i.
Elissa can't say she's ever made the most wise decisions before. She's made a lot of stupid ones in a world where she can't afford to, but she stands there for a long time even after Morrigan is gone, and she regrets it. The mirror is still, reflecting back at her the face of someone haunted, her face hollowed out and grimy with dirt, blood, who knows what else. Her hair is limp and messy, and her eyes sunk in.
She watches herself for so long, that Finn and Ariane decide to build a campfire for the night. But she waits for Morrigan to return, she waits for time to double back.
She wants to say she'll go with Morrigan. Let her say that she'll go, to protect her friend and her husband's son.
And that's why she didn't, she reminds herself over and over.
She stayed for Alistair.
In the end, it's Finn that comes for her, his touch gentle as he leads her away from the dead eluvian.
"You need to eat, Elissa. No sense in starving yourself."
"I have no idea how I'll explain this to the Keeper," Ariane says lightly, passing over a bowl of Finn's soup to her.
It's hot to touch, but Elissa wraps her hands around it anyway.
"You? How will explain this to anyone at the tower? Andraste's knickers, the outside world is a strange place. At least I'll have something to tell Mother about."
"How much are you going to tell her?"
He's quiet for a moment, and Elissa looks up to stare at his horror stricken face. It's a straight forward question, but as usual, Finn takes it to extremes.
"Maker, you're right. She'll worry too much and come for me if I tell her anything that actually happened. Flower picking sounds exciting, doesn't it?"
The elf's nose wrinkles. "No. Not even a little bit."
Next to her, Barkspawn settles on his belly, moving his head into her lap when she moves her bowl for him. He gives a soft whine, a bit of consoling as her heart breaks and heals itself over and over. She eats slowly, soaking in the conversation of her companions. It helps.
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Elissa hugs Finn tightly. "Let me know whenever you want another jailbreak from here. Now that you've gotten a taste of freedom, you might not want to give it up."
He makes a disagreeable noise. "Oh, Maker no, please write me off your adventuring calling card." But he hugs her back just as tightly and promises to keep in touch.
She stands back and watches the awkward dance between him and Ariane, and part of her wants to shove them together. Now's not the time for that. They'll figure it out eventually, she thinks.
"Do not be so hasty to tell the great queen no just yet, mage. You might make a good Warden."
Finn manages to turn the white of freshly fallen snow.
ii.
They leave in the tower where he feels the most secure, his lip wibbling a little as he watches them go. Elissa travels back to the forest with Ariane, who doesn't question her, even as she rejoins her clan. They invite the Hero of Ferelden in to stay with them, and she takes them up on the offer. After all, it is rare for the Dalish to welcome a shem so readily.
Days blur together into weeks, and she sits at the feet of women far older than her, learning how to stitch bear fur together into blankets. She writes letters, of course, or what could pass for letters if someone squinted hard enough. Alistair has enough on his plate to worry about without wondering where she is so that he can come fetch her personally. Let him think there's another mission, some other duty keeping her from returning.
It's for the best.
She's finishing up her blanket when Ariane takes a seat next to her. The fire crackles next to the them, the light of the flames dancing shadows across their faces. Reaching out, her face pinched, Arianna places a hand over Elissa's to still its movements.
"I… am not good at this sort of thing, but I think you need to talk. You are not Dalish, Elissa, and we are not your Wardens. Why are you here?"
"I shouldn't have let Morrigan go alone."
"The witch decided her fate, and you decided yours. You're needed here, and yet you're hiding. That's not the Hero everyone talks about." Her face is so seriously, her voice deadly, that it would make anyone sit up straight and listen.
Elissa is listening, at least. "Nobody knows me."
"I know you," she disagrees. "You care deeply for your friends, and what the witch did to you - You hurt. But your husband must be hurting too. Your other friends."
A beat. "Okay, I'll give you that one. People who worship the Hero don't know me."
"I will give you that one."
Ariane slips her fingers around Elissa's holding lightly, awkwardly. "You blame yourself."
"There are things you don't understand."
She had let Morrigan go without so much as even seeing the child, Alistair's child. A flutter of sadness beats against her chest. The only child he will likely ever have, and it is Morrigan's, and he is gone. What will she say to Alistair? How could she begin to tell him of all the ways she failed in this?
"I understand that you're running away," Ariane told her, tone harsh.
Elissa presses her lips together, glaring at the elf. "What of it?"
She's still just a child. Doesn't anyone see that about her? That she's barely even three and twenty, and here she is: ruler, savior, wife. She can run away if she likes, put herself back together as she tries to understand the world she's living in. The horrors she's had to see and endure.
