Alistair

The captain's face was red and tight with anger when Alistair had finished speaking.

"Your Majesty, I simply cannot allow you to do this. It is reckless, dangerous! It goes against everything my duty dictates. I will not let you go alone." The man was all but looming over Alistair, arms crossed and shoulders squared. He looked more than a little intimidating – Alistair hadn't chosen him as his personal guard-captain for nothing. But he didn't have time to argue. Ashe already had at least an hour's head start on him, if not more.

"It will take too long, I will never catch up to her with dozens of guards riding with me. I will not allow you to slow me down." Alistair turned away from the captain and continued to fasten the saddle on his horse, his fingers moving expertly over the straps.

"You can't do this, you have no idea what could happen-"

"Roth, enough." Alistair's tone was harsh and Captain Roth seemed to bite his tongue, but his face was still red.

"Fine, Your Majesty. But one companion won't slow you down," the man said through gritted teeth. He turned to the stable master who was standing on the other side of Alistair's horse and whistled on him and motioned for him to come closer.

"I want my horse readied immediately. I'm leaving with the King right away."

Alistair sighed, but there was no time for further protests. "Come with me then if you must," he said, his back to the other man. He glanced over his shoulder and fixed his gaze on Roth. "But if this nonsense makes me unable to catch up with Her Worship before she arrives in Denerim, you're going to have to find yourself another job when we get back, understood?"

Roth merely shrugged, unmoved, and mounted his horse as it was brought to him. He looked down at his king. "Shall we then, Your Majesty?

Moments later, they both thundered out through the gates, their horses already in a gallop.

Luckily for them, there was only one road to take from Skyhold down through the Frostbacks, the only road Ashe could have taken. His heart already longed for her as he chased after her. He couldn't wait to catch a glimpse of her hair against the white snowy landscape, glowing red as blood, seeing her halt as she heard them behind her. He missed looking at her face, would never get enough of it, her sharp, piercing blue eyes that seemed to stare into his soul; her full, rosy lips – so soft against his skin. His pulse quickened remembering how he had felt those lips everywhere the night before.

But missing her wasn't what made him kick his heels into the sides of his horse as urgently as he was now. Roth was right about one thing: traveling alone was not free of risk, and he had no doubt that Ashe had left alone for the sake of speed, just as he had been about to do before the captain had insisted on following him.

She was fast, though. After hours of riding, they still hadn't caught up to her. There were signs on the road to be sure, but he had no idea how close they were, since it was a clear, sunny day and no snow had fallen to make him able to determine how fresh the tracks were. They only made a short stop around lunch to eat quickly and let the horses drink from the mountain stream before continuing the chase. Roth looked behind them from time to time, ever vigilant, but said nothing. Alistair could tell that the man was tense, which worried him a little. He wasn't usually fidgeting and looking over his shoulder like this unless he had good reason. Was something out there, perhaps even following them? The sides of the road were thick with trees at that point, making it hard to see much. But he heard nothing, so he focused on the road ahead of him them, on the tracks – her tracks. They pushed the horses almost to breaking point, but just as they were about to stop for the night, he saw something glinting in the darkness ahead of them, a little bit to the left of the road. As they dismounted, Roth put his finger up to his mouth to urge silence, and Alistair nodded. They tied the horses to a tree, and the captain went ahead of him, as duty demanded, Alistair following right after him, walking as silently as possible toward the source of light. They came into a small clearing, and a campfire was burning in the middle of it, but there was no one there. They looked around, examining the ground, when Alistair heard a strained noise behind him.

He swung around and saw with alarm that Roth was being held at the point of a knife, right beneath his chin, by a cloaked figure behind him. There were a few moments of complete silence before the figure shoved Roth forward so hard that he fell to his knees.

The figure kicked back the hood of the cloak, revealing a cascade of crimson hair. Alistair drew in a sharp breath of relief as he stared into the most beautiful blue eyes he had ever seen, lit with an otherworldly glow from the fire.

"Alistair?" Ashe asked, sounding more than a little surprised. "Maker, I could have killed you! How are you here, where-" she looked around, "-are the rest of your guards?"

He stepped around his captain – who had recovered and stood on his feet but remained silent – and walked up to Ashe, stopping directly in front of her.

