CONTENT WARNING:
This fic is DARKFIC. It explores the characters as they might behave when they are taken to a VERY DARK PLACE. Namely, it explores who Alistair might become married to Anora with Loghain redeemed, and how that would affect the Warden who helped shape his circumstances.
It depicts acts of alcoholism, substance abuse, RAPE, coerced sex, prostitution, and MAJOR CHARACTER DEATH. Content may be triggering and/or offensive to your sensibilities. If any or all of these themes disturbs you, please hit the back button on your browser now.
"I'm sorry, Zevran," Solona whispered, hanging her head. "Just go. You can't help us. No-one can."
Zevran went. He went to the nearest tavern and there he sat, unnoticed in a corner, nursing a tankard of Fereldan ale for a considerable length of time. He sat long enough for the tavern to empty and fill again, as one round of patrons filtered out and another filtered in. He sat long enough to hear all the gossip of the land.
No one, it seemed, was happy with Ferelden's reigning king and queen. Seven years now they had been on the throne—nearly thirteen for the queen—and still there was no royal heir. The queen was barren, there could be no doubt, and the king... the king was a sot who spent his time dallying with the mage—no longer the Warden, but simply the mage—rather than attending to his duties.
When he left the tavern, he went to the palace, for he had to see for himself. He had to see that the templar had become what they claimed. It didn't seem possible. Alistair, the other Warden, whose innate goodness Zevran had frequently been exasperated by and occasionally coveted. For him to have fallen so far would be shocking indeed.
For all their faults, there were astonishingly few drunkards amongst the Antivan Crows. Oh, it was not that there weren't many who sought the comfort of spirits to quell a troubling conscience, of course. But a intoxicated assassin was notoriously clumsy and indiscreet. Therefore any young Crows who developed an excessive fondness for drink, or any other such substance, wound up dead in an alley with their throats slit, often at the hands of their own masters.
Sneaking into the private chambers of a reigning monarch was, surprisingly, a new experience. He'd taken any number of prestigious contracts during his time with the Crows, but contracts on an actual king or queen were very rare. It also proved to be an insultingly easy endeavor. Getting into the queen's chambers might have been a challenge worthy for one of his skill, but the king's chambers were woefully under-protected.
It was not late when Zevran's one-time companion shuffled in, looking weary and much older than he ought to have done. From concealment, Zevran watched as he was attended by his servants, a glass of whiskey ever nearby. His words were slurred as they undressed him and prepared his bath. The king sank into the deep basin with a sigh and his body servant left.
Silently, Zevran padded forward, drawing his dagger. Its tip was at the king's throat, pricking the artery there, before Alistair opened his eyes.
He didn't look surprised to see Zevran.
"I figured it would be you, sooner or later," Alistair grunted, apparently unconcerned with his precarious position. "Before you fulfill your contract, I'd love to know who hired you, and perhaps you might give me a chance to write them a thank you note before the end. So who was it? One of the nobles? Anora? Solona?"
Disgusted, Zevran shook his head. "I am not here to kill you, my friend. Though perhaps it would be a mercy if I were. I must say, however, the fear and sorrow in the Warden's eyes makes me singularly disinclined to grant you any mercy, no matter how small."
Alistair snorted. "I haven't done anything worse to her than she did to me during the Blight. Why are you here, Zevran, if not to murder me?" he asked, once Zevran finally withdrew his dagger.
"I came to see if the rumors were true," Zevran replied, sheathing his blade. "I could not credit them when I heard."
"Yes, well, sorry to disappoint you, but it was bound to happen sometime. Not a good king, not a good husband to Anora, not a good lover to Solona. The list goes on. Why should you be any exception?" Alistair's laugh at his own humorless joke sounded delirious, or slightly mad.
"So you sit here and wallow in your self-pity and make a fool of yourself?" Zevran scoffed. "You were a better man than this, once. Or so Solona believed."
"Yeah. I was so much the better man that she couldn't wait to toss me aside and get Loghain between her thighs!"
Like magic, Zevran's dagger appeared in his hand, pressing into the skin above the throbbing pulse in Alistair's neck, pricking it. "Be careful what you say, my friend," the assassin warned very, very softly. "I owe the Warden a debt of gratitude for sparing my life. You, I owe nothing."
There was still enough sense left in the drunkard to register fear at the danger in Zevran's voice. Just barely. Alistair stared at Zevran a moment, then dropped his eyes.
"Get out," the king muttered resentfully, not quite brave enough to assume a full-blown bluster. "You've seen me. It's all true. Now leave."
"Let the Warden go," Zevran replied calmly. "Whatever claim you have on her, release it. She is sad and afraid. The man you were, he would not want that."