Ariane doesn't say anymore, but the older warrior doesn't really have to, does she? Her words are already out there, a gentle accusation. It cuts Elissa deeply, and that's what they were meant to do. That was the point of it all. She is running from her duties, and that's not the kind of woman she is anymore.
Young or not, she has taken on these responsibilities. Oh, how her father would be disappointed in her.
How Alistair must be, with such a poor excuse for a partner.
Her fingers wrap tightly around Ariane's, and she doesn't speak either. There's no need to now.
iii.
A visitor stirs the Dalish like a rough wind through a meadow, and they're on high alert just as Elissa finishes securing her pack to the hart mount they have given to her.
Brow knitted together, she turns to one of the younger hunters. "What is going on?"
"The young king is here," the boy grumbles, his fingers plucking at the string of his bow.
There's only one king that would really matter - especially one so young. Her hands shake. That sly woman. She closes her eyes and lets out an amused puff of air.
Ariane must have written to him behind her back. One way or another, her friend was going to send Elissa on her way.
Turning on her heel, she runs through the camp until she finds one lone Alistair standing awkwardly beside his horse, Barkspawn at his heels, bouncing and barking. The Keeper speaks to him in a low voice, her face tilted to him as they speak. There is a tension in the air, but mostly people are waiting. Watching.
She knows the instant that Alistair has spotted her, because he stops listening. His eyes glaze over, and he doesn't speak. He watches her as she comes to a stop, panting softly for breath from the run. The Keeper glances over her shoulder at Elissa before stepping aside.
A good thing, Elissa reckons. Because otherwise, she's sure that Alistair would have just pushed her over in his attempts to get to his wife. But there he is, taking long strides to get to her, and she breaks into another run. To him, this time, and not away. Because he's what she needs more than anything.
They collide, awkwardly, almost painfully, but she doesn't care as she buries her face in his sweaty neck and breathes in the scent of the forest on him. Trees and horses and sweat and something just distinctively Alistair.
"Maker's breath, you miserable woman," he hisses at her, his arms tight around her back as he lifts her off the ground and cradles him to her. "Going missing like that. I thought I'd go crazy, and here you are, playing elf without me."
She goes for a laugh, and the sound comes out as more of a sob. "Please tell me you didn't abandon the throne."
"It'd serve you right if I had."
"It would."
And then she's really crying.
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The clan offers to let them stay for the night, but Elissa declines in prettier words than Alistair's would have been. The way his arm tightens around her waist, the scowl playing on his mouth, she knows better than anyone that he wants nothing more than to be alone with her.
They camp a few miles away, in the heart of the Brecilian forest. He sits next to her on the hard ground, knees touching but little else as she pokes the fire into brilliance.
She wishes that Alistair wanted them alone so that she could rip his clothes off; she's thought of little else since she first laid eyes on him. As if sex will cure her of this sadness, of her failures. As if she could fuck him until there was nothing left of herself but him.
It's a good thing he's a little more emotional about this sort of thing than she is.
The fire plays with the colors in his eyes, making them look like dwarven gold. They're beautiful and sad and hesitant as he watches her.
"Elissa…" He starts and stops, running his fingers through his still-damp hair.
"Do you want to know what happened, Alistair?"
"With the - with Morrigan?" She can see that he doesn't, and she can see that he does, for her sake.
He takes her hand in his, threading his fingers between her own. He's warm and inviting and sometimes too perfect. Like now.
"She's gone."
"As in dead?"
Elissa shakes her head. "Just gone to where she wants to go. I didn't - there wasn't a child with her, so I can only assume he's-"
"A son," he murmurs, and there's a strange sort of longing in the word that she doesn't think he meant to have.
"She offered to take me with her."
That surprises him. "You wanted to go, didn't you?"
"Part of me did. It's the idea of the adventure, and I guess - I haven't been a very good wife, Alistair. Or a good queen. I thought that this was what was right for Ferelden, when I made you take that throne from Anora and decided to rule with you. I thought that this was what I could do to make the world a better place," she whispered at the fire.
"You're a good friend, though," he says after a long moment of silence. The weight of the forest presses down on her. "That's always been your saving grace. Even to me. I did not want to be king, and some days, I still don't,"
"I feel like there's a but here." Elissa turns her head so that her gaze falls on him now.
"I don't think there is any right sort of person meant to lead, and Maker knows I do much better when given direction. But that's why I agreed to it, Liss." Alistair leans in, brushing his lips against her temple. "You said you would be at my side, and I thought, Andraste bless Ferelden, because with me and this woman together, we have a fighting chance at getting this ruling thing just right."
"And here I am, abandoning you at any given moment," she whispers in a choked voice. Her shoulders shake with silent tears.
