Disclaimer: I own absolutely and completely nothing. Bioware has that particular pleasure.

Summary: A City-Elf/Bann Teagan collection of drabbles and one-shots based on a prompt table from an LJ-community. These will be more or less in chronological order with the faintest traces of added plot here and there. Will vary from drabble length to one-shot.

Author's note: May it not be rushed, I plead. May it not be rushed, poor Alistair. Hrm, to be prepared because I have this wee little detail against Eamon :| be warned.

In this chapter: Hope should be avoided.

017.

Alistair considered Redcliffe his home since childhood. He liked the place, he liked the family, he idolized Arl Eamon, the father he didn't have but wished. Shame Arl Eamon belonged to Isolde. Well, not shame but Isolde acted like the man had to be exclusive, a belonging that couldn't be shared beyond her, Connor and Bann Teagan. He was extra and inconvenient, truly unneeded. He could have turned to the Bann, Alistair supposes, but Teagan was a distant uncle and just as the word said, distant. He was always less, less strong, less powerful, less imposing, just less and he held no shine for the boy. Basically, Alistair wanted Eamon and everything else seemed like poor in comparison.

He took his hope away from the Arl as soon as the Chantry doors closed behind him.

Then Alistair thought of his brother. Maric was dead and he was a bastard – alright, so it was possibly a futile hope to begin with – but Cailan was his brother. Blood. Even if he couldn't say anything about that – Eamon had been quite direct with that particular detail – it didn't mean they couldn't speak a little. Maybe be friends? He could do friends. He could do friends very well. He'd even exchange his whole Templar training just to be a guard, a good guard, sort of personal one. Who would protect Cailan more than his family?

Tough luck with that hope too. It was torn and bashed, thrown into the corner like a used fabric with a sole word of his adoptive father – and how did the man find out anyway? He had to have spies, he thinks, tons of , it was a hazard to keep a bastard so close to the King. Like Alistair was stupid enough to stab his brother in the back. He didn't even want to be king! He wanted family! He wanted someone missing him at night when he returned.

His next hope belonged to the Grey Wardens and, for a while, it worked out. He had Duncan who was the father Eamon had failed to be, brothers to replace Cailan who had ignored him ever so nicely, a family which battled by his side, for him and with him and it was perfect. There were darkspawn, tons of danger and excitement too but he could deal. He liked it. Stupid, right? To like that amount of blood in comparison to prayers and killing abominations and mages. Gosh, why did he want to leave the Chantry so much? It was obviously better.

A big disgusting horde makes sure to bash that hope to the ground – between blades, against walls, through the stones. His heart is stabbed repeatedly every time he remembers the different members. It shatters into a thousand pieces every time he remembers Duncan. He wouldn't like it, the man would probably give him his disappointed look and Alistair would feel like a kicked puppy and fall in line. Only Duncan's dead so he allows himself to wallow in his pity when Tasha isn't around to literally kick him. Bossy woman.

Another little hope of his. The new Grey Warden. She is nice, she listens, alright, being pretty doesn't exactly harm the situation but, most of all, she seems to understand him. His grief, at least. Walking around through dark filled lands all bursting with darkspawn, it's just a setting for romance, isn't it? Only not. Guess he should be grateful she sent him on his way with kind words instead of the already mentioned kicks. He didn't get why, doesn't get why – though the reason might be a little older and live around the south, he is keeping an eye on that situation – but things sometimes don't work out in the whole romance area. He can accept that. So that hope was neatly nipped before it grew and he moved on before his heart was too into it – though it still is, slightly. She is still pretty and he's not blind.

The last one catches him with the sweetness of a Bronto. Goldanna was supposed to be like the accounts of his mother he has heard, kind, lovable and welcoming. She is supposed to enjoy knowing she has a brother and not to ask about his pockets' financial health. She is supposed to be a ton of things and all he gets is a shrew with too many kids and a wish to leech off him that seems to bother even Morrigan. And Morrigan is evil. Very evil. The Evil. She should be immune to this kind of stuff.

