See, I published by the following week. For all those who were wondering (and those who probably don't care) there will be a sex scene soon. Very soon. Possibly in chapter sixteen. Please remember, due to FF net rules, I can't have "graphic" sex scenes. Sigh. How boring. But on AO3 I can! I will still post here, of course I will.
The Beatles - Hey Jude
Panic! At the Disco - Say Amen
George Ezra - Did You Hear The Rain?
Fitz and the Tantrums - The Walker
Kongos - Come With Me Now
Fall Out Boy - Centuries
FatBoySlim - Demons
Jetta - I'd Love to Change the World
Imagine Dragons - Believer
twenty one pilots - Heathens
Chapter 15:
There was one night, he remembered vividly despite the years between then and now, where Alistair and Elyria curled together on the same sleeping mat. Fenris could not name where they were specifically, only that it was him, Hawke, Alistiar and Elyria. Fenris stood watch, unable to look at the two of them curled up like that. He'd heard the briefest of pained, frightened shouts go up from behind him.
He turned around to find Alistair wrapped in Elyria's arms, his head against her chest, his arms around her, shaking with some nameless fear. "Where were you?" She asked him gently, motioning to the sleep addled Hawke to go back to bed.
Alistair gripped her tightly, wordlessly.
"It's okay. It's okay. I'm here." she stroked his hair and back, almost rocking him. "Do you want to talk about it or do you want to go back to sleep?"
"Sleep." He told her tiredly, "could you sing? Just a little Ellie?"
"Sure," she told him with a patient, tired smile. "What do you want to hear?"
"That one about Jude by," he frowned, deep creases forming on his brow, "the bugs?"
Elyria chuckled, tapping his nose. "By the Beatles?"
He settled down next to her. "That's what they're called? What a," he yawned, "silly name."
She too curled up, and began to sing softly. "Hey Jude, don't make it bad. Take a sad song, and make it better. Remember to let her into your heart, then you can start to make it better."
In the present, Fenris hummed the song to himself. He felt the thready pulse of anticipatory energy flooding through his muscles. They knowingly walked into a trap, one that would spring any moment. In times like this is when Alistair would tell him, to take a deep breath and count backwards from fifty. Or spell some ridiculously long word that he was only vaguely acquainted with so his temper had time to cool. At his sides his fingers curled loosely.
Cassandra and Barris spoke about the Lord Seeker.
Barris sighed deeply. "The Lord Seeker's actions make no sense. He promised to restore the Order's honor, then marched us here to wait? Templars should know their duty, even when held from it." He cast his gaze over all of them.
"A templar who remembers his responsibilities? I am reassured." Lady Vivienne sounded anything but to Fenris.
In fact, he would have classified that as sarcasm.
"The Herald told me…" Barris paused, took a step closer to Cassandra and thereby the rest of them. "Did she tell you as well?"
Cassandra's head bobbed. "She did. Have there been signs?"
Barris nodded slowly. "A few, but we are prohibited from investigations. My hands," he looked down at the gauntlets he wore, "are tied until we know one way or the other." He took a step or two back, "Help us and every able-bodied knight will help the Inquisition seal the Breach."
"If you think we're right," the Iron Bull said, in (what Fenris assumed) a plea for them to see sense, "abandon the Lord Seeker. Join the Inquisition."
"We cannot abandon our orders." Barris stated. "Not while the officers who survived the Conclave continue to follow him."
Bull scoffed.
"We've been asked to accept much, after that shameful display in Val Royeaux. Our truth changes on the hour. Follow me." The gates opened and they followed collectively.
"The Lord Seeker has a...request before you meet him."
While Barris explained the Standards to Cassandra, Fenris, in a low tone, spoke to Bull in Qunlat. "Is this a stall tactic?"
Bull looked down at him, replying in Qunlat, "your accent is awful."
So he'd been told previously. "Regardless."
"No," Bull told him, surreptitiously taking in the area around them. The men scattered, the almost ominous feeling. "They're trying to do their jobs. Loyal to the last." He glanced around to see if anyone indicated that they understood the conversation. Satisfied that there seemed to be no overt signs that someone else spoke Qunlat there. "Loyal until they're dead if they're not careful."
