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.

A/N: I always had the personality of the Amell from the kink-meme fill Carnal Knowledge roughly in mind when I wrote this character, so I have decided to just go for it and borrow Amell's pre-Blight activities from that story as well, with the author's permission.

Sleep. That was what she had been missing, and what she wanted more than anything in the Maker's world. Sleep.

And so Solona slept. After the day she awoke to find Alistair had begun drinking again, she slept. She slept for hours and hours, and sometimes it felt like days. Sometimes she woke in the small hours of the night to lay in her hammock, staring at the low ceiling of the cabin, keenly aware of Alistair's absence and knowing he was with the sailors, destroying himself. The thought made her feel angry and betrayed, but it was inevitably followed by another overwhelming wave of weariness, until finally she slept again.

She ate little, and most days it seemed like too much effort even to retrieve a ewer of water and bathe herself. Her hair hung in greasy, straggling tendrils and her clothes were rumpled from sleeping in them constantly. She suspected she smelled as ugly as she looked, but who was there to notice, except occasionally for Alistair, who would stagger in, reeking himself, only to promptly pass out.

When she did rouse from her hammock, she could not be bothered to find the captain and ascertain their location or the number of days to their next port of call. Her books and scrolls and maps no longer held any interest for her; she stared at them listlessly, not caring about whether her plan to get Alistair to Weisshaupt would come to fruition. She only cared about sleeping again.

Alistair began coming back to the cabin less and less often. Only when she realized she had lost track of the days since she had seen him did Solona drag herself out of her hammock. It seemed an enormous effort, especially considering she had always been the sort to wake at dawn's first light, energized and ready to discover what new knowledge the day held. Her apathy was most uncharacteristic and she began to feel disturbed by it. So she forced herself to rouse, to bathe and dress in clean smallclothes and a fresh shift and kirtle.

She had to find Alistair. No matter how angry and betrayed she felt, she had to be certain he was still well. She had been avoiding him for far too long. It wasn't like her.

It was nearly dusk, she surmised, when she stepped onto the ship's deck. It seemed that summer was beginning to pass into autumn, for there was a chill in the air that hadn't been there the last time she had emerged from her cabin for any length of time. Maker! How long had she been in her hammock, wallowing in apathy?

There were sailors about, but she didn't know which ones were Alistair's acquaintances or how they would respond to her attempts to locate him. So she set off by herself, searching the deck first, and then the low, narrow passages that led down to the crew cabin and cargo holds.

It was there she found him; not in the crew cabin with his newfound friends, but in a dark, shadowed corner of one of the passages to the cargo holds. From the filth and debris, it seemed that this was where he was staying, sleeping on the wooden planks that formed the decking.

He was not alone, and so she tucked herself behind a stack of barrels lining the passage. A man in a sailor's rough garb stood with his back to her, and Alistair was blinking up at him, a pleading expression on his face, which was pale and haggard. He didn't appear to have shaved or bathed in weeks.

"You promised," he rasped

"Ye know what the price is, ye sot," the sailor replied with a malicious chuckle.

"Please. I'm thirsty. Can I have some rum first?"

The sailor didn't respond, but merely began to untie and push down his breeches. With a sick look, Alistair leaned into him, his mouth open.

Solona bit into her hand to keep from gasping and giving away her presence.

"Ye want rum?" the sailor growled. "Have some rum, mate!"

Alistair recoiled, coughing and spluttering, and only when she saw him spit out a torrent of clear amber liquid did she realize what the sailor had done. Outrage washed her vision in red, and she felt her power trying to rise, ready to burn the sailor down with a thought. But she couldn't! These men did not know she was a mage, and if she was found out, it could mean her death and Alistair's both.

Solona choked on a sob, as Alistair allowed the sailor to kneel behind him and jerk down Alistair's breeches. She winced as the sailor's hips snapped forward in a single violent push, biting her lip hard enough to bleed when Alistair gave a pained grunt and the sailor's hips slapped against Alistair's skin.

