i.
Elissa doesn't remain still while Alistair is gone. She runs a country, yes, but she also stumbles on something curious. The world is falling apart around her, but that just brings to light a certain woman who she had only vaguely heard of before. An elf named Fiona, the leader of the freed mages.
It doesn't take her long to discover that once, this woman had been a Warden too.
Had been, as in no longer is. Had been, as in no longer tainted.
When the Hero of Ferelden reads these words of this woman's own personal account, she sucks in a breath so sharply that she hurts her throat. Air has cut her in her surprise.
It's not possible, Elissa tells herself. It's not possible to rid yourself of the taint once it has infected your blood, not possible to cut off the Calling.
And yet, there is living proof.
Alistair is away, the world is falling apart around her, and Elissa begins her research into a topic she never thought could be possible. The more she finds, the more a gnawing in her gut begins to grow. She has long battled with the idea of fate, but this feels right.
It feels like she was supposed to discover this when very few people have never thought about it before.
She leans back in her chair, brushing a hand over her aging dog's head, feeling his warmth push back into her palm. What would a life be like with Alistair knowing they have no Calling to answer to? That one of them won't be left alone without the other in the end? If she has hers first, and leaves him indefinitely. If he goes without her-
No, that would never happen. She is too young to be thinking about death, but it's all that permeates her very marrow. It's all she dreams about. If Alistair had his Calling before her, she would go with him to die, even if it isn't her time.
There is no life without him.
"What do you think, Barkspawn?" she asks the dog in a soft voice, as if afraid the very walls could hear her words and deem her insane. "Is it worth the chance to discover a cure?"
Barkspawn cocks his head, looking up at her with an intelligence that has only grown wiser in his old age. Her dog doesn't find her crazy, and the thought brings a wry smile to her lips. Other people would think so based on that alone, but other people do not understand a Ferelden and her dog.
/
It kills her to not tell him when he returns, but she waits with increasing impatience. Days, weeks, a couple of months. He is home, and he is everything, but she could be doing more.
He doesn't talk much about what happened when he left, and so that helps her to remain calm. She can see that he's changed, that there's a darkness in his gaze that reminds her more of herself than of him. She strokes the side of his face, coaxing him until he buries himself into the crook of her neck and holds her tight.
"The world is changing," she murmurs into his ear finally.
"I know," he breathes against her skin.
"I missed you."
He rolls them over so that he can pull her closer to him, holding tightly. "We're together."
ii.
"I can't say I know much of married life, Cousland, but I do know that just disappearing on your husband could in fact be worse than telling him," Nate scolds her one afternoon.
Imagine his surprise when he drops by to see his commander about their upcoming journey only to find out that Alistair is none the wiser. He stares down his long nose at Elissa, giving her a very convincing glare.
She pretends that it doesn't bother her, forcing her body still so that she doesn't squirm beneath the look. He is fairly good at it.
"He just…" Elissa huffs, staring at her hands. "He just keeps saying things like how we're together now, and we've had such a rocky marriage in the beginning. Things are becoming normal."
Nate looks pained, and she isn't sure how much more she can explain without going into every little detail about her life. Which, with Nate, she would do, but everything has its own limitations.
"Normal is that you are a Warden," he points out.
"As is Alistair."
He takes a deep breath. "I know you carry around this guilt, that you are responsible for making him a king, but he made his own decision, too." Her friend places his hand on her shoulder, squeezing lightly. "He isn't a Warden."
They are the most honest words she has heard in a long time. Trust a Howe to know how to cut her to the quick.
She rests a hand over his before sighing. "Don't you want to take the blame for this?"
That glare is quick to return.
iii.
Elissa is pretty sure she has never seen a frown as deep as Alistair's grows when she explains the things she has discovered.
"You have been planning this expedition behind my back?"
"Well, I wouldn't say that," Elissa says quickly.
He blinks and stares at the door as if Nate is going to burst in like an ogre. "Really?"
"Okay, well - I have been meaning to-"
"You didn't," her husband hammers in.
She presses her lips together, shame crawling under her skin like a parasite. She had had plenty of opportunity. There was no excuse, of course, she just didn't know how to leave him again.
Not when she had just got him back.
Not when he hadn't seemed himself.
