What with winter (and Christmas!) closing in, here's a brief snow/smite chapter before the gruelling journey to Soldier's Peak...
No demons or training this chapter - see, this is what I get for listening to chillout.
Makes heavy references to (the crisis in) chapters 42 - 46.
Snow
Alistair
For the first time since he's known her, he thinks he truly understands what she is, why she backed away from him at Ostagar. He's seen what smites do to mages, but it's different when it's her, her on her knees and half-delirious.
~Chapter 44, "Mage"
All Levi's talk of snowy slopes and awkward conditions at the fortress makes him sigh in resignation, remembering the trudge to Ostagar - Maker, it seems so long ago now, when he was just one more Warden of many, and when...
When he hadn't met Morgana, hadn't even known she existed. The thought's odd, feels wrong, somehow; the tentativeness of their conversations is gone now, replaced by the easy familiarity of people who've known each other for... years.
He realises with surprise that that's how it feels - it's almost as if they've known each other all their lives. His eyes drift to her again with that thought, wondering if she feels the same way, then he pushes it aside, mind returning to the road ahead.
He's a soldier, he can deal with harsh weather, he decides; then he remembers Haven, has a sudden memory of the mage shivering her way through the village, pale skin flushed red from cold and stray snowflakes on her lashes...
The way she'd looked up briefly, mouth opening slightly as she watched the flakes dance, and later, when she thought he wasn't looking, darted out her tongue briefly, almost unnoticeably, then returned her eyes to her sword.
Tasting the snow.
He smiles at the thought of one more flicker of her old naïveté from the Tower, still there under the angry, frighteningly blank façade she used to wear for him, the templar. He still winces, stomach twisting uncomfortably, at the time he'd had to smite her, how she'd backed away from him, his touch, in terror, cursing him, and wonders once more how the mages are treated in their Tower.
They take watch together, after he's made an effort to clean up the remnants of stew, Levi going to sleep next to his cart; Alistair joins her by the fire, watching the flames, but he's frowning, his troubles obvious.
Her question surprises him. "What are you thinking?"
He pulls at his gauntlets, looking anywhere but her, until he finally asks what he needs to ask, finally looking her in the eye and suddenly unable to drag his gaze away. "Do you still... Would you still call me a templar?"
He doesn't miss the flicker of surprise as well as firelight in her eyes, and she exhales slowly, looking away from him. "Why do you ask?"
Another flash of her on the ground, kicking out at him, eyes still alight from the lyrium he'd had to give her, building the wall between them all over again, comes to him, and he tries to ignore it. "I just... Well..." He runs a hand through his hair in discomfort, not speaking of the elephant in the camp: the smite. "Forget I asked. It's not important." He looks at the ground, examining the dirt, but jumps at the hand on his shoulder; a jolt runs through him, sudden and almost painful, at the simple touch - another memory, of how surprised she always seemed when he tried to reassure her the same way.
When he looks up, she is smiling, and has her other hand to her lips in thought. "Well, let's see - you didn't murder me for being a mage, you gave up Chantry secrets and taught me how to resist smites... No, I don't think so."
"Even with the...?" He makes a slightly despairing hand gesture, and sees her tense; it's subtle, a shifting of muscle under the shoulders of her shirt, but it's there.
"The smite? You think I haven't forgiven you for that? For Maker's sake... Half the time, I forget all of it. Forget your... your blood, too." She stutters on that last point, and he wonders at her nervousness; she's not the one with a possible unwanted crown looming over her head. "Can you just be... Alistair, for a while?"
He stares at her for a moment, breath leaving him, and shrugs, spirits lifting, looking back to the fire. "Why not?"
They watch the fire, just Alistair and Morgana, and he wonders about getting her a cloak for the journey.