"Ye're looser than th' cheapest dockside doxy!" the sailor spat, panting as he thrust. Alistair sobbed and moaned brokenly until the sailor finally grew still and shuddered. He shoved Alistair roughly aside and rose. "Broke in like this, it's not worth th' bother, 'specially with the stink o' ye! Find someone else ta give ye yer buttons. I'm done wit' ye!"

"Please!" Alistair cried. "Just one! Just one more! I'll do anything!"

"Take it!" the sailor muttered in disgust, flinging something down beside Alistair and hitching up his breeches. Scrambling, Alistair retrieved what had fallen and she saw him pop it into his mouth. Then the sailor walked away from Alistair, disappearing into the crew cabin. Solona took a look at the blissful expression on Alistair's begrimed face as he sucked on whatever the sailor had given him, and fled.

She made it back to the deck before she was ill over the side of the ship. She sat there huddled against the rail for what seemed to be hours, letting the cool night air calm her churning stomach while her mind spun wildly as she tried to find a way out of this for them.

They couldn't remain on the ship all the way to the Anderfels. That much was certain. The sailors were harming him; she must get Alistair away from them. She would need to speak with the captain about disembarking early, even if it meant sacrificing the fare she had paid for their passage.

Pushing herself to her feet, she went to seek out the captain, a Navarran man by the name of Joachim. She'd realized early in their voyage that her butler had been right; his eyes were hard and avaricious, but he had been more or less courteous in her discussions with him.

His first mate told her the captain had retired for the night, but that he would not yet be sleeping if she wished to speak with him. Nodding, Solona made her way to the cabin beside the one she shared with Alistair and rapped upon the wooden door.

"Forgive the interruption, Captain Joachim," Solona began when he tipped his head deferentially toward her. A golden hoop glittered in his earlobe; it had reminded her of Duncan the first time she saw him, and did so again now, she realized with a pang of longing. The short, dark bristle on his chin and longer hair were more similar to Riordan, however. He was soft-spoken but authoritative, like Nathaniel, and often his eyes held a maliciously humorous gleam reminiscent of Anders.

She missed them. How she missed them all, her fellow Grey Wardens. She'd never had much use for other people, having learned long ago in the tower that they found her insatiable drive for knowledge and her lack of social graces bizarre and off-putting. But she'd been alone so very, very long with nothing but a drunken, self-destructive king and servants for company.

Shaking her head to dismiss the morose turn of her thoughts, Solona continued, "I only became aware tonight that some of your sailors are... well, abusing the man I brought aboard with me. I must insist you put a stop to it."

His brows lifted as though she had surprised him, but the captain said nothing. He merely held open the door to his cabin and extended an arm to invite her inside.

"Would you care for a cup of wine?" he asked after he had closed the door. "It's not a very good vintage; I find it doesn't pay to carry expensive wines when a particularly rough storm might destroy the whole stock."

"No, thank you, Captain," Solona replied stiffly. "Forgive me for being impolite, but this is a matter of some urgency. You cannot allow your men to continue mistreating Al... my friend."

"Hm," he said impassively, stroking the dark scruff beneath his chin. "Forgive me for being impolite, mistress, but as I understand it, your friend does a fairly thorough job of mistreating himself."

Solona gasped and drew back as though the captain had struck her, blinking against a sudden urge to cry. She didn't cry; she hadn't cried in years. Alistair had long ago wrung all the tears from her.

"He is... very ill, ser," she said, bowing her head in acknowledgment of his point. "I'm trying to help him, but I can't do that while your men are egging him on."

"Ill? Is that the word for it?" Captain Joachim sneered, his voice still soft and smooth, but venomous. "There's nary a swabby on my deck who isn't bound to kill himself with some vice or another, someday. Rum. Madcaps. A pox from an over-fondness for dockside whores. An unfortunate duel after they can't make good on their gaming debts. They're idiots, all of them. I don't call that ill, I call it weak."

Solona glared at him. "Be that as it may, Captain, you must stop them. I did not pay for our passage so that your crew might make his condition worse."

