Zevran at once went for the messenger and dragged it away to lock it up until I knew what to do with it... him... whatever. Meanwhile, the other Wardens prepared for their departure with Oghren bellowing orders at them and burping in between—and when Zevran finally returned they were long gone.
"Brasca, it seems I am always late," he sighed. "Now I miss all the fun of seeing my little friend Oghren in action as Warden Commander."
"Aww, don't be sad, Zevran," I teased, though I wasn't too thrilled to be loaded with the assassin. I mean, he had tried to murder me! "Instead you can watch me in action as king."
"You're right, my royal friend, that could prove as interesting—if not even more," the elf chuckled.
"Just don't you try to murder me again!" I growled. I trusted Zevran as far as I could throw him, but he was a Grey Warden now, I had made sure of that. There was a bond between us now that no one, not even darkspawn, could tear asunder. Or so I hoped.
"What? With all the darkspawn around to do the job? That would be such a waste of my precious skills and time," Zevran laughed but the laughter stuck in his throat when he found himself face to face with Mrs. Couldry, slapping her ladle into her palm repeatedly. Then she squinted her eyes, pointed two fingers sharply at Zevran, then at her eyes.
"Haven't you yet learnt your lesson, son?" she demanded to know, and for once, Zevran didn't know what to say. No saucy joke, no foppish remark. He just hung his head and shifted his feet uncomfortably, unable to look Mrs. Couldry in the eyes. Sometimes sorry just seems to be the hardest work. Not that a simple "sorry" could have made up for Zevran's crimes but, well, it would have been a start. At least Mrs. Couldry would keep an eye on him—her ladle at the ready.
My strength was fading with every breath I took. I felt like breaking down any moment and still I kept fighting, driven on by magic. Despite the spells, I became slower and wearier, my blows less precise, my perception dulled. I began to drag my feet and slump my shoulders, unable to straighten up and be the king everybody expected me to be. As the day wore on, we fought our way through the storm-beaten and war-ridden city, clearing the streets and alleys, houses and warehouses and even the damn ratruns from darkspawn and ghouls like super vermin exterminators.
We lost several soldiers, Rori was in lethal danger more often than I could possibly endure. My nerves were on edge, I was dizzy and nauseous.
The worst, though, was killing the infected people. It's the only possible way to stop the pestilence from spreading and it also is an act of mercy, saving them from a terrible death in agony. Still, I never will get used to killing the innocent. Their faces will haunt me for as long as I live.
And just when I thought the day could not have gotten worse, we entered the marketplace and found ourselves kettled up by Bann Esmerelle's rather short son Doyle, her daughter Glenda—towering over her brother despite him wearing high-heels to compensate his lack of height— andtheir remaining loyal soldiers on one side, and a darkspawn mob led by the biggest Hurlock I had ever seen on the other. Within a heartbeat, we were heavily outnumbered.
Awesome!
"There he is! The Orlesian usurper! He murdered my mother!" Doyle shrieked in his high-pitched voice, his face contorted to a mask of pure hatred as he pointed at me. Splendid! He hadn't left the safety of the castle to help the citizens of his city against the darkspawn, but he came out of his lair to seek revenge when I was almost done with doing his dirty work.
"Warden! It ends here and now! Prepare to die," roared the Hurlock Alpha at the same time.
"Maker! How I hate these queue-jumpers! Can't they politely wait in line for once until it's their turn?" I complained while Angus MacEanraig shouted orders at his soldiers to form a circle. Rori was shoved into the middle and told to keep her head low.
"Lord Doyle!" While the Hurlock grouched for my undivided attention, I called out to the enraged noble, causing Shale to heave a heavy sigh and mumble something about flesh creatures wasting their breath. "You're right," I reconsidered my will to parley. Fuck wise and just!
"Of course I am right," Shale snorted, lifting a whole market stall off the ground.
"WARDEN!" the Hurlock thundered.
"Hold up, for fuck's sake!" I shouted back while the golem balanced the market stall over its head, searching for the right aim. "A little bit more to the left," I advised. "Not that much, yes, perfect. Fire!"
