Life in the Deep Roads was particularly hard.

Or, that's what I heard anyway. From Leliana, Wynne, and Oghren. Drunken bastard.

Well, probably not an actual bastard, but still a bastard.

In Orzammar, Aliara had told me that she would need Oghren's help getting through the Deep Roads to find Branka. I understood – she wasn't tossing me aside because I lacked ability but because I was three feet too tall to fit underground. Oghren had flipped me the bird but she merely sighed, looking askance to her two female conspirators. They tried to comfort me, but I was feeling just a bit grumpy.

I pushed it aside when she told them to get ready, pinning me to where I stood with just her eyes. "You know full well that I don't want to bring the drunken bastard with me instead of you." I did like hearing her confirm my analysis of his personality, though. "But this is his wife, Alistair. How would you feel if-" she was definitely glaring at me – "someone you cared about was ill and you didn't go on the quest to save him?"

Aliara - a tactical genius, but subtle? Not so much. I only loved her better for it. "I know. I just don't like you going down there. That's where it ends for most of us Wardens." I couldn't keep going with that thought process without going insane, tying her up, and tossing her into my tent. "I'm sorry. Please don't feel badly about it. You go with my prayers for your success! How could you lose, eh?" I pretended to be lordly and dramatic, like all the annoying Brothers I'd met at the Chantry.

She chuckled, but otherwise seemed earnest and a little too serious. "This will be the only time I go into the Deep Roads without you." Aliara hadn't broken eye contact with me, but she was shiftingher weight from foot to foot, her plate armored feet clanging against stone floor. Was that nervousness? Was that how it looked on her, when she pledged that in thirty years or so down the road – Roads, really – we would be together, still be together?

"Right. Wow. Um. This is really bad timing, maybe, well – everything about our lives now is about bad timing, isn't it? But I wanted to show you this." And I was handing over the rose I'd held onto for so long now, a gift from the Maker that the petals were still velvety soft, if no longer supple, though what little left of the stem was brittle and fragile. The rose that reminded me of her. I told her that; that she was all the beauty in this dark world, to me.

For once, I said it exactly as I meant to, as I heard it sounding in my head. That she was beautiful, strong, honest, and she made this world a better place just by being in it. That I must've done something right by the Maker since she was here, with me. Or that He chose me to stand at her side, giving me the Hero I'd dreamt of for so long. I wondered if she'd ever dreamt of a wisearse sidekick when she was younger. But for now, that question was pushed aside, because she was beaming. Not just a smile and dimples and bright eyes, but everything about her was radiant.

Aliara pulled out her handkerchief as reverently as she tucked it away every morning that I'd known her and – bless her blunt heart, Maker – wrapped it around the flower before putting them both away, just as delicately. I vigorously reminded myself that she wasn't tucking it into her smallclothes anymore, but close enough, damn flower. "I'm not sure exactly what to say, but…this is the nicest gift I've ever received, Alistair."

I got the best kiss yet, though so maybe the flower wasn't that lucky. Spirit counted as much for kisses as it did for pouring my heart out to her, but I knew I was becoming more adept at both because she was clutching my shoulders tightly as we parted, breathless and wobbly. I said something witty afterwards to give us both a moment to recover, "Now...if we could move right on past this awkward embarrassing stage and get right to the steamy bits, I'd appreciate it."

Her throaty response made my brain melt. "Alright, armor off."

"Heh, that's a good one! Called my bluff, I see. You win!"

"Who says it had to be a bluff?" She murmured, giving me that Look through thick eyelashes, and turned to join the others waiting patiently for her with a smirk still on her lips.

At least I was wearing armor when I took the long walk from Orzammar to camp. And luckily, we were in the mountains so I could get a nice cold bath.

***

A cold bath was apparently not in my near future, however; Morrigan was leaning idly against one of the many stone statues that littered the entrance to Orzammar as I attempted to exit the city. "Ah, so she took the Dwarven fool over the Warden fool this time, I see," her voice echoed disturbingly in the grand entrance hall and I wondered what she was going to pester me about this time.

"Yes, I'm too tall for some of those caverns, you know. Oghren is just the right size to wiggle through some of those tunnels!" I wondered if walking faster would be enough to escape her biting remarks, but I should've known better.

I could hear the sneer in her voice as we walked step for step into the open market of the Frostback Mountains. "I would say that size doesn't matter when you have the strength of a Grey Warden, but truly I wonder at what strength you must possess, to be so constantly left behind by your order."

"Wow, you're really out for blood today," I mused. "Sten still not putting out for you? It's not his fault he can sense your crazy witchy evilness from leagues away. Can't you find some other man to suck the life out of?" I pretended to think about it, scratching my chin exaggeratedly. "Though even Zevran wouldn't touch you with a ten-foot lance. And you and I are Apostate and Templar, so our love was doomed from the beginning!"