He gave a brusque shake of his head. "I won't," he said firmly. "What vices my men—or my passengers, for that matter—indulge in are not my affair. They're not holding your friend captive, mistress. If he's drinking with them, dicing with them, or being buggered by them, it's his own choice and his own problem. If I made a habit of interfering, I'd have a mutiny on my hands. So long as they do their jobs, what they do on their own time is their business and I don't involve myself. If they don't do their jobs, they'll find themselves bound to the mast with their backs scourged."

"You can't believe he's subjected himself to what they're doing to him willingly!"

"I don't see him tied up or fighting, mistress."

"You don't know him! He wouldn't choose this! No one in their right mind would!"

The captain crossed his arms over his chest and raised a mocking eyebrow at her. "Right mind or no, who chose for him, do you think?"

"I don't know!" Solona shouted at the hateful, pitiless man.

"You can't save him, mistress," he said coldly, implacably. His tone was empty, devoid of feeling. Once again she was reminded of Duncan, as he'd been in the instant before he killed Ser Jory. "He doesn't want to be saved. He's chosen his own way. Let him go and get on with your life."

Her heart was thundering in her chest and the sickening, coppery taste of fear and rage had flooded her mouth. She shook her head wildly from side to side, trying to deny his merciless words. To her astonishment, she found her hands were curled into thin, rigid claws, as though she would fly at him and shred his face.

Instead, she launched herself at him and kissed him; gracelessly, desperately. Her furled fingers gripped the back of his neck and dug in until he growled at the pain and wetness beneath her fingertips told her she had drawn blood. But he did not push her away or deny her. Instead, his hands closed over her upper arms in a bruising grasp, jerking her closer, and opening to her tongue as she thrust it roughly between his lips, countering it with his own.

How long had it been? Maker, how long had it been since she'd touched a man with true passion, rather than merely submitting to Alistair's drunken caresses, or even welcoming them when she was lonely and had no one else? How long since she had chosen, truly chosen?

Not since the Blight. Not since Alistair had been Alistair and they had hungered insatiably for each other amidst all the chaos and uncertainty and death. More than a decade, since she'd really unleashed the woman within her, the woman many so easily missed behind the books and the unkempt hair and the homely, freckled face. The woman Duncan had taught to make love using her senses.

Solona practically screamed her hunger and all the years of futile frustration into the captain's mouth. His hands closed roughly over her breasts and squeezed, pinching her nipples in a way that made her knees weaken.

She jerked his linen shirt from the waist of his breeches, her nails gouging his back as they shoved up underneath the fabric to find his skin. Holy Andraste, his flesh felt good! Warm skin and hard, corded muscle. She clung to him and cursed him when his lips left hers to close hot and wet upon the pulse at her neck. She cursed him for the implacable truths he had spoken, for his lack of sympathy, for awakening the fury and passion she thought had died years ago. She hated him, hated him for not helping her, hated him for not pitying her, hated him for not caring about her plight.

But she couldn't stop touching him. She wanted to take that absolute lack of pity—much less self-pity—and draw it deep into herself. She wanted every bit of his coldness, his hardness, his immovability. It didn't matter that he was a stranger, and likely a criminal, or that she had no reason to trust him whatsoever. She wanted to become him, or at soak him through her skin until he become part of her.

The captain pulled away and ripped the shirt over his head, revealing his hard chest. Solona attacked it, with lips and teeth, claws and tongue. Sucking, biting, licking, pinching. Her short, ragged nails left blood-filled furrows on his flesh, but he didn't protest. He returned her violence; not forcing her, no, but giving back to her everything she gave him in equal measure. He grabbed her hair and jerked her head back and his lips and teeth savaged her neck, the bristle of his chin burning her skin.

She didn't protest when he shredded the neckline of her kirtle and split the shift underneath to lay claim to her breast with a hard, grasping hand. Instead, she helped him part the fabric when it tangled about her, frantic to free herself from its restraint. She climbed him, scrabbling up, her legs wrapping tightly about his waist as she thrust her breasts into his face with imperious commands to suck and bite, until her flesh was speckled with bruises and rings of teeth marks.

"Hurt me," Solona panted, clutching him harder. His fingertips gripped her nipple and clamped down. Not enough. Not enough! She wanted the sensation to match the searing, gloriously vital rage that was flooding her being, cleansing her like a fire blazing through a plague-infested tenement. "Hurt me!"