"I'm not the man I was. Solona saw to that. If I have to suffer here, so should she."
"Then why do you not leave?" Zevran asked. "Abdicate your throne. From the gossip in the taverns, Ferelden would not miss you. The Warden would help you go anywhere you wished to go. She worries about you."
Alistair shook his head. "Anora won't let me go. I legitimize her reign, you see, even if I am a bastard. If I leave, she'll have me executed, or assassinated, because then I become a threat to her rule. Because I might lead a rebellion against her, right?" the king's tone was heavy with derision.
"Unless there's an heir, I'm the only claim she has to the, traditionally, Theirin throne. But she's not going to get an heir off me." Again, Alistair gave that slightly mad laugh. "I told her just what she could do with that ice-cold slit of hers!"
Alistair snorted with his own humor and reached for his glass. Disgusted, Zevran slipped out as quietly as he'd slipped into the king's chambers. He doubted the king even noticed he had left.
Solona had been in Denerim five years—and Alistair king for ten—when she was summoned urgently to the palace late one night.
"Forgive me, my lady mage—er, Warden," the chamberlain stammered apologetically. "The queen instructed me to summon you. The king is gravely ill."
Gravely ill, indeed. A porcelain basin rested on the table beside his enormous bed, splattered with blood. Flecks of the same had dried upon Alistair's lips and chin. His complexion was pallid and he groaned in pain, thrashing. His skin was clammy and sticky with dried sweat, and he muttered in a semi-conscious delirium.
"When did he begin vomiting blood?" Solona demanded briskly.
"I—er—that is, we—" the chamberlain stammered, shying away from her gaze. "Forgive me, my lady. We don't know. He's been alone in his chamber for nigh on three days. The servants tried to bring him food and tend to him and he ordered them to leave. He was—ranting. Everyone assumed it was simply that he was, well..."
"Drunk," Solona completed bluntly when the chamberlain refused to put a word to it.
"Yes, my lady."
The chamberlain looked distinctly uncomfortable as Solona's hands began to glow, power gathering at her fingertips.
"Perhaps you'd like to leave the room?" she asked archly as the man squirmed. "Inform the queen I will need to speak with her when I am done here."
"Er—as you wish, my lady," he replied with a sigh of relief, bowing as he left the room.
Solona shook her head at the absurdity of a man who was more willing to tell the queen that her husband's mistress wished to meet with her, than to be in a room where healing magic was being performed. Dismissing the man from her mind, she drew energy from the Fade and began to channel it into Alistair's body.
"The king will die, Your Majesty, if this continues." Solona's eyes were bleak as she faced the queen.
Anora had aged since Solona had last seen her. Nearing forty, she retained considerable beauty, but it was faded, like a painting left in sunlight for years on end. Her once-shining hair was now dull. Lines were etched about her eyes and deep creases bracketed her down-turned mouth, giving her a sour demeanor that did nothing to enhance what beauty remained. Her blue eyes were shrewd and calculating.
"You're certain?" Anora asked, and Solona couldn't help but think she heard a hint of eagerness in the queen's tone.
"Absolutely." Solona nodded emphatically. Her face, she knew, bore its own engraved lines, and her mousy brown hair held some gray. But, the best part of never having beauty to begin with was that she felt no loss at the prospect of its fading. Age, Solona imagined, was no doubt a far more bitter pill to the queen than to herself.
"I've healed the bleeding wound inside him, for now," Solona continued, taking refuge in her talent and knowledge. "But magical healing can only do so much, Your Majesty. Just as with broken limbs or battle wounds, magic only accelerates the healing process. Full recovery is dependent upon the king not re-injuring the wound as the healing process completes. The spirits have burned a hole in his stomach. If he begins drinking again, the injury will return. He must stop drinking."
Solona looked down at her own thin, frail, freckled hands. "I think, Your Majesty, that we both know how likely that is to happen. He'll kill himself before he stops."
"Well, that will be a terrible loss for the kingdom, I'm certain," Anora replied coolly, and Solona could see the wheels in her mind turning. Alistair's death would benefit the queen, if anything, relieving Anora of the burden of his embarrassing and unwanted presence without compromising the legitimizing factor being wed to one of the Theirin bloodline lent her rule.
Solona knew in that instant that she must prevent it from happening. She'd entrusted Anora with Alistair, once. She would not make that mistake again.
"Let him go, Your Majesty," Solona asked softly. "I'll take him away. Out of Denerim. Out of Ferelden, even. You don't need him. Let him go. Annul the marriage and release him."
"What makes you think he would leave?" the queen asked with a disdainful sniff. "He could have left any time in the last ten years. I've not been holding him here."