I caught her grimace out of the corner of my eye as we caught up to the very men we were referring to. "You are far too inept at everything in life for me to want to test you in bed. Nor would I touch Zevran, considering the laundry list of women and men he has been with – though perhaps you have never heard of the diseases that can be transmitted sexually, with your inexperience? Lucky for you that your fellow Grey Warden can teach you."

That sounded suspiciously kind for her and I wondered what she was going to trap me with next. "Yes, I feel very lucky, getting to share my feelings with her. You do know what feelings are, Morrigan, or do I need to explain what they are in small words for you?"

"Just because I care nothing for the feelings of others does not mean I have none of my own, you simpleton," she answered easily. "I was curious, however, about your own feelings towards our great and fearless leader."

Shocked, I undeniably stuttered, "W-what? Why would you care about that?"

Morrigan's unnerving yellow eyes stared back at me and the expression on her face was more serious than I'd expected. "Your feelings are as apparent as the time of day is upon the sky. What I truly wonder is whether it is permissible for Grey Wardens to…oh, what is the word I search for?"

There was no way she actually wanted to talk about this. With me. A blood mage had stolen Morrigan's façade and was going to kill us in our sleep. Yet, she was glaring at me expectantly, waiting for me to acknowledge her indirect question. "Uh, canoodle?"

"Fraternize," she hissed, the sound sibilant and sneaky; she was preparing herself to strike as surely as any serpent looking to make its kill.

"What exactly is wrong with fraternizing?" I asked, trying to keep my voice vague and disinterested as I knew that if I were to show some defensiveness in response to this line of questioning, she would undoubtedly win this round.

"It merely seems…most undisciplined, for an organization that claims it will do whatever is necessary to end the darkspawn threat." Morrigan was espousing the virtues of not pursuing romantic relationships? Color me surprised!

"I'm not sure that I see how the one thing has to do with the other," I sighed.

Her mock-surprised expression was too sharp to be truly amusing, only mocking. "Oh no? And what if a Grey Warden was forced to choose between the Warden he loved and ending the Blight?" Her voice was laden with innuendo and false interest, "What should his choice be?"

"That is a…ridiculous question." My response was equally ridiculous, I acknowledged silently. She had won, once again, and as always it left a gnawing feeling of overwhelming self-doubt in the pit of my stomach. Why would a Grey Warden have to choose between the one and the other? Aliara had no intentions of abandoning our quest and running off to Orlais with us as her concubines, after all. Not that I'd heard of, anyway.

What was Morrigan getting at?

"Hm," she replied, smug and cruel, "and it seems that I have my answer. My thanks, Alistair."

"Oh, anytime," I replied bitterly. Or as Shale liked to say: Hag.

***

Aliara and the others were back late that night, after I had taken my watch and gone to sleep, so I didn't get to speak with any of them until the next morning. But I did feel better about being left behind when Wynne told me over breakfast just how infuriating it was to work with Oghren as a Spirit Healer, because he so rarely thought about actual battle tactics and got knocked on his fool head so often. "He certainly is a berserker and can take darkspawn down quickly, but he rushes in foolishly and with no finesse!" she huffed.

I felt better for about a minute, that is, before I realized he was putting my Hero in danger because he was a wrathful drunken moron!

I wasn't able to truly confront Oghren until after they had found Branka, so I impatiently waited the few days it took them to reach her and yelled at him for a quarter of an hour before realizing that he was sleeping with his eyes open. Drunken useless bastard!

Aliara sat beside me and bumped our shoulders together, nodding her head in the direction of His Drunken Smelliness and shaking her head in exasperation. "I feel rather bad for him; we had to kill her. Kind of terrible, being abandoned by your wife for another woman and then having to kill her because she went, well…what's a nice way of saying 'batty as batty can be' exactly?"

I snorted. "Having met him, I'm not sure if that was battiness or just mental self-defense against his personality."

She laughed, but scolded me. "You're quick to judge people, you know, for all your jokes, I think it's because of how meanly people treated you when you were young and couldn't defend yourself." She poked me in the side, taking advantage of my surprise, saying, "Don't be like them. You're a great man. Though you were mostly right about Oghren. He was fair terrible at thinking of tactics in a fight, too hot-headed. I missed you."

"I missed you, too." I replied without awkwardness, so glad that she had said it before I did. It was never good to seem too desperate, after all. "I got some quality time in with Morrigan, though, and you know how much I love that."

She rolled her eyes and gave me a bit of a glare, eyes piercing, as though she could use magically flay the skin off my bones if I didn't answer properly. "You aren't attracted to her, are you?"