THUD! SPLASH! and all that was still visible of Doyle were his feet sticking out from under the market stall. He wore red high-heeled shoes and black and white striped socks.
"Maker's Breath! They say there's no accounting for taste, but look at those shoes!" Leliana shuddered and added with ardor and conviction: "He deserved to die! Red was last season's color! It's so out of fashion now!"
Before Leliana could start a debate on principles of fashion, Glenda of Amaranthine, Doyle's sister, lifted herself of the ground—she had only escaped the market stall by inches—and, at the sight of her now squished brother, shouted: "Murderer! Kill him! Kill him!" And that set her soldiers in motion while at the other side, the Hurlock sounded the charge, tired of waiting for my acceptance of his personal man-to-Hurlock-challenge. What about 'Hold up!' was so damn hard to understand?
Things immediately got nasty. Our line of defense broke up within seconds and I was separated from my guards and companions and—worst of all—from Rori. My body was close to collapsing. Even magic had its limits. But with Rori in danger, I still fought like a maniac, searching for her in the chaos of the raging battle.
"RORI!" I shouted over the noise of the battle, crushing in heads and cutting down my enemies. I trampled over their fallen bodies, stepped on heads and limbs in my frantic search for my wife. To find Shale was pretty easy. It was taller than anybody else on the battlefield. Well, minus that ogre over there. That indeed was taller than even the golem. "RORI!" Leliana, Wynne, Fiona, and Mrs. Couldry had sought cover inside a market stall. Leliana precisely fired her arrows, Wynne and Fiona fired their spells and Mrs. C. beat everybody over the head who made the mistake of getting within reach of her ladle. "ROOOOOOOOOOORIIIIIIIIIII!"
All that shouting of course drew attention. The kind of attention I didn't want.
"WARDEN!" the Hurlock Alpha bellowed, blocking my way.
"Later!" I snapped, because right then I spotted Rori, kicking and squirming as she was dragged away by Glenda and three of her guards. They rushed down an alley with a dozen darkspawn chasing them. I pushed past the Hurlock to hurry after Rori. The Hurlock snarled angrily, throwing his jagged blade at me. I was saved by my inability to walk straight. Swaying like a drunken sailor as the magic fled my weakened body, I avoided the attack with the certainty of a sleepwalker. The blade swished over my head when I stumbled over my own feet and slammed into the mud. Scrambling back to my feet I accidentally crashed my skull against the Hurlock's chin, sneaking up on me from behind. The pain exploding in my skull couldn't stop me from staggering after Rori. I bumped into walls and carts and boxes, swaying from side to side. The last few meters I even crawled on hands and knees to catch up with Rori.
The Alpha Hurlock had rushed past me while I had laid in the gutter, half-hidden under a cart. Glenda, finding herself cornered by darkspawn, still didn't let go of Rori. Holding a knife to her throat, she shouted orders at her guards while dragging her captive down a dark alley. "Don't get any closer or I will kill your precious wife!" Glenda shrieked when I tried to sneak past the darkspawn. My chances were slim anyway with being a Grey Warden, but now, all attention was on Alistair.
"Kill him!" Glenda shrieked, waving her knife my direction. "Kill heeeeee-owww-gurgle-urgh..." Rori struck the knife from Glenda's hand with one swift blow, twisted out of her hold on her hair, twirled round and punched the bitch straight in the face. Glenda staggered backwards, clutching her bleeding nose. She was sent down with another swift kick.
"Run!" I shouted at Rori and run she did—just not away like I had intended, but instead to my aid. Doom! DOOOOOM! "Wrong way!" I spluttered although honestly, I could have done with some help as the Hurlock currently had me in a headlock when Rori crashed against him. She was unarmed but for Glenda's knife, but the impact of the blade still made the Hurlock let go of me. I dropped to the ground like dead weight. Maker, I consisted of nothing but pain from head to toe and inside out. The exhaustion made me dizzy. Everything went black whenever I tried to get back to my feet.