Cassandra and Lady Vivienne spoke about the importance of the Chantry over the importance of the Templar Order, faith versus loyalty. Fenris grunted, crossing his arms over his chest. Iron Bull rolled his eyes and the two waited while the other two figured it out. When they finally agreed on something - Fenris couldn't help but note if Elyria had been there she might have simply broken the wheels and smiled while she did it- and the flags were in place Barris told them they had to explain their choices to the people gathered.
As if these people hadn't just heard the two of them argue for a ten minutes about which to choose and why.
He never was one for sitting on the sidelines. "No." Fenris, swiping rain dampened locks of white hair from his eyes. "Enough. The flags are in place, the rite is done. Lead on." It's kind of a turn on when you're aggressive. Elyria's voice echoed in his ears as they followed Barris.
The negotiations table, as it was so commonly known, turned out to be a physical table in a poorly lit room. Fenris almost smiled at the idea. Elyria would have made a comment. Alistair would have said something in return. Varric no doubt would have made another comment, equally sarcastic. He in turn would have pointed out how ominous the room seemed, the number of templars and the heavy atmosphere. He breathed in, the smell of anxiety and tension permeating the air.
"This," Fenris said in Qunlat to the Iron Bull, "is going to happen sooner rather than later."
Bull rolled his shoulders, cracking the bones in his neck, then his knuckles in succession. "Oh good. I thought we'd have to go through with all the posturing."
"It is impolite," the Lady Vivienne remarked, "to speak in another language with others around."
"And irritating." Cassandra muttered.
"Just talking about the," Bull cast around at the men and women of the Templar Order in the room just before they came to a full stop at the table before them. "Tension being thicker than the fog up north."
Fenris had to give it to the Qunari, he was undeniably blunt for a spy.
More talking followed and just when Fenris was beginning to believe perhaps he was just imagining things, there was yelling from the courtyard. Shouting from a hallway nearby. Cries of alarm going up through the keep. The Knight Captain who had been somewhat odd, drew his sword.
Ah. There was the other shoe dropping.
"Are you certain it is a demon?" Cassandra asked the Herald, Elyria, before any of the parties left Haven. They stood outside the gates of Haven, having just walked to the training dummies.
"Envy demon." The Herald answered solemnly. "I am absolutely certain. It is going to be bad. That's why I'm sending Bull. He's a battering ram on two legs. Vivienne is both terrifying and talented with magic, she'll be his backup. Fenris," the blonde woman paused on his name, her mouth curving with a frown before, "Fenris can slip through the fade because of his tattoos. And Alistair, he trained to be a templar. You know how powerful a smite can be when a properly trained person does it."
"I do. Tell me what else."
Elyria grimly cast her gaze out toward the lake. "The red lyrium, the mages, the templars, they'll be poisoned with it. It will turn them into monstrosities."
With that conversation in mind, Cassandra had been expecting horrors. What Cassandra did not expect was the lyrium growing out of the templars. She slammed her shield into one as Bull's axe came sideways, lodging into the side, and armor of a possessed, defiled templar. Ugh. If not for the rush of battle, she might have been ill.
"Venhedis!" Fenris snarled, ripping his hand out of a man's throat and letting the body drop along with the bloody - her stomach churned - bits of flesh in his hand. "They keep coming!"
"And they will continue until we kill the demon." Lady Vivienne wiped sweat from her brow.
Grimly Cassandra tightened the strap on her shield. "Onward. The more templars we save, the closer we are to victory."
Onward they went.
It was only after they reached the second, or was it third, courtyard the group, including Barris, began to feel a sense of true uneasiness. Previously it was akin to the desire to move and keep moving, and gather templars to them. They had a small contingent now, five templars in addition to their small party.
"Inquisition," a voice unearthly as it was deep and booming, "It is time we became better acquainted."
