Thank you so much, especially all of you who actually have taken the time to review more than once. It really means a lot.
This blurb just escaped my brain, so here it is. Perhaps not in a very organized order, but hey hoo. ;)
Alistair had seen so much blood. His own. Hers, which was worse, but inevitable. Blood of friends, enemies and all in between.
He was dead tired. He knew she was too. He could see it in the slump of her shoulders, how she carried her bow as if it was too heavy.
The Dead legion had taken the bridge towards the old fortress, some months ago. With the help of the growing might of the Grey Wardens, this feat had been possible. They had made it possible, he thought, looking at the woman he loved. And now they were here again. Alone in the deep dark.
She must have felt his gaze, because she turned to him.
"It seems fitting after all. There is nothing so different about us after all. Even if we killed a Archdemon, we still end up where all Wardens have to go sooner or later."
She sounded bitter, and he didn't like it. He knew she fought daily against bitterness, over how her life had turned out. It made him want to weep. And grab her and shake her.
"We have done something good," he said, utter conviction in his voice. "We saved our country, because we were the only ones who could. Perhaps it might have been easier not to drink from that chalice, but then we would long have been dead. All of us."
He didn't step closer, because he wasn't finished. But he had to swallow hard when he saw the wet lines of tears on her cheeks.
"And we rebuilt the Grey Wardens. Thanks to us Ferelden is safe. Will be safe in the future. Our legacy might not be one that inspire bards and we might not have children that remember us…." His voice caught there, as he had known it would. There was, after all, some pain that did not ease with time.
"But Ferelden exists because of us."
And deep inside he felt a bubble of joy that they had survived so long, of what they had accomplished. And that they were still together. He locked eyes with her, trying to convey some of it to her.
At first, he thought he had not reached her. Then she took a deep breath, and some of the statue-like stillness left her.
And then finally, and he saw it and knew her spirit was not broken, one corner of her mouth pulled into a slight smirk.
"I think you're wrong, my love," she said calmly and started walking towards the bridge span.
After a few steps, she looked back at him over her shoulder, as saucy now as she had been at nineteen.
"I think bards will sing of our deeds and adventures for a long time to come."
Relief flooded him. With a couple of quick steps he caught up with her, and crushed his lips to hers. Kissing her still held the thrill it always had. Her lips were a little dry, but quickly became moist under his own. Claiming her lips, her heart and her very soul for one last time. When she finally gasped for breath, she remained close to him, and leaned her head on his chest.
"I only wish I could take more happy memories with me into death," she sighed, but without bitterness. He breathed in the scent of her greying hair and smiled against the dishevelled curls.
"I'm taking everything I love on this earth with me," he said.
The bards did sing of them. Because theirs was a memory that could never die.