The Hurlock had turned to Rori, towering over her. She didn't retreat a single step and when he roared at her, showering her with spittle, she just roared right back at him. It sounded like a kitten meowing at a lion. Then the Hurlock came after her. She was lithesome and quick, dodging the darkspawn's brutal attacks. One blow could have easily cut her in half, her own swift cuts hardly piercing the Hurlock's armor. As I couldn't get up, I crawled, hugging the darkspawn's knees from behind as he lunged forward at Rori. With a loud thud, the Hurlock slammed into the ground. Rori jumped at him, her blade risen for the fatal strike when she caught sight of a movement in her back and swirled around to meet Glenda's blade, metal scratching against metal.
"BITCH!" Glenda shrieked, hacking at Rori, blinded by fury. The darkspawn blade in her hands was too heavy for her and ill-balanced, yet her anger lent her strength. Rori danced around her, avoiding the whirling blade while she tried to find an opening. Meanwhile I clung to the Hurlock's feet as if my life depended on it. He snarled and kicked, half-turning to stab at me. I had to let go, rolling to the side to get out of reach. I was still pulling myself back to my feet by a pile of abandoned furniture when Rori sidestepped Glenda's furious charge and made her stumble right onto the Hurlock's blade. Grunting, he shook the woman off his weapon, kicking her body aside as he went after Rori. The remaining four darkspawn had cut down Glenda's soldiers and were now kettling up Rori. She leapt out of their midst with a summersault, a desperate escape that had her lose her only weapon. The Hurlock jumped after her, lashing out and scraping her leg. She lost balance and stumbled, the Hurlock went after her without hesitation.
Fighting the nausea and the dizziness, I shoved myself off the table I was holding on to, and dragging my sword behind me—lifting it was totally beyond me—shouted at insults at the Hurlock as I staggered towards him.
"Hey! You want a Warden? Here I am, you bronto-assfaced bastard!"
It worked. Of course it did. Wardens and darkspawn. Worst enemies ever, remember? And just when the Hurlock snorted like an angry bull and turned his ugly red eyes on me, I caught sight of a slender figure in the shadows, leaning against a wall casually as he was cleaning his fingernails with his dagger.
"Zevran!" I shouted. "Save Rori!"
Only Zevran didn't move. He just stood there and watched as the huge Hurlock slammed into me, the body impact sending me to the ground. Mud seeped into my armor and strangely my only thought when I saw the Hurlock towering above me, rising his sword over his head to run me through with one mighty strike was: "Boy, Arlington is going to be pissed when he has to clean your armor from the inside."
The Hurlock's blade came down, boring into the ground an inch next to my right ear. He had missed! How could he possibly have missed when I was there right in front of him?
The answer was sitting on the Hurlock's shoulders, a red-haired frenzied little imp, digging her fingers into the screaming Hurlock's eyes while holding on to him with her legs locked around his neck. Roaring furiously, he tore at Rori's hands, bucked and bolted as he tried to throw her off. Rori stayed where she was, clinging on to him as if her life depended on it. Not that far-fetched. I didn't want to be in her place when he finally got rid of and then hold of her. In the end, he let himself drop on his back, forcing Rori to summersault off. She landed hard on her hurt leg, the certain flash of pain almost knocking her out.
Zevran, in the meanwhile, had been forced to enter the battle as the alpha's minions identified him as a Grey Warden and attacked him. He cut them down, then returned to leaning against the wall while enjoying the show of Rori and me being picked apart. Blood filling his eyes blinded the Hurlock, his hands grabbing thin air when he searched for Rori, crawling away on her hands and knees. Not able to find her, he turned back to me. Thanks to me being a Grey Warden, he could have spotted me in the pitch black darkness of the Deep Roads without a map and a torch, so it was no surprise when his hands closed around my ankles.
"Zevran! Zeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeev-raaaaaaaaaaaaaaan!" I shouted at him again when the Hurlock picked me up and swung me like a dead cat. I flew past the blasted assassin when the darkspawn let go and for the briefest moment before I slammed into the wall beside him, our eyes met.