Around them rain poured from the sky, the ground soaking wet with mud and blood. They climbed the stairs, the rescued templars watching their backs. At the top stood another templar, one that made Fenris uneasy. There was something off, not simply that he stood staring at a closed door.
It might have been because he reached the top of the stairs first. He was quick, long legs tended to give one an advantage. Bull was only a single step behind and to the side. Fenris' eyes never left the templar but somehow, despite his attention, the man turned and grabbed him, dragging him forward with an unearthly strength.
For him, the world went white, silent and blinding. Shielding his eyes did nothing to stop it. At some point the templar let him go, but in a sea of blinding white nothingness, there was no templar to be found. Eventually, blessedly, there was sound again. Color again when he blinked. It took a few tries to clear his vision and focus.
The burning smell came only after he realized the crackling sounds were a nearby fire. It was a mistake to open his eyes. The dead, burned, charred carcases of people caught in a moment of agony and horror lined the walkway. Poor bastards.
The ground seethed with mounds of blackish green energy while the fog around him thinned and thickened without so much as a breeze. He took a handful of tentative steps in bare feet. No that wasn't right, he'd been wearing boots to protect his feet from the snow when they left Haven. He left them on because of the rain when they reached the strong hold. Forest green eyes narrowed as he cast around, taking in everything. The unnatural green glow truly gave him a weighty sense of otherworldliness.
Twenty crowns this was the fade. The demon managed to pull him through because of his markings. Fenris let out a colorful stream of words in arcanum and glared at the fade surrounding him. The only way out, he was unhappy to admit it, was no doubt though.
Yet again, his markings, these blasted tattoos drawing him into danger.
And a certain blonde.
With a grunt of both annoyance and frustration, Fenris walked a few more feet before figures formed in the mist. A few more steps and they became clear. Cullen, a man he'd known for years and the Antivan diplomat, Josephine. Why her? Both were stock still, their faces flat, emotionless. A gasp sounded from the trees behind them.
He wasn't quite sure what form to expect the demon to take. The last one he thought would be Elyria herself. He jerked unable to keep himself from reacting as the demon adjusted her clothes and touched her body with its hands. "Is this shape useful?" It asked in a voice that was both hers and not hers, "will it let me know you?" The demons smiled at him with Elyria's mouth. The lips he'd kissed a hundred times. "Everything tells me about you."
Was this what Elyria liked to call the villain monologuing? He finally understood it. And how damn annoying it could be.
"Are you done?" He snapped at the evil walking in Elyria's form.
She'd been approaching Cullen with a dagger, but stopped and gazed at him with the same mint-green eyes belonging to his love. Both Jospehine and Cullen's forms crumpled to the ground as if dead. "Are you done?" It mimicked in his voice from her lips.
He fought a shudder of revulsion.
It walked up to him, around him, toying with a dagger. "I wanted the Herald, boy. Not you." It almost sounded disappointed at the prospect of taking his skin. "Being you," it chuckled darkly, "will get me close to the Herald. Close enough to have her."
Fenris snarled at it. "Not while I live." He swung at it, his right arm lit up the fog and dim area, just as it disappeared. Not foolish enough to believe the demon had fled, he turned a few times, waiting for it.
"Do you know what the Inquisition could become?" It appeared behind him, forcing him to step forward and away. Just as he turned to grab it with his arm luminencient in the fade, it disappeared again. "You'll see." The voice, less Elyria's now said. "When I'm done, the Elder One will kill all of you and ascend." It laughed again, an unearthly laugh that sent cold and fear down his spine. "Then I will be her."
Ascension? It reminded him of...no. They destroyed that thing. Him, Hawke, Isabella and Bethany. They destroyed the creature. Hawke killed it himself. And yet...Fenris' stomach sank with a feeling of dread. Maker let it not be so.
He must have been silent too long.
The demon appeared once again, "Glory is coming. And the Elder One wants you to serve him like everyone else: By dying in the right way." It laughed as if it made a joke.
"I'll die when it is my time, demon. Not before, and not when you or your master say." This time when Fenris lashed out with his arm faded blue and spectral, he grabbed a bit of its clothing and tore it.
