, with some discreet help from an Inquisition guard, and let him flop down on the bed, not envying him the hangover he was going to have tomorrow. The only thing that hit a person harder than a night with Antivan brandy was the morning after it.
Lilias stood in the doorway for a long moment and watched him sleeping, feeling intensely sorry for him. He was probably right; everything she knew about his life indicated that he had spent it being shuffled out of the way of other people's ambitions. Maybe now that he knew that, was sure of it, was no longer holding on to the shiny image of Leyden in his heart, he could begin to fix it.
Having done his good deed for the day and sent Lilias after Alistair, Thule went himself to find Cassandra. He hoped his matchmaking skills did more for the other couple than they had so far done for him … all he'd managed to do is promise to court a woman who could very well be the next Divine. He'd held off on talking to her about it because he didn't want to hear her tell him that she wanted it … but he also very much wanted her to have what made her happy, and if that was being Divine—could he really stand in her way?
He found her in the blacksmith's, closed and quiet, with Mother Giselle. Apparently, he wasn't the only one who had decided this was a good time to sound Cassandra out about becoming Divine.
"Will you not consider it, Lady Cassandra?" Mother Giselle was saying as Thule pushed the door open. He felt a momentary leap of his heart—maybe Cassandra had rejected the idea of being Divine outright. "The clerics are still sequestered," Mother Giselle continued. "If no one steps forward, they will debate until—" She stopped talking when Thule came in.
"And you think I could make them agree?" Cassandra demanded, not having seen him. She turned her head and looked down at him, and then she sighed, returning her attention to the Revered Mother. "I've heard enough for one day."
Mother Giselle left without another word, but she stopped next to Thule, giving him a sideways look. "Talk to her, Your Worship."
He intended to, but he imagined the thrust of what he might say wasn't exactly what Mother Giselle would want.
Cassandra sighed as he approached.
"Was she bothering you?" he asked.
"She is kind, and she means well. So of course she was bothering me," Cassandra snapped. "You've heard that Leliana and I are candidates to be the next Divine." She gave him a faint smile. "It's your fault, you know. After Halamshiral, the Empire favors you, so everyone close to you is considered to be more worthwhile than they were before."
He cursed inwardly, but outwardly forced a smile. "My winning personality again, causing complications all across Thedas."
Cassandra rolled her eyes. "So of course the Chantry bandies our names about without even asking us first."
"Would you have said no?" The words came out without him meaning to—he hadn't wanted to ask so bluntly.
She pursed her lips, considering. "I am not certain." She walked outside, Thule next to her, listening as she mused to herself. "It can't have been meant to be this way. The Chantry, the Circles, the Templars … this cannot be what they intended when it all began."
"It's hard to keep any entity so massive in line with one set of goals."
"But the Chantry should provide faith. Hope. Instead, it cannot veer from its course, even in the face of certain death. It has become a prisoner to its own rules. I declared the Inquisition because I thought it was the only way to get something accomplished. I did what I was told for years as a Seeker, as my faith demanded … but I discovered that my faith demanded something other than blind obedience. It demanded that I see with better eyes." She nodded at him. "That I see the value in what is in front of me, even if it does not look the way I imagined it would."
Thule wasn't certain she meant him as Inquisitor or him as a potential lover, but he was afraid she meant the former. "Do you want to make the Chantry better?"
She frowned. "Did you know Varric is Andrastean?"
"Yes," he said carefully, not certain where she was going with this tangent.
"He blasphemes with every second breath, but deep down he believes. His heart is virtuous."
"I'll tell him you said so," Thule said dryly. Varric would never believe him, which would be half the fun.
"Don't you dare!"
"Why does it matter to you that Varric believes in Andraste?"
"Because he would never set foot in a Chantry. It should be the first place the virtuous turn, but instead, they feel they do not belong there, or that it has nothing to offer them. And if I can see so clearly that the Chantry needs to change, do I not have an obligation to be willing to be the one to change it?"
Thule didn't know what to say to that. Sure, if she felt strongly about it … but he didn't think he could be the one to encourage her. Not at the cost of all his own hopes and dreams. "I do like your determination," he said at last.
"Some men would call it an unattractive trait."
"I thought we'd established that I'm not your typical man."
She smiled. "Yes, we did."
"What about Leliana?" he asked.
"Leliana says she wishes to follow Justinia's legacy … but I fear she and I do not remember the same woman. Justinia knew her fellow clerics, not to mention the people, would only accept so much change. Leliana would rip apart everything and stitch it back again and imagine no one would notice. It would be chaos for us all." She put her hands behind her back, standing and looking across the courtyard. "We must be vigilant, but we must also be compassionate to all peoples of Thedas, human or no, mage or no."
"So this is your new crusade?" he asked, the words tasting like ashes on his tongue.
"I've agreed to nothing yet."
"And if the Chantry calls on you? Do you actually want to be Divine?"
Cassandra shrugged. "Why should what I want matter?"
"Why shouldn't it matter? Don't you have the right to be happy?" He wanted her to put her happiness first, to put it into his hands and let him secure it for her and keep it safe.
"I have never believed in asking another to do what I would be unwilling to do myself. Sacrifices may well be required; I may owe it to myself and to all of Thedas to take on the task if it is offered to me."
"You don't have to change things that way," Thule argued. His heart was somewhere around his boots.
"Perhaps not. I will see what the Grand Clerics do, and if I am needed, I will do what must be done, for as long as I can," she said simply.
"I see."
"And you? What will you do if the Chantry calls on me?"
"Whatever you ask of me, I suppose … whether I want to or not."
"There is no reason for concern as yet. The clerics speak my name, nothing more. I do not imagine myself to be so popular that there will be a clamor for my services."
"So … nothing needs to change?"
"For now, no."
"You'll let me know when it does?"
"If it does, yes. I will." She reached down and put a hand on his shoulder, squeezing lightly, and then walked off across the courtyard, leaving him there wondering just what he had gotten himself into.