I would have expected glee, thirst for revenge, fury, hatred... but what I saw was uncertainty. A maelstrom of different emotions was displayed on Zevran's face. His usual mask of nonchalance and merriness wiped off, his expression gave away how torn he was between for once doing the right thing and getting the revenge he longed for.
"Zev," I gasped, my breath rattling in my lungs. Tears of pain were filling my eyes. I could feel my body collapse. There was no strength left I could have mustered. This was the end. Zevran was my very last hope. But the assassin had stepped out of the way to make room for the Hurlock. "Suri... think of Suri..."
Pausing, Zevran looked back at me, a miserable figure on the ground. He opened his mouth to give me a piece of his mind but closed it again, shaking his head. His fingers flexed over the hilt of his sword as he watched the Hurlock approach slowly. "Suri," he muttered, closing his eyes as a shadow of grief cast over his features. When he opened his eyes again he glared at me unnerved, as if I was a nuisance he would have gladly gotten rid of but found himself loaded with nonetheless.
"Think... of... Suri..." I repeated weakly, my voice croaked and hardly audible. Suri was the love Zevran and I shared. She would have never let me die like this and she would have never forgiven Zevran if he did. I knew, Zevran knew. I just hoped he gave a damn. "Suri..."
"Brasca!" Zevran cursed, turning his back on me and the Hurlock abruptly. He took one step to walk away, then whirled round to take two in my direction.
"Suri... Suri... Suri..." I kept whispering as the shadow of the Hurlock fell upon me. I could hear Rori scream, felt the whiff of the blade brought down on me on my heated skin. My mind was empty. I was too exhausted, too drained to even feel regret or worry. I closed my eyes and sunk back to the ground, awaiting death to come.
Instead there was the sound of metal scraping against metal—and against the tip of my admittedly rather prominent nose—the Hurlock's furious roar, answered by the assassin's mocking laughter.
Huh? Daringly I opened one eye, then the second.
"For Suri, Alistair, only for her!" Zevran shouted when he attacked the Hurlock with whirling blades, every motion graceful like a dance. The Hurlock was heavier, slower and wounded. Zevran jumped forward, slicing his daggers across his opponents wrist or stabbing quickly at a weak spot in his armor. It was like watching a cat toy with a mouse. A gigantic, ugly, mutant mouse. With every blow, Zevran called out: "For Suri!" channeling all his fury and grief into the fight. The Hurlock roared, madly hacking at Zevran without hitting home. The elf was always one step ahead.
"Alistair!" Rori, having snuck past the fighters, knelt beside me, grimacing at the pain in her leg. Maker's Breath! Words cannot describe how glad and relieved I was to see her. She was covered in mud and gore; blood trickled down the side of her face from a gash in her forehead. "Oh, you look terrible! More dead than alive. Don't move!"
"You have such a charming way of complimenting me, Puck," I coughed. "I won't move. I promise. But you, you have to get away from here..."
"Forget it, Alistair!" Rori cut me short as she cradled my head in her lap, gently running her fingers through my hair. "I won't leave you alone!" I just didn't have the strength or breath left to argue with her. I tried glaring her down, but failed miserably. The way she looked at me, the sadness in her tear-filled eyes, the trembling of her voice—boy, I must have been in a worse condition than I had thought. Rori confirmed my worries at once. "Don't you dare die, Alistair," she whispered, wiping her snotty nose with her sleeve.
Zevran danced around the Hurlock like a dervish, slicing at the back of his knees to send him to the ground. He knelt there, clotted blood blinding him, his large body trembling as he turned his head from side to side, trying to sense the assassin. His fist curled around the hilt of his sword, his knuckles turning white, and he became very still, not making a single sound but for his ragged breathing. Zevran approached him, his face marked by his grief and the agony of his overwhelming sadness. I had seen these signs before when looking into the mirror. Suri would never return and the emptiness she left behind would always haunt those who loved her.