He kisses those too, his mouth following each trail before they can make it to her jaw. "Yes, well, let's just say that I have been able to find my own political footing in this past year. Not that it's a very good footing, but I'm willing to have someone help me get better at it. Someone preferably not Teagan."
"Preferably me?"
Both hands come to cup her face. "You have suffered a lot, Elissa, but you don't have to do it alone. I will follow you to the Fade and back, if that's what you wish. But just this once, can we do what I want? Can we go home and have you stay put for longer than a few months?"
She nods, slowly, with the weight of his hands on her. "Are you mad about Morrigan?"
He pulls back a bit, a thoughtful expression on his face. "No. I'm glad she is alright, and that the baby is. But you are what matters to me. I'd have been mad if you left me."
"Not again," she promises. She takes back the space he had moved, easing her lips over his. He eagerly kisses her back.
"Say it just once more."
"I won't leave you again, Alistair."
They both know it's an empty promise. Of course she will, but not like this, Elissa decides. She won't leave him willingly if there isn't a good cause for it. She won't hide from him anymore.
His hands are warm when they slip under her shirt, but she shivers all the same. He pushes her back to the ground as her hands slide inside of his trousers, her legs hooking around his to bring him closer.
It has been a long time since she's been with him, after all.
iv.
King Alistair and Queen Elissa of Ferelden take their time returning to Denerim, enjoying their time together. They call it their honeymoon, and Teagan makes sure to watch over the throne as they do so.
They've earned it, the people of Ferelden say, when they host the couple in their towns.
v.
Alistair brings her home to Highever for the first time since she escaped with Duncan.
They stand in front of Duncan's memorial, hands clasped together.
"He'd be proud of you," Elissa tells him.
"Do you really think so?"
She smiles, standing on her toes so that she can kiss his cheek. "I'm proud of you."
His face erupts into the biggest smile she has ever seen before, his arms around her waist before she can protest as he lifts her off the ground and swings her around. There's a weight of happiness that flits through her veins. Pure happiness, the kind she has not felt since before her family's massacre. He goes in for a quick kiss before putting her back down on her toes.
"You see that, Duncan, who would have thought that the girl you saved would become my wife," Alistair says to the stone statue. "I'm glad you saved her."
For the first time, Elissa can truly say that she's glad, too. She's so glad that she wasn't left to die.
"Come on. Fergus is expecting us," she says gently.
As they walk away, she glances over her shoulder to the memorial, whispering a silent thank you to the man who had given her every chance at a new life. She hadn't been able to appreciate what Duncan did for her. Not before.
vi.
Their last stop before their long, winding journey home is at Vigil's Keep. Alistair is, after all, still a Warden. That will never go away. And he has yet to see their command post.
Yet to meet her friends, her other family.
He's opened with welcomed arms.
He fits in right away.
She watches as he plays a drinking game with Sigrun and Oghren, losing badly, a sad smile on her face. This is the life they could have had. Nate comes to sit on the table next to her.
"You look happy," the man tells her, and she shoves her shoulder into his gently.
"I am, despite all your joking." She glances at him. "I hear Anders escaped."
"He was always good at that, you know. It's why you had to conscript him in the first place, if you remember." It's said lightly, but there's a heaviness to the subject matter. Nate doesn't want to worry her, but he doesn't want to sugarcoat the truth. She gets that.
Alistair laughs, looking up at her - at the two of them - as his brow scrunches together in concern. She mouths the word later at him, waits for his nod before going back to his game, before she responds to Nate.
"How many of us did he take out?"
"A handful. A small number, but large when you consider our lack of recruits."
Anders. Maybe she should have kept a better eye on him, did something to help. "Let him go," she finally says.
Nate's quiet, but not surprised. "Are you sure?" They both know she is, but it's a formality to double check.
Elissa nods. "We have more important things to worry about, with the disappearance of the Architect as well."
"I wouldn't call that a disappearance so much as we've lost his coordinates."
"That doesn't make me feel any better, you realize." She digs out dirt from under her nails. "I am going to be going away for some time, Nathaniel. Home, with Alistair."
He nods slowly. "I'll take care of things. You know I can handle this."
"Can this still be my home?" she asks in a soft voice, under her breath despite the noise of the dining hall. Nobody but Nate is going to hear her anyway, but she does it regardless.
"The Wardens will always be your home," he says with stark honesty. "Yours, and his."
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That night, she cradles Alistair to her chest, brushing her fingers through his sandy hair. "I'm ready to go home."
His voice is a murmur, breath ghosting over her breast. "Oh, good. I don't think I can survive another drinking contest."