She starts when his fingers slide over her cheek, cupping her face gently. "Elissa. We are not children anymore," he begins to whisper. "We have been married nearly ten years now. We have dealt with absence before."
"I am tired of dealing with absence, Alistair," she admits. Her eyes close as she leans into his touch. "I am tired of knowing that I will be without you at some point, and I can't live with that, either."
She can't live without him. How miserable and terrifying.
"Do try to tell people in public that this is for the good of the Wardens rather than telling them it's because of how mad you are for me," Alistair says, his lips twisting up into half a smile. It's forced and rough beneath the shadow of his incoming beard, and her heart skips a beat all the same.
"As if people would question the Hero of Ferelden."
/
She's packing when the raven lands on her window sill, the caw reverberating through her skull. Her nose wrinkles when she turns to find it actually pecking the window open, but before she can formulate the thought of "destroy the enemy" (and connecting those dots back to Shale), she notices the small bit of parchment around his leg.
"Ah." Her trousers slump to the floor as she drops them, quickly making her way over to the bird.
He waits patiently for her to untie the letter before pecking her hand gently.
"Oh, you'll get your reward when I'm good and ready," she answers dismissively. The raven huffs.
Unrolling the parchment, she nearly loses her breath. Her knees shake, legs buckling, and she just barely catches the end of her bed. The corner of the mattress scrapes over her back as she sits heavily on the floor.
iv.
I meant to write sooner, but there is much to do before the Conclave. I must confess, gathering this information had been quite difficult, all matters considered.
Morrigan is in Celene's court.
The boy is with her, but rarely seen.
Yours faithfully,
Leliana
v.
What am I to do with this information? Once, I sought Morrigan out and she ran, but now she's returned? And to Orlais of all places? Do you think she's hiding from me, Leliana? This is going to drive me mad, and I cannot do a thing about it.
I am leaving Ferelden in Alistair's quite capable hands and will have to force out all thoughts about his and Morrigan's son until my return. I'm enclosing the location of where you can reach me should anything else arise, but I am going to be gone for some time, I'm afraid.
Good luck with getting the mages and the Chantry to work together. It's an ambitious hope, of course.
Keep me informed of Morrigan, if you can. I don't like that she's with Celene at all.
A frazzled friend,
Elissa
vi.
Alistair drags a hand over his face, not bothering to hide the groan that escapes his lips. "There was an explosion."
"Yes, Your Majesty," the messenger says for the thousandth time in the last few minutes.
"At the Conclave."
"So it would seem."
"And everyone died."
"Not everyone." The messenger doesn't even bother to emphasize at this point, letting the king absorb what he can.
And Alistair does. Very slowly.
"There are Tevinter magisters in Redcliffe, mages are fighting in the Hinterlands with rogue Templars, and you are telling me that the Divine is dead." He can't even find it in himself to make it a question. He understood the first time he was given the message; it's just taken some time to sink in.
As if the world doesn't have enough problems.
As if Ferelden doesn't have enough problems, the Divine would die in his kingdom. Which is, of course, a terrible thing to think. Not that this stops his thoughts, as they continue to roll out in front of him. His wife is Maker knows where, but she is definitely gone from his reach. He can't manage to keep war from touching his home. The Divine is dead. There is a giant hole in the sky, of which he has yet to begin to question about.
One confusing thing at a time, really.
He drags both hands over his face.
"Can you start over?"
Both the messenger and a displaced Teagan groan loudly.
vii.
"I had not realized that when I was forced to come on such a journey-"
Elissa licks the tip of her feather pen. "Agreed."
"I strongly disagree with the idea of being threatened as agreement-"
"But I do remember a 'yes, Elissa, I would gladly like to accompany you into the dark abyss'."
Velanna's eyes narrow to slits. Dangerous, dark, murderous slits of rage. But Elissa is too tired to even feel the increase of her heart beating in her chest out of adrenaline at the look. They have walked for days, it feels like. And the sun is gone, as it always is underground. What they are on is a fool's errand, she knows, and yet her ragtag group of Wardens still came with her.
Even her ornery elf friend.
"Try again," the mage says with a threatening edge.
Elissa flashes her a tired smile. "I need you, Velanna."
