Prompt: Dragon Age, Alistair/Cousland pre-romance
Originally Written: 7/16/14
Notes: This is Susie Cousland again, as found in "redheaded stepchild."
I confess that my Cousland who romances Alistair is a bit of a screwball, so I hope you forgive me for using her here.
The new recruits fought well, Alistair noted, which was good, since at least two of them had more combat experience in their right hands than he had in his entire life, but now wasn't the time to dwell on the fact that until six months ago all his experience had been theoretical. They'd only encountered wolves so far, but darkspawn lurked at the edges of his perception in the general direction they needed to go. Which was also good, as there was no Joining without darkspawn blood, but he'd seen men —okay, he'd fallen apart at the sight of his first darkspawn, and with the whispers of the Blight came darkspawn much stronger than the ones he'd first faced and if the two good recruits fell apart no amount of being able to sense the darkspawn would save their skin—
As for the third recruit, well, Alistair wasn't sure what she'd do. Since she'd first shown up in nothing but boots and a borrowed breastplate ("Hadn't time to change!" she'd said cheerfully, as Alistair had tried not to stare and babbled on about Maker knew what until Duncan showed up to frogmarch her to the quartermaster) she'd been…enthusiastic, to say the least. She'd been particularly eager to venture into the Wilds, but then she'd been almost equally excited over Duncan's bonfire. So far there had been no limit to her energy and nothing to mar the smile on her face—he'd almost call it manic, if it hadn't also been…sweet. Anyway, the other two men didn't seem to know what to do with her either, and so Alistair joined them in gingerly avoiding her direct gaze and thus attention.
This wasn't particularly hard, as her eyes were constantly roving and she was constantly almost tripping over roots and tufts of grass and rocks in her haste to see—well, everything, it seemed like. Alistair was just beginning to contemplate how a person might constantly correct their balance as part of their personal gait when suddenly she stopped, gaze stuck, smile replaced by a soft "oh" that did funny things to his insides—
Stop that, he told his insides (he didn't even know if she was going to survive the night and besides there was a Blight on, you'd think his insides would have a clue) as his ears noticed what his eyes hadn't picked up on, a low painful moan coming from a man on the ground, clutching his stomach.
"Oh," the third recruit—he was going to have to ask her name again, blast her for showing up nearly naked—said again, "he's hurt."
"Please," the wounded soldier groaned. Alistair, seeing a helpless concern in Daveth's eyes and fearful wariness in Ser Jory's, crouched down and did what he could with the bandages he had. It wasn't much, and anyway the man was probably tainted and would die before the evening ran out, and just as he was considering how to tactfully prepare the soldier for his fate the female recruit shoved him aside, her hands shaking as she uncorked a flask filled with red liquid and held it to the soldier's lips.
"Where'd you get that?" Alistair demanded—Duncan hadn't let him requisition any potions from the quartermaster—but she wasn't listening to him.
She was apologetically wiping spilled potion from the soldier's face as he took the flask and drank for himself. Her smile had returned. Her gaze was fixed. "Your commander," she said, the wonder in her voice replaced with an urgency he hadn't realized she possessed. "Your commander, who was he?"
"Miss," the soldier said helplessly, color returning to his cheeks—maybe tainted, but maybe not, "thank you, miss, but miss—"
"Your commander," she said again. "Your commander wasn't Fergus Cousland, was he?"
Cousland, that had been it, something Cousland, and technically Grey Wardens gave up their surnames but she wasn't a Warden yet and it would do—
"No," the soldier said, his expression clearing of confusion if not of pain. "Cousland's men were to go to the east. No idea what happened to them."
She smiled again—beamed—a hard, determined, brilliant shining thing, unshed tears and an implacable joy, and it left him—breathless? Stop that, he said again, more sternly, stumbling to help her help the soldier to his feet. This left him standing uncomfortably close to her—favoritism wouldn't do, and especially not towards a pretty—blast, Duncan was going to—Duncan didn't have to know, but of course he would, and he was going to have his head for this.
And then she looked at him, and smiled, and said brightly, "Which way to the darkspawn?"
"Um," he said, pointing on instinct rather than sense, "that way?"
"Excellent," she said, and then, "Oh, look at this pretty flower!" and she was off, careening heedlessly into certain danger for the sake of the local foliage.
Alistair looked hopefully at the other two recruits, but they were looking back at him as if he were in charge—of course they were, because he was, and so he took a deep breath, pretending this was all part of the plan. "Right, then," he said, vaguely aware that somewhere just beyond sight his third charge was halfway up a tree in the name of scouting ahead, "shall we?"
"If we must," Ser Jory said, shifting as though his greatsword had just become a little heavier.
"'Course we must," Daveth said. "Someone's got to keep up with the little bit."
Doomed, Alistair thought gloomily, as the third recruit shouted something about hangmen, and then he thought, well, they're all doomed, one way or another, but his rebellious insides didn't like that, so he added, and so am I, which wasn't exactly comforting but was—something.
And her smile. That was something else.