The demon snarled at him, perhaps in fear, perhaps in anger, perhaps in both. "I am Envy! I will know you!"
Fenris, wordlessly, lashed out again, both arms this time. He reached and tried to grab but the demon escaped him. He must have scared it sufficiently because it retreated, remaining in the shadows as it demanded he tell it what he felt, what he saw.
Fenris remained silent, clearing his mind lest the demon attempt to read it. To his left a doorway appeared. The area he was in began to darken, the edges of it graying until the fog pressed in close. He had no choice it seemed, he went to the door, pausing before he went through it. Who knew what the demon might show him.
He took one step past the doorway and found himself in a room much like that of the alchemist's in Haven. There stood an image of him, next to an image of Elyria. Had he seemed so cold?
"On a scale of one to ten, ten being the most pissed off you've ever been in your life, and one being kind of angry but some groveling might work it off, how angry with me are you?" The memory of Elyria asked.
Fenris swallowed, walking past and through another doorway before he could hear his reply. He remembered it well enough. He did not need to live it again.
The next doorway led to a courtyard. Here he saw Elyria standing with her advisors, and a soldier. "Our enemies have surrendered unconditionally." Cullen told her proudly. "The Inquisition's strength rivals any kingdom in Thedas."
Fenris sincerely questioned the validity of the statement. The Qun might have taken argument as well.
"Our reach," the demon said with Elyria's voice, "begins to match my ambition - but we will strive for more."
He could have scoffed. Elyria? Ambitious? There were things his love was, hot headed, vengeful, rude, crass, loving, lustful, brilliant, beautiful, snarky, kind, hopeful - ambition never figured into her personality. She would much rather lie in bed and sleep than attempt to conquer the known world. Silently he walked past them, all of them turning (eerily) to watch him leave. Just as he was a step out of range they went up in fire and smoke.
Jump scares, Elyria called it once. Mental manipulation.
In the next room the fire burned green, spewing out of stone dragons with such force he felt the heat from twenty paces. Watching for a moment he took in the shift and turns of the pillars. The demon, wearing the face of the templar that dragged him into the fade, ran past, disappearing into fire and smoke.
While the demon once again taunted him with what the Elder One was going to do. Would do. Another voice came. Gentle, patient.
"You're hurting, helpless, hasty." The voice said. "What happens to the hammer when there are no more nails?"
Another doorway appeared, allowing Fenris to avoid the fire all together. He used the power of his tattoos to fade through the barrier.
The demon, sounding both surprised and irritated said, "What are you? Get out! This is my place!"
There was someone else in here? Were they a templar?
Fenris found the room odd, holding a grotesque outgrowth of rock resembling a face. He left, the trails of ghostly whispers following after him. He returned to the room with the fire dragons. Another room appeared, with growths of tree-like structures growing out of the ground and up into the ceiling. Furniture was on the walls, defying nature.
He began to turn to leave when the voice said, "Wait."
While reading Elyria's memoirs, Fenris came to some conclusions. The first, though he never would ever admit this to anyone, there were spirits of the fade that did not mean one harm. The second, that Elyria and Alistiar had known not one abomination but two. The spirit of faith joined their friend Wynne, a mage, and brought her back from the brink of death. Yet never became the monstrosity that Anders did. In her book Elyria theorized that Anders, having spent decades resentful of templars and the chantry, took Justice somewhere dark where the spirit could be corrupted. While Wynne never did.
By itself, Justice was neither good nor evil. It simply was.
By itself, Faith was neither good nor evil. It simply was.
He would also never admit that meant the blood mage - he could have spat - was right.
Had he not come to this realization, he might have reacted badly when the blonde boy appeared in the doorway. Habits are hard to kill, however, and Fenris did react badly. He cursed in arcanum, one hand went for his blade.
The boy made no move to stop Fenris.
A boy he was, perhaps somewhere between fourteen and seventeen, slight (thinner than Fenris was if that was to be believed), with a blemished face. The kind of blemishes Fenris vaguely remembered having when he was a boy that young and the oils on his skin were annoyingly uncooperative. A wide brim hat, laughably large, and clothing that seemed slightly off on a boy his age.