"What were you thinking, Ashe? Just leaving like a thief in the night, with what purpose exactly?" He shook his head. "You thought I wouldn't come after you? That I would let anything, or anyone, slow me down?" He couldn't help smiling at her then, pleased at how her big eyes stared at him as if she were both shocked and impressed, and he wanted desperately to grab her into his arms, push her up against the nearest tree and kiss her senseless, to defy the cold and rip her clothes off and fuck her until her pleasure sang out to fill the whole clearing, Captain Roth be damned.

He moved to embrace her when movement out of the corner of his vision just beyond her stopped him dead in his tracks.

His hand flew to the hilt of his sword but when he saw who emerged from the shadows, he didn't draw. He simply squeezed the hilt so hard that a lesser quality one would have broken.

But the worst part about the scene in front of him wasn't that it was Hawke who stepped out from the darkness – it was that Ashe glanced in the mage's direction casually, like she already knew he was there.

"Are you… Is he with you?" Alistair snarled at Ashe. "You left me behind, and here I find you with fucking Hawke, of all the fucking traveling companions you could have chosen." His voice sounded as cold as he felt on the inside. "Is there no end to this?"

Ashe looked at him without any visible emotion on her face, like she was trying to remain neutral. "Does it matter what I say? All that matters is that he is here, yes. So are you."

"What are you getting at?" Alistair said, trying to choke down the rage that all but exploded in him when Hawke placed himself next to Ashe, hovering over her like he was fucking protecting her. "That is not your place," Alistair said, his voice strained with his ill-concealed fury, while jabbing his finger in Hawke's direction and staring daggers at him. He turned to Ashe again. "What is he even doing here?"

"Greyer and I have had a long needed conversation today, and-"

"And it doesn't concern you," Hawke spat at Alistair.

"Greyer, please-"

"No. Let him say whatever he wants to say, then," Alistair said, making Ashe's eyebrows shoot up in surprise. He would try, really try, to stay calm. For her.

Hawke walked closer to Alistair while he spoke again. "Why did you even come here? Why did you throw yourself after her like this? Pathetic. She told me what she wrote to you, that you could follow her if you wanted, but didn't she make it abundantly clear to you that she wanted to go to Denerim by herself?"

"If she wanted to go by herself," Alistair snarled, standing so close to Hawke now that he could reach out and push him if he wanted to. And he really wanted to. "Then why are you here?"

"What I do with Ashe is none of your business." Then, lowering his voice so that only Alistair could hear him, he continued: "You don't want to fucking know half the things I have done to her."

Alistair didn't so much as try to stop himself then, and he threw the punch knowing exactly what he did, and hit Hawke square in the face. He didn't feel remotely sorry as he heard the crunching sound of bone breaking, and he even enjoyed the pain in his own hand. He would gladly break every one of his own fingers if it meant that he could beat Hawke's face into a bloody mess.

Then, the pain shifted to the side of his head and he flew back into the snow, landing on his back. He looked up through watering eyes, seeing Hawke's fist still crackle with the blue light of a lightning spell. The fucking lowlife had spiced up his own punch with magic.

That didn't surprise him. He quickly got up to his feet and before Hawke had time to react, Alistair had kicked him in the groin and elbowed him in the face. The other man's cry of pain made his insides roar with blood lust.

What did surprise him however, was that there were no protests coming from Ashe's direction. It made him pause and he glanced over to her where she was standing rooted in the same spot as before. Hawke must have been struck by the same thought; he was looking over at her too, their fight temporarily on hold.

Ashe's eyebrows were raised as she looked at both of them. "What are you staring at me for? You want to fight each other, tear each other apart, over me? Who's stopping you?" Alistair felt like his jaw would drop open as she uttered her next words. "Come on then, do it. Fucking settle this like real men."

He searched for any hint of sarcasm in her, and Hawke scrutinized her just the same. But they found none.

"You think Alistair is worthy of me, Greyer?" she asked, looking over at Hawke, making fucking bedroom eyes at him. If it was meant to make Alistair want to kill him, it was bloody well working. Hawke snorted in response to what she said and spat at Alistair's feet.

"And you, Ali." Her voice was soft, almost seductive. "You want to stop him from ever touching me again?" She pushed her hands down the sides of the body while talking, making Alistair think of every inch of her that filthy mage had more than likely laid his hands on. "Don't you?" she cooed. "Show me."

Hawke growled at him and Alistair didn't waste even a moment wondering what in the Fade had gotten into Ashe. Instead, he threw himself over Hawke.