The elf crossed his swords in front of him as he stood in front of the unmoving Hurlock, still clutching his weapon tightly. Zevran didn't look at him, but instead at me when he in one swift motion sliced his blades across the Hurlock's throat the same moment the darkspawn drove his sword upwards, running it through the elf's abdomen. The elf never saw it coming. It all happened so fast; Rori's and my cries of alarm came too late. Zevran groaned, staring down at his belly and the hilt sticking out of it in mere disbelief. He turned in circles twice, swaying heavily. His hands clutched the hilt of the sword, pulling at it weakly. Then suddenly all signs of pain and fear were wiped off his face. A broad warm and loving smile formed around his lips as his eyes caught sight of something only he could see in the distance. "Suri," he breathed, reaching out for someone to embrace. Then he collapsed. He was dead before he hit the ground. His eyes wide open, a smile adorned his face and happiness lay in his dead eyes that I had never seen there while he lived.
I don't really know what happened next. I lost consciousness and darkness swallowed me like the grey waves of a storm-beaten sea. I could have sworn Suri was there. Zevran, too. I could hear their laughter in the distance...
Now, what is left to say? Rori and I were saved. We were found by her uncle and the lady SWAT team moments after I had passed out and Wynne cursed like a sailor while she and Fiona revived me. Angus MacEanraig was so impressed that he asked Wynne to marry him. And over my cold almost dead body Wynne accepted. When I awoke, Wynne's anger hadn't settled a bit and I got seriously scolded for nearly getting killed—again—as if this had been all my fault. She got even madder at me when, one week after the battle of Amaranthine, I asked both her and Fiona for another magical boost as someone had to go and slay the Mother in her lair and the surviving Wardens hardly seemed capable of taking on the confrontation. Neither Wynne nor Fiona and most of all not Rori wanted to hear any of it, though. In the end, Fiona and Leliana joined the Wardens who had survived the siege of Vigil's Keep to help them with the Mother—a formerly human broodmother with many, many nipples, a detail I came to know thanks to Warden Commander Oghren later reporting on her defeat.
Thanks to my new laws according the freedom of mages Wynne became Lady MacEanraig and thus somewhat a member of my family. I had always thought of Wynne as some kind of granny stand-in. Now I could officially call her Gran Wynne when she pinched my cheek and ruffled my hair. It was a boozy wedding on board of Angus's ship and the bride drunk her utterly proud groom under the table. Shale, Leliana and Rori were her bridesmaids both wearing identical dresses - although in Shale's case it was more a tent than a dress. Shale constantly kept asking if it was looking fat in its dress - until a seagull ruined it. From that point on Shale was to busy murdering birds as to waste any thoughts on its weight anymore.
We burried Zevran right next to Suri at the lake in the palace gardens. I owed him that much. He and Suri finally were together for good. It was a bittersweet ending for both of them.
After Franderel's and Bann Esmerelle's families had been stripped of all titles and lands, the other nobles became a bit less rebellious. They all wanted a piece of the pie, and thus tried very hard to butter me up so that I would favor them when choosing new banns. Their enthusiasm and loyalty lasted as long as it took me to hand Franderel's Denerim city estate over to Jane Wulff to found Ferelden's first university. Amaranthine became a free city ruled by a senate elected by the citizens and Bann Franderel's lands were given to my supporters, including the Chantry.
Six months after the battle of Amaranthine, Rori gave birth to a healthy little boy, Duncan, and a healthy little girl, Eleanor. Suddenly I had the family I had always dreamt of and never dared to hope I would ever have for real. The Maker really moves in mysterious ways.
Mrs. Couldry became the head of my royal secret service, collecting a whole lot of rather useful information that, during the years to follow, allowed me to avoid getting murdered five times and helped defend Denerim against a Venatori attack years later when a hole in the sky was making the Blight sound like a vacation.
Being king never became boring for sure. Most of the time I still loathed it, but Rori and the twins made it a whole lot easier to endure. Suri still held a place in my heart, but her death didn't suffocate me anymore.
So, if you ask me what became of the broken hearted? They found love anew, that's what they did.
Notes:
Thank you very much to all the readers, subscribers, kudo-givers, commentors who followed Alistair and Rori on their journey through this alternate universe. Your support means a lot to me.
This story now is over and I will continue writing part 2 of the Roristair series 'Hoping One Day We'll Make a Dream Last'.