The elf stiffens, pressing her lips together a thin, tight line. It's a slash across her face, as sharp as her barbs. And then the tension runs out of the lines of her body. She inhales loudly, something between a huff and a sigh. Her eyes roll. "Just don't expect me to be happy about this. Or the way that Nathaniel is… pawing over that girl like she's in need of his assistance."
Elissa's eyebrows crawl up her forehead slowly. The girl in question is not so much a girl any longer, the one and only Bethany Hawke having grown into herself and the heavy family name she carries around like a badge of honor now; the novel Varric Tethras published has helped with that a lot.
Somehow, she had been talked into allowing the girl to come with them, and the Warden-Commander isn't exactly sure how when it was meant to be only a journey with those who knew of the Architect, of her secrets.
She gives Velanna a vacant stare as her thoughts tumble over each other. They'll have to tell Bethany soon, but what does Velanna mean about pawing?
She can't even begin to imagine Nate like that. Even though she has.
Elissa rubs a hand over her mouth. "Well, I am an idiot."
"Yes," the elf agrees.
"Do I say something about it?"
Velanna's lip curls up in disdain. Elissa's eyebrows crawl even further up her forehead. They stare in silence for a moment before-
"Are you attempting to communicate with your mind, because I do believe that is not a Warden ability," Elissa points out.
With a disgusted huff, Velanna stomps away from her. Stomps. How an elf stomps, she isn't sure.
viii.
Alistair watches as the mages begin to file out of Redcliffe. No, filing would mean there was an order to it, as if they had any such inclination. This is more like the chaos that he walked into, but the Tevinter magisters are gone thanks to the Inquisition and the mages… also gone thanks to them.
Honestly, he has to admit that he's more than a little disappointed by the whole thing. He really wanted to be the one storming into Redcliffe, throwing his might around.
His fingers grip the pommel of his sword tightly. The world is falling apart, and he is here playing at politics instead of fighting the demons swarming his land or punching a Templar or two in the face. At the very least. But no, instead he is threatening old ladies with big, sad eyes because they were too desperate for something that he feels like could have been solved easily enough.
His thumb rubs circles into the metal.
He misses Elissa. She should have been here to watch him banish all of the mages. She should have been the one to throw them out.
"Maker help me," he murmurs, staring out at the mess that is his home village.
ix.
The hardest part for Elissa isn't necessarily the fact that she misses Alistair with each breath she takes (something that Sigrun called absolutely ridiculous before Oghren began to cry into his cups); the hardest part is ignoring the plea for help.
Her fingers stretch the parchment of the letter from Leliana so tightly, that it begins to fray a bit. It's as if she has to physically restrain herself. She could go, she tells herself. So easily. Too easily, in fact. Take her smelly, tired, whiny warriors back to the surface. A cure won't matter if the world is over.
If this Inquisitor were truly as capable as Leliana makes her out to be, she assumes that they wouldn't need help from her. She can't possibly be the only person capable of saving the world.
But she can't do it.
Elissa is a hero, but she has sacrificed too much already in the name of saving. For once, she wants to do something for herself. For once, she doesn't want to pack her friends along on another whim, on another quest with the potential to fail.
So, of course, she tells them everything that is happening above them. If they want to leave, if they want to join, they can. But she tells them the threat to the Wardens, how this Corypheus has made their friends, their allies, believe that their Calling has come. As one, they shift uncomfortably.
"I'm not about to go find out if that thing can sway me," Oghren grunts.
Sigrun shrugs. "Death is nothing, but I'm not going to leave you if you're staying."
"I doubt you would give me the choice," Velanna huffs.
Bethany pauses. "I had thought my sister and I had finished Corypheus off," she murmurs with regret. Her fingers fold over each other, ever moving.
Nate rests a hand over hers, but his gaze remains steady on Elissa. She expects for him to be torn. If Bethany wishes to leave, he should want to follow. Instead, the look he gives her is unwavering loyalty. Whatever Bethany wishes, he will stay.
She shouldn't want to feel too triumphant about that, right?
"We are too close to the Architect," Nate begins, "to give up now. Our brothers and sisters have other leaders to look after them, Elissa."
As always, he knows how to hit her just right.
"I'm the Hero of Ferelden."
Oghren snorts. "You just stabbed a dragon. Big deal. We all have."
Her lips curl into a smile. "Then the surface will have to care for its own problems for the time being."