"He has remained here because this is where we told him he had to be, you and I and Eamon," Solona said with tears in her eyes. "He never knew he had anywhere else he could go."
"Nonsense," replied Anora dismissively.
"Alistair's always done his duty," Solona insisted. "He stayed because this is where we told him he had a duty to be."
Anora rose to her feet, snapping, "And was it his duty that drove him to become a drunkard and a wastrel?"
"No. It was the lack of duty that did that. And you." Anora stiffened, her mouth opening on an emphatic protest, but Solona gave her no opportunity. "Tell me, Your Majesty, was it truly impossible to spare him the smallest bit of kindness?"
"I will not be blamed for the way he has lived his life!"
"We both bear some measure of responsibility for what has been wrought here, Your Majesty," Solona replied frankly. "My crimes were leaving him here with you, and redeeming your father. Yours was neglect. You are right in that he chose what he has done to himself. But a kind word. A mere hint of consideration!" She heard her own voice growing sharp, hysterical. "You didn't have to love him, for Andraste's sake! All you had to do was let him feel he had a bit of worth to you. That's all he ever needed from anyone! That's all it might have taken, to turn the tide before it dragged him under!"
Anora glared at her angrily, and Solona glared back, suddenly furious. How long she'd ached to lay that charge at the queen's feet!
But, she realized her penchant for blunt speech was winning her no points with the queen. Think, Amell, think! she commanded herself. Think like a courtier, not a misanthrope who spends most of her life buried in books and scrolls, when she isn't wiping up the king's puke after he's passed out.
"You wouldn't have to annul the marriage," she said, after a moment of trying to figure out why her proposition was so disagreeable to the queen. "You could—you could announce that the king is desperately ill, perhaps even dying. You've sent him overseas with his healer to seek treatment in warmer climes. You'll still have the claim of being the wife of the Theirin king. I'll take him away, far away, where he'll never be a threat to you, and at some point you could spread the word that he died, or that he has to remain in seclusion for the sake of his health, or whatever it is you wish to tell Ferelden."
Anora blinked, tapping her fingers on her hips as she considered the proposition. "Just what do you think this will accomplish?" she asked after a moment.
"Perhaps, if he's away from here, he'll find a reason to stop," Solona replied honestly. "Or, at the very least, he'll have less reason to continue destroying himself."
Anora's gaze flicked away. "I think he no longer needs a reason," the queen said in a somber tone. Then she shook herself, and said briskly, "Had you approached me with this plea six months ago, I would have refused. But as it is, Alistair's presence is of no value to me any longer. For there is going to be an heir, in another four months' time."
The queen let her wrap fall open, revealing a tell-tale swelling at her waist. Astonished, Solona stared. The queen was nearing forty! What could she be thinking, trying to carry a babe at such an age?
"My midwives and healers claim the heir is healthy and thriving," the queen said complacently. "So it will cost me nothing to extend you the questionable boon of releasing Alistair into your care."
"That's not Alistair's child," Solona blurted in disbelief, once again not thinking. "This last year or so, most nights he's been so drunk he can rarely function as a man no matter how hard he tries!"
Anora's eyes narrowed, growing flinty. "Those words are treason, mage," she said dangerously. "I'm going to grant your request, for I bear my husband no actual ill will, for all that I cannot abide him. Do not strain my patience."
Solona bit her tongue. "Yes. Of course, Your Majesty."
"The child is certain to have the king's coloring, leaving no doubt in anyone's mind," Anora explained. "And if there are any... odd traits that bear no resemblance to either of us, well, Alistair's mother was a serving wench, after all. No one knows what she looked like. She might even have been elven."
Solona nodded, carefully saying nothing,
"Get him out of Ferelden, discreetly," Anora commanded. "You have a fortnight before I announce the impending arrival of the Theirin heir to the kingdom. I do not want Alistair about at that time. His illness and confusion might cause him to make unpredictable and unsupportable claims about his child, after all."
"Of course, Your Majesty," Solona repeated, bowing slightly. "I will see to it."
Long after the mage had left to tend to the king, Anora paced her study, turning over her plan in her mind. Leaving Alistair alive was a risk, of course. And yet...
She rubbed the mound mostly hidden by her carefully arranged gown and wrap. Nothing came free. This was part of the price she would pay to secure her throne.
Some hours later, before dawn, a man slipped into her chamber. An elf, as silent as a shadow. How he got past her guards, she did not know, but it wasn't the first time he'd done it.
"Thank you for answering my summons," Anora said, unperturbed by his presence. "I wished to inform you in person that I no longer require your services."
"And the matter of my price?" he asked.
"The contract is fulfilled."
"Very well, then," the elf said with a flamboyant bow. "I shall depart for my homeland on the morning tide. Good luck, fair queen."