He did. Maker, he did, and she hurt him back and it made her feel alive like nothing in the last decade had done. He gripped her underneath her backside and bore her to a wooden table strewn with charts and maps and threw her down upon it so hard she saw stars. Eagerly, she lifted her hips and pulled her skirts up as he ripped away her smallclothes. There was a moments pause as he shoved down his breeches and then he grabbed her hips and slammed into her with a single hard thrust.

"Yes!" Solona growled, even as her body arched and tried to push away from him, unprepared to be entered so hard and suddenly after so many months abstinence. There were breathless, wild sounds, like an enraged animal, and they were hers. She didn't care. Her knees gripping his ribs and her hips thrust up to meet him and the ache of being filled and stretched abated.

Only pleasure was left as the captain began to drive into her. His dark hair escaped its queue as she gripped his head with her hands, holding him close, and grabbed his earlobe between her teeth and bit savagely into it.

One of her hands moved down her body to her nub and began to stroke as she commanded, "Harder. Harder!" His hips snapped, thrusting furiously and she came with a feral cry, seizing and shuddering around him.

"More!" she gasped when the flares of light had dissipated.

His endurance was endless, she discovered, and his capacity for making it hurt just the way she needed it to hurt knew no limits. She pushed at him, sent him reeling away and leapt off the table to pin him to the floor, taking him within her and riding him furiously. Then she was on her knees, clutching the leg of the rough wooden table to prevent being driven across the floor as he pounded into her from behind. And standing, wrapped around him again, with her back against the wall of the cabin, screaming and wailing as he thrust deep, so painfully, impossibly deep. Climax after climax cascaded over her, leaving her limp and sweating and finally nearing exhausting when he gave his final thrusts and spent inside her.

He pulled away from the wall and let go his grip on her backside. She unwound her legs from the captain's waist and tried to stand, but her knees would not support her, and so she sank to the floor.

He made no effort to hold her or be tender, but merely dropped down hard upon the chair, panting. He poured a cup of wine from a bottle and offered it to Solona as she huddled there in the tattered remnants of her gown, stunned at what she had done. She accepted and drank it thirstily, her mouth parched and her throat raw from screaming. There wasn't a part of her that didn't ache. She would have to run to risk of using some magic to heal herself or she would be limping come tomorrow.

Captain Joachim had bloody furrows on his back and chest and even on his buttocks. Normally, simple courtesy would demand she heal him as well, but she didn't dare take the risk.

Instead, she asked, "Is there nothing you can do to help my... friend?"

Again, he shook his head, stretching and testing his own aches. "If he's on madcaps, mistress, he's as good as gone."

As though her confusion had been pursed, she felt remarkably clear-headed. The scholarly part of her mind took over and she inquired, "I'm only familiar with the madcap bulb in passing. It's not used in any of the potions I know, though I've seen it used for a coating on traps. I've never heard of these... these buttons. What are they?"

Pulling up his breeches and lacing them, the captain rose. He retrieved a small leather pouch from a sea chest and tossed it to her. Solona caught it, fumbling a bit, and opened it to pull out a thin slice of reed that reeked like sour wine.

"Each person who makes them has their own recipe, of course," explained the captain. "Some blends are more poisonous than others. Those of us who can control ourselves and only take one from time to time do just fine. Others, well... anyone who uses them often enough ends up dead, and the ones who do don't stop. Your friend is heading that way fast."

"And you carry these aboard your ship?" Solona demanded, her voice rising with indignation.

Joachim shrugged. "There are plenty of people willing to pay extravagantly to kill themselves. If they didn't pay me, they'd pay someone else. Why shouldn't I turn a profit off their stupidity and weakness?"

She stared at the harmless-looking wafer as though hypnotized by it. What had Alistair found in these that made it worth the degradation he was suffering now?

"You use them, sometimes?" At his impassive nod, she asked, "What's it like?"

"You suck on them, suck the juice out. Then for an hour or two, you think you're in the Maker's own Golden City before the fall."

