Back to Redcliffe

They stopped in Redcliffe to check up on Arl Eamon and to make sure the journey to Haven was still necessary. Thankfully, it was. Teagan assured them that Eamon's condition was unchanged and offered them rooms in the castle as they prepared for the journey to Haven.

Elaine flopped back onto her bed and stretched. A mattress! And feather pillows! She sniffed the fresh linen and reveled in the smell of clean sheets. She might not get up again until – her stomach rumbled. Until it was time to eat, she thought. She got up to check her appearance before she went down to the dining hall.

Isolde had offered to have all of their clothes washed and armor cleaned while they stayed, and she had loaned Elaine a dress to wear in the meantime. It had been a long time since she had worn anything pretty. Elaine looked at herself in the mirror on the wall.

Dear Maker, she thought, how far I have fallen. Her once fashionable hair had grown out of its precisely cut bob, and it hadn't grown evenly; several bits on the right side had grown longer than the others, and the whole right side was longer than the left. Positively lop-sided. She wondered if Isolde had someone who could give her a trim. In the meantime, she braided it to disguise the straggly ends and pulled it back with some combs she had found in the dresser.

She turned her attention to her face. It was thinner than before. All of the walking and fighting, and no doubt the lack of decent food, had slimmed her all over. She had always had a rather nice, curvy figure, but now it was hardened with muscle. Very unladylike. And she was tanned. The low-cut bodice of the borrowed dress exposed skin that was normally covered by her armor, and revealed a vivid tan line along her chest and collarbone. Her mother would be mortified.

Well, what could she do? Nothing, really. It was just as well that she would only be wearing this dress for the evening, and then she could get back to normal.

That thought stopped Elaine in her tracks. Back to normal? Wearing lovely dresses and worrying about her looks used to be normal for her. She had been longing for her old, carefree life since she'd left Highever –since she'd been taken from Highever. And now that she had it back again – even just for an evening – she couldn't just be content. What was happening to her? Who was she anymore? She swallowed, trying to control a sense of panic. She couldn't go back, she thought. Her old life was over, and nothing would ever be the same again. Even if she survived the Blight, what was she going to do then? Just go back to Highever and wear pretty dresses again? Marry some well-landed nobleman and settle into a life of domesticity? Once upon a time, that was all that she had wanted. Now…she didn't know if she would be satisfied with that.

For the first time since Ostagar, she allowed herself to truly mourn the loss she had experienced. Not just of her parents and her home, but of her own future. The grief had been there all along – It popped up once and again in bad moments – but she was always able to stuff it back away, to forget it while she dealt with the task at hand. But at this moment, she didn't have a task to attend to. The only thing she had to do was wait until morning. And for the first time since her parents' deaths, she wasn't surrounded by people, and the walls around her were thicker than tent canvas. No one would hear her crying. So, she allowed herself to feel the full enormity of her grief for the first time, and let it wash over her without restraint.

After a long while, she wiped away the tears that had been running down her cheeks, and she felt her sadness turn, as usual, into rage. Her anger was always directed at one person, when she allowed herself to feel it. Rendon Howe. He had taken everything from her: her family, her home, her future, her self. It was his fault. Her lopsided hair, her ugly tan line, every sore muscle, every archdemon nightmare, every person she had killed – the child she had slaughtered – was his fault. All of it. And, for the first time, she let herself think about how much she hated him, how much she wanted him to pay for what he had done, and how angry she was that Cailan had not fulfilled his promise of justice. She looked at herself in the mirror again and swore she would get revenge. She only wished she still had her father's sword so she could cut Howe's throat with it when she found him.

Two Hours Later

Well, that was a mistake, Elaine thought as she shut the door to her room. She pressed her fingers to her lips as if that would stop their tingling. Oh, Maker, no, that was stupid. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

After her little fit, she had lost her appetite. She had thought about just staying in her room, but the walls had felt like they were closing in on her, and she had wandered down to Arl Eamon's study. No one had been around, and she had rather innocently begun poking around, opening drawers and generally being nosy. In one of the drawers she had found a locket which had obviously been broken and repaired. She remembered Alistair's story about his mother's locket, so she had taken it. She'd show it to him and ask him if it was his. If it was, then great. If it wasn't, then she'd put it back, no harm done.

She'd run into him in the hallway outside his chamber. "I have something for you," she'd said.

He'd looked at her as if she'd grown two heads.

"What?" she'd asked. "Do I have something on my face?"

He'd looked mildly embarrassed and said, "No, no, you don't. I've just…never seen you dressed like that. You look…pretty."

For the first time in her life, Elaine hadn't been sure how to respond to a compliment. In her old life, she would have smiled and made some provocative remark. Now, though, she wasn't sure how to take it. Did he mean she didn't normally look pretty? Was it really that bad with the terrible haircut and the armor that he didn't even think of her as pretty?

Her thoughts must have shown on her face, because he'd immediately retracted. "No! I mean, you're pretty. You know you're pretty. It's just – the dress and your hair and everything."

"What do you mean I know I'm pretty?" She'd regretted it the minute she'd said it – this was not how she'd wanted the conversation to go – but she just couldn't stop it from coming out.

Alistair had taken on the expression of a trapped nug. "Nothing," he'd said, too quickly. "Nothing. I just mean, you know, you're very pretty. I mean, I think you're very pretty. And, you know, I'm sure that…that someone else has told you that before, so you must know that people…think you're pretty." He cleared his throat and rubbed the back of his neck. "Did you have something to give me?"