Alistair learned to hate hope. It is just useless and ruthless because every time he tries to rely on it, it turns around and bashes him enough to make sure he doesn't try anything as stupid again. Only he does. Maker, he has to be an idiot to keep throwing himself into these messes.

It takes him a while to realize he has been left alone to his wallowing – no, no wallowing. Distress, thank you – and he spends that time wandering around the market. Nothing wants to kill him there, he can feel no darkspawn for the moment so this is the most peaceful moment in the last months. It feels lonely. And he's thinking about gathering all his courage – or the remains of it – to go face Eamon's words again when the other Warden reappears, slipping her arm through his and dragging him along, her wayward child. Not dignifying.

But Tasha gives him her best attempt of an encouraging smile – which it is not that good and hardly an explanation to her actions – and he plays along when she leads him into the farthest corner of the market. There's bread and cheese – cheese – on her satchel, on his hands before he can summon a plead. Maker, the woman's getting better with this.

"So," he begins while throwing himself to the floor. Watch the heir to the throne and fabled Grey Warden now, uncle. Eating cheese on the floor of a street like a commoner and feeling much more at ease than inside any stony castle. "Why here?" Her hand slaps his away from his mouth. Right, no licking fingers. The noise grates on her nerves, the disgust on her stomach and that just leads to more slapping.

"Because you're wallowing." Distressing. "And you might as well wallow where I can keep an eye on you. Besides, I could use help." Eh?

Tasha is eating the same as him, patting the crumbs away from her skin but noiselessly so he tries to ignore the sting on his hand from her previous slap. Her eyes, however, are stuck to the man guarding the gate to the Alienage, unwavering and plain creepy. Yesterday, she glared at the man like there was no tomorrow, clearly wishing to run him through with her sword for daring to bar her path. Today she just stares, ignoring whatever task they have to do.

Eh? is the only way to sum his thoughts, no matter how much he tries to make sense of this. "Not getting it."

That's a smile, he's sure that's a smile even though he cannot see her face properly. When he can, her eyes draw his attention. Bright, sunny, blue and amused, like the glint of a child up to mischief. He never sees her like this – mainly because they are always between fights and there's little to do but to be grim and sorry about all the blood they shed on a daily basis. That little hope tries very very hard to make an appearance only to be squashed by frantic chewing. No more hope. Hope equals bad.

"We have little to do bar the whole Peak situation and I'm not getting into that before the Landsmeet is over and done with. Someone might try to do Eamon before he gets to talk in your name." Arl Eamon. Arl. Doing someone also sounded very wrong. Maybe he should tell her this. Maybe he should wait until she says this in front of Arl Eamon and watch for reactions. Second wins. "Mercenaries are scared." Or dead. "Bandits are dead." And littering half the city. "So instead of losing my time thinking about everything I cannot change or allowing you to wallow because you were granted lousy luck in family, we are going to be productive."

She resumes her staring and Alistair tries, he tries so hard to keep the obvious question inside. "…I don't get it," he repeats. "How is this productive?"

"Why," There's the eerie smile all over again. "If I have to be kept away from my home by this little Shem." Note to self, no more Dalish. "Then I might as well spend the time I'd brood about not entering in making him uncomfortable. Look, sweating already. The one yesterday was far sturdier. Besides, it's keeping you from thinking too much, isn't it?"

Alright, so she is sort of correct. Sort of. Not totally.

"Family is made by blood, Alistair. You can't change that." An apple into his hands, a pat on his shoulder, the sound of eating touches his ears, common and simple things surrounded by the calm tone of voice she uses at times. "Mine is in there, yours is on another street but I am right here. Brother and sister, Grey Warden, isn't that right?" No pity, don't pity me, he pleads. And she doesn't. She sympathizes. "Mourn her. I'll miss mine with you. This is what family does."

Alistair gives up on hope there and then – brother and sister, not lovers but family – and he mourns his sister, his brother, his father who wasn't and the father who was. But Hope is a bad thing and this certainty, knowing that there's someone around to sit with him in a cold street, to eat and speak nonsense. This certainty is far better than any hope.

They scare off three guards before they are found.

Note: Prompt 017 (Sister) from Troyed community table of prompts.