She continued to stare at it, disbelieving. Such a small, unassuming thing. A bit of reed, with a bit of juice in it. How could it destroy a man? She wanted to understand. She felt that core of curiosity that was the very foundation of who she was calling out for knowledge. Maybe if she understood, she could find a way to break the hold it had over him.

Impulsively, Solona popped it in her mouth. It seared her tongue, burning. Saliva flooded her mouth, and she wondered if, on the other side of that burn, once she swallowed, would there be an end to misery and confusion and uncertainty?

Gagging, she spat it out, and used the shredded rags that had been her kirtle to wipe her the inside of her mouth before taking another long draught of wine.

That was not the way for her.

"Thank you, captain, for your time and, well..."

His eyes gleaming in with that wicked humor that reminded her of Anders. "You're welcome, mistress. I'm sorry about your friend."

"Thank you," she murmured, gathering the remains of her kirtle about her. It provided nothing for the sake of modesty, but she only needed to go to her own cabin, next door. "We'll, um... we'll be leaving the ship, then, at our next port."

Again, that calm, unconcerned shrug. "We'll make port in Rialto in two days' time. I'll refund a portion of your fare."

Nodding in acceptance, Solona left.

Alistair was in their cabin when she returned, leaning against a wall and swaying slightly with a dazed, dreamy expression on his face. He was filthy. He reeked of vomit and urine and the seed of who knew how many men, and yet he had the nerve to look vaguely blissful.

"Damn you!" Solona cried, falling on him and beating at his chest and shoulders with her fists. It didn't matter that the shredded remains of her gown had fallen open, baring her breasts, or that she had the seed of another man seeping down her thighs. She couldn't care less about her modesty or dignity. All she knew was fury and despair.

"Curse you to the Black City and back!" she shouted, hitting at him futilely. He did nothing to ward her off. He made no attempt to shield himself from her blows, nor did he even register discomfort at them. "Fight, blast you! Fight me! Do something. Damn you, why won't you fight?"

She dissolved into sobs, collapsing against him, clutching his filthy shirt as she wept with great racking, heaving, keening screams of despair. She shook him and pushed at him and hit him again.

All he could muster when she looked at his face was to blink in confusion. "Huh?"

Another torrent of tears flooded down her face. "I don't want you to die!" she sobbed, wrapping her arms around him and holding him, unmindful of his filth. "Please, Alistair. Oh, Maker, please! Fight this. Please, won't you try? Please!"

He staggered against her and she sank to her knees, unable to bear his weight. He fell over onto the rocking deck and Solona lay beside him, weeping softly a heartbroken mantra of please... please... please...

They made port in Rialto two days later. Solona bathed Alistair and got him a clean change of clothing, but she made no effort to constrain him to their cabin. It turned out to be unnecessary to do so. He slept most of those last two days of the journey, sometimes dreaming fitfully in his hammock but often completely unable to be roused.

They were near enough to Antiva City she thought perhaps she might try to locate Zevran. Perhaps she could enlist his aid in getting Alistair to someplace safe, someplace where she could keep him away from his own worst impulses and try to purge him of the poisons again. It seemed risky after the way he'd reacted the last time she'd done it, but there didn't seem to be a choice. Perhaps keeping him bound longer—rather than days, weeks, or maybe a couple of months—after the purging might finally break him of his compulsion.

The prospect left Solona feeling hopeless and weary, as she had felt when she slept for days on end aboard Captain Joachim's ship. She wanted to curl up and sleep again, each time she thought of it, sleep and never wake to deal with the nightmare reality that would be entailed in such an endeavor.

Instead, she roused Alistair once the ship made port and painstakingly supported him down the gangplank to the docks, desperately afraid he would collapse or lose his balance and send them both crashing to the ground. She hired a cart to take them to a rooming house to secure lodgings and then to a moneylender where she might turn in one of the letters of credit she had been given. Alistair was in no shape to run such errands. He was looking pale and sickly, and she imagined that if he didn't get hold of some spirits within the next few hours, he would start to suffer fits again. But she didn't dare leave him unsupervised for fear he might wander away seeking spirits or madcap.