"Yes." She'd handed over the locket.

He'd taken it, and his reaction had been perfect. He'd gasped and asked her where she'd found it. He'd been extremely and sincerely grateful, and it had broken the awkwardness between them. He'd been flattered she'd remembered, and she'd teased him a bit. She liked teasing him; he took it well. He had a nice sense of humor, she thought.

Then he'd gone into his room to get her "presents."

"Presents?" she'd asked. "Plural?"

He'd laughed and told her not to get too excited. He'd come out of his room looking rather nervous and awkward. Which was how he normally looked, so she hadn't given it a second thought. But then he'd pulled out a rose – a rose, for Andraste's sake! – and had given her a little speech about how lovely she was amid all the chaos. It had been a nice speech. But it had also sent a little alarm bell ringing in Elaine's head.

She'd tried to be gracious about it. She'd made a little joke about them being married now, and he'd made a joke about kissing her which she was pretty sure wasn't really a joke. And she'd realized that he was taking her flirting more seriously than she'd meant him to. She had been going to say something to him – honestly, she had – and she had been going to let him down easy. She had been going to say, "Look, I like you and all, but there's a Blight on, and this really isn't the time." But then he'd brought out the second present and it had been her father's sword. He'd seen her sell it, he'd said. He knew how much it meant to her, he'd said, and so he'd used some of the money he'd earned in Denerim to buy it back from Bodahn. He'd hated thinking that she didn't have anything to remember her family by, and so he'd bought it back for her.

She'd just stood there, holding the sword, frozen in place. The silence had grown too much for him, so he'd started babbling.

"I know you don't even use a sword, so you probably don't need it. And it might be a burden for you to carry it around. I could carry it for you; it's not that heavy, and I've been carrying it around for a while anyway, waiting for the right time to give it to you. I'm happy to."

She'd still just stood there, overwhelmed with emotion. She'd looked up into Alistair's face, her eyes brimming with tears.

"Maker, you're crying. I'm sorry! I shouldn't have – I can sell it back if you don't want it…"

"No – " she'd managed to get that much out at least. She'd taken a deep breath, trying to control herself. "I don't – I – " She'd managed a shaky smile. "Thank you." And then she'd kissed him.

She'd meant for it to be just a short, little "thank you" kiss. A quick peck of gratitude. But when she'd pulled away, he'd followed her, and his mouth had been warm and soft, and her body had flushed with heat, and she'd kissed him back.

He'd pulled her against him and pressed her against the wall, and they'd kissed until they were both breathing like they' d just come out of a fight. When they were finally done, he'd told her how he cared for her and asked if she cared for him, and she'd said, "I don't know."

Now here she was back in her room, cursing herself for an idiot. She didn't want this. Did she? No. Yes? No. OK, well, maybe she wanted it. But it was a terrible idea, and she didn't need this kind of distraction. She didn't need Alistair following her around making declarations that had no future. She needed to stop the Blight, and she needed to find Fergus, and she needed to kill Rendon Howe.

She sat on the bed, pressed her forehead against the hilt of her father's sword and tried not to remember how Alistair's lips had felt on hers, how lovely it had felt to have his body pressed against hers. She told herself she was just affection-starved. She couldn't remember the last time someone had touched her who wasn't either trying to kill her or trying to heal a wound. She'd been weak, she thought. And emotional. She'd been crying and she was feeling vulnerable and she'd just wanted to feel like someone cared about her. It's not like Sten was going to flirt with her (not that she wanted him to), and Zevran – well, he just wanted to get under her skirt, that much was clear. Besides, he was a bit creepy, and she never had gone for the dangerous type. Or the elven type, for that matter.

That left Alistair. Her experience with him tonight had made her realize that while she wanted to feel like someone cared about her, she didn't want to care about him in return. She didn't want to worry or lose her focus, and above all, she didn't want to mourn the loss of any more people she loved. And she was pretty sure there were going to be plenty more dead people before the Blight was over. Best not to get too attached.

But what was she supposed to do? Not flirt with the funny, handsome, and available almost-heir to the throne just because he might actually care about her when she wasn't ready to care about him?

She could practically hear her mother's voice in her head. Yes, that is what she should have done – not flirt with him. Certainly not kiss him. Especially not like that. She groaned in frustration. "I am a terrible person," she thought. "If I were a decent human being, I would not lead him on. I would stop flirting with him, and I would never kiss him again. No matter how many lovely, thoughtful presents he gave me, and no matter how much I liked the kissing." And she did like the kissing, she admitted to herself.

Maybe she could just tell him she wanted to take it slowly. She didn't want to hurt him, after all, and she didn't want things to turn awkward. She didn't have the patience to deal with a strained pseudo-romantic relationship on top of everything else. And she wouldn't be lying to him, exactly. Perhaps when the Blight was over, they could see how things went. They would still be the only two Grey Wardens in Ferelden, after all. If they both survived, she was sure they would see each other. In the meantime, though, they should concentrate on the Blight, not on kissing. Although, perhaps they could do a little kissing…

No. Elaine stopped that thought before it could fully form. The kissing was over. As she put her father's sword away, her stomach let out a loud grumble, and she was reminded that she'd never eaten dinner. Food, she thought. And no more kissing Alistair. Resolute, she went downstairs to find something to eat.