I fell off the log. "Not if she were the last thing on this earth!" I shouted. Zevran and Leliana peered at us curiously from their conversation at the far side of the fire and Oghren stirred in his sleep. Aliara still looked a bit doubtful. "No, really. Remember when she and Flemeth took care of us? I nearly cried because she kept touching me, eurgh. I think only men with more base personalities-" I glared at Oghren and Zevran in turn and she rolled her eyes again "-really enjoy that half-naked exhibitionist freak look.

Aliara had turned away slightly, gazing at the fire, and I was hoping that light blush was because of something I said and not just the heat assaulting her soft skin. Of course, I really should've been on my toes, considering that last question. She was out for my blood tonight; figuratively, though, because maybe she only wanted my heart. She had it, of course, I was just too chicken to tell her. "If you were raised in the Chantry, have you never...?"

I panicked, but kept my cool in the form of ridiculous answers. "Never...? Never what? Had a good pair of shoes?" Oh yes, that was definitely a blush and now she was glaring at me, but I saw a hint of that dimple. You can't hide from me, dimple! Don't even try it.

"You know what I mean!" She nearly wailed and I couldn't resist teasing her further, grinning.

"I'm not sure I do. Have I never seen a basilisk? Never eaten cured ham? Have I never licked a lamppost in winter?" This was wonderful, watching her blush and stutter helplessly as I had done in her presence for months.

"Now you're just making fun of me," Aliara whispered, biting her lip. Maker, was that ever distracting, considering what we were talking about. I wanted to bite that lip.

I laughed, unable to stop my thumb from brushing over her lower lip, and shifted closer to her. "Make fun of you, dear lady? Perish the thought. Well, tell me,"and now I was going out on a limb here, but I'd heard Zevran's sexy-talk voice and I knew without a doubt that I could use it to my advantage, "Have you ever licked a lamppost in winter?"

She was furiously red-faced now and it clashed delightfully with her tanned skin. "No, I have…never…licked a lamppost in winter." Maker, now I was the most thankful man in the history of Ferelden. Her wide eyes were darker than usual, awaiting my response.

"I've heard it's quite painful," I answered pleasantly, running my hand through her hair and letting it rest on her neck, "I remember one of the younger initiates did it on a dare, once, and there was pointing and laughing...oh, the humanity."

I grinned again at her confused double-take; I was thoroughly enjoying keeping her befuddled. The slightly hungry look in those deep green eyes was a wicked reward. I leaned towards her slowly until my mouth was only a few inches from the curve of her ear; she turned her face to look directly at me, but we were too close for talking and I saw her lick her lips in surprise and desire. Beautiful. "I haven't done it," I whispered, "That. Not that I haven't thought about it, of course, but..." I made sure Aliara saw how I looked her over as I said that – let her know that she made me think about it all the time.

"I heard it hurts at first, but anything worth doing requires a bit of pain."Oh, goodbye, brain. I didn't need you, so please enjoy your melty heaven time. "The art of lamppost licking, of course," her breathy voice supplied innocently.

I had to steer away from that comment before I did something rash! "Well, living in the Chantry is...not exactly a life for rambunctious boys. They taught me to be a gentleman, especially in the presence of beautiful women such as yourself." I placed a feather-light kiss on her neck where I could see her pulse throbbing with want; it spiked under my breath. "That's not so bad, is it?"

Unable to speak, she shook her head before attacking me with a kiss.

I was getting better at responding to her insanity-inducing presence with hilarity, it seemed. Maybe the only defense I'd ever have against it, so it was good to get in all this practice now, for the future. I was caught off-guard once again by her shy question once she had her fill of me (correction: once we turned blue from lack of air), however: "Do you…really think I'm beautiful?" She smacked herself with her palm and rushed to continue, "Not that I'm fishing for compliments like some daft woman, but you said it and I'm just…a little shocked, I suppose."

I shook my head so hard I nearly made myself dizzy, "You are a daft woman if you're shocked," she pouted cutely, but I kissed her quiet. "You're beautiful and radiant and resourceful and a bunch of other things that you'd hurt me for not saying," I murmured and she graced me with both dimples as she replied.

"I'd never hurt you." The rough pads of her fingertips were tracing patterns on the side of my face as my eyes slid shut; saving those words and feelings in my mind for the rest of eternity.

"Nor I you." We were whispering. I kissed her gently and she sighed happily against me; the moment was too private and golden to tolerate mockery, diametrically opposed from the conversation I'd had days before with Morrigan.

I really needed to figure out the best strategy for telling Aliara that she could use me however she wished, because eventually I would need to compare the taste of her mouth to the taste of her stomach and then her knee, just to be sure that the Maker hadn't forgotten anything important along that path. He did such a nice job with her face that I had to confirm the rest, obviously.

For the Maker. Not for any dirty dirty thoughts I was having about her – every night for months – of course not. For the Maker's sake.