The daylight had faded into dusk when the livery she had hired deposited them at the end of a long, narrow alley. The conveyance was too wide to travel the alley, and the entrance to their boarding house was several doors down. She paid the coachman and as the clopping of the horse-hooves faded away, urged Alistair to shuffle along with her, noting with alarm that his skin felt clammy.

"I need rum," he muttered. It was the first words he'd spoken all day. "Please, Solona."

"It's inside," she lied. "Let's get you inside and you'll be fine."

"'Ello, mate!" a voice called out behind them, and Solona whirled in alarm to see four of the sailors from Captain Joachim's ship standing in a line across the mouth of the alley. "We followed ye from the docks to see 'ow ye were farin' in yer new lodgin's."

"Hey!" Alistair called, suddenly animated, as though they were long-lost comrades. Solona had to grasp his arm to keep him from walking to them. "Lemme go, Solona. My friends are here."

"Alistair, stop! They're not your friends. Don't you remember how they treated you?" He blinked at her, shaking his head in confusion. Glaring at the sailors, she shouted, "Go away! Go back to your ship! You're not wanted here!"

"Hey, mate, we brought you some buttons!" The sailor said with a vicious smile, waving a pouch. "Though, that's a fair amount o' coin them buttons is worth. We'll need somethin' in trade."

Beneath her restraining hand, Alistair shuddered. "But I don't..."

"Ah, mate, don't ye remember what ye said on the ship?" The sailor looked at Solona, his eyes gleaming. "Ye're woman there is a mage, ye said. An' we reckon, th' Chantry might be lookin' t' pay a bounty on a 'postate runnin' loose, right? Or maybe there's a rich man somewhere—a collector, as it were—what'd pay handsomely t' get betwixt the thighs o' such a rarity. After we has our fun wit' 'er, o' course. So what d'ye say, yer lordship? 'And 'er over, an' all these buttons is yours."

Backing away from all of them, Solona began summoning her power, knowing that once she did so, she would have to flee Antiva. The Chantry would be after her within a day, once it was known there was a mage wandering about free. She didn't think the claim of being a Grey Warden would win her much, this far from home.

Alistair was staring at her, his brow furrowed. His eyes darted sideways to that pouch of madcap buttons being waved so tauntingly before him. He licked his lips, sweat pouring down his forehead.

Without warning, he managed a surge of holy energy in Solona's direction. Not enough to throw her off her feet and drain her mana, but it still managed to stagger her and deplete a small amount of her power.

"Take her!" he sobbed, grabbing for the pouch.

Desperately, Solona flung her hand out and conjured a pool of grease at the feet of the rushing sailors. They were brawlers; strong and vicious, but clumsy and unskilled. They went down in an awkward heap, slipping on the viscous fluid.

Her mouth contorted in a feral snarl and she cast flames into the grease. All along the alley, windows opened and heads emerged as the screaming began, the sailors beating ineffectually at their burning clothing as they tried to escape the pool of flames. She heard people shouting in Antivan, no doubt saying that there was a mage in the alley, murdering people.

Ignoring them, she sent a chain of lightning through the four of them. It passed from one man to another, causing seizures and convulsions that prevented them escaping the burning grease. One by one, they fell dead into the flames.

In the glow of the fire, Solona looked at Alistair, who was looking back and forth between the dead sailors and Solona in shock, clutching his leather pouch.

"I am finished with you!" she screamed at him, swinging at him and knocking the pouch from his hands, sending it flying into the guttering flames. Alistair cried out in alarm and dropped to his knees, trying to retrieve it and burning himself in the process.

"Kill yourself, for all I care," she spat in contempt, towering over him where he knelt on the dirty cobbles of the alley. "Poison yourself. Whore yourself out. Eat a hole through your gut with spirits. I don't care. I am done, Alistair!"

He stared at her with wild-eyed despair, as Solona turned and fled into the night. She stopped only long enough to set fire to a ship at the docks, the one with its hold crammed full of madcap. Then she left, determined never to look back.

It was a promise she would be unable to keep to herself.