He blinked and the boy was gone.
"Envy is hurting you." The boy's voice came, "Mirrors on mirrors on memories. A face it can feel, not fake. I want to help. You, not Envy."
The part of him that held the deeply entrenched beliefs about fade demons shouted no! The rational part of his mind cautioned accepting help from an unknown spirit. Carefully, mindful of what he said, "What help can a fade spirit offer without possession?"
The boy sounded confused. "I'm Cole. We're inside you." Fenris felt the fear prickle along the back of his neck. "Or I am," the boy continued, "You are always inside you."
One of his greatest fears, realized, and yet - nothing happened. There was no loss of his sense of self. No horrifying monstrosity taking his form. Fenris, fighting his nature, attempted to remain as calm as possible. This, as Alistair would have put it, was the stuff nightmares were made of.
"It's easy to hear, harder to be a part of what you are hearing." The voice solidified behind him. "But I'm here, hearing, helping." Fenris turned around in time to see the boy, sitting cross legged on the ceiling, attempting to smile at him. "I hope." The smile faded. "Envy hurt you, is hurting you. I tried to help. Then I was here, in the hearing. It's - it's not usually like this."
Fenris scowled at him. "Make sense spirit."
"It never works like that." The boy told him softly with a small laugh.
Of course not. Just as he was about to speak again, there was a familiar growling sound from the doorway. Fenris turned his head, watching it warily. The boy, right now, presented less of a danger than the other things here in the fade - in his head - with them.
"I was watching. I watch." The boy told him, drawing Fenris' attention back to him. This time the boy was on the bed, sitting on the headboard, water leaking down the walls behind him. "Every templar knew when you arrived. They were impressed, but not like the Lord Seeker."
Fenris assumed the Lord Seeker was the templar that dragged him into the fade. "He's a demon. He wants me to get closer to-"
"Your love. Yes." The boy nodded. "She loves you, needs you, thinks of you now, calls your name in her head."
Fenris didn't know how to react to that. "You read minds."
"I can make you forget," the boy said, sounding almost sad about it, "if it bothers you. That helps."
"No!" Fenris ground the word between his teeth.
"No." The boy nodded "You need all of you right now to fight. Maybe later."
"Not later, not ever." Fenris nearly yelled at him. "My memories are mine. My thoughts are mine."
"Her thoughts aren't yours, they are of you."
It was difficult for Fenris to maintain anger at the boy when he spoke with such childish confusion. The boy almost reminded Fenris of Nettie's young niece, Bennet's wife's child, Alma. At four years old she made loud proclamations and statements that evidenced both her youth and naivete. Just like the boy made.
He needed to let it go and think for now. Think about what the boy, Cole, told him. If they were inside his head, then-
"You are frozen, Envy is trying to take your face, I heard it and reached out, and then I was here."
"Stop reading my mind." He snapped at the spirit. "How am I frozen?"
"Thoughts are fast. We're here. Outside, a blade is still falling, hanging in the air like sunset." What was the thing Elyria said once? What was it called? The theory of rela-something. When the speed of something is a perception. It had a name. "Relativity." Cole said it, plucking it from Fenris' mind. "No. Not exactly. No time is passing. You don't know the word for that and she is too busy for me to ask. It would not be good if you stayed."
Then he would ask again. "What help can a fade spirit offer without possession?"
"All of this is Envy: People, places, power. If you keep going, Envy stretches. It takes strength to make more. Being one person is hard. Being many, too many, more and more, and Envy breaks down, you break out."
"If I continue on, Envy with begin to wear." Fenris concluded.
"Maybe. I hope it helps." The boy said. "It's better than sitting here waiting to lose your face." The boy without another word walked toward the door and went through.
In for a penny, Varric's voice said in Fenris' head.
Cole poked his head back into the room. "This way."
Because he had no other choice, Fenris followed. The fire still swallowed the ground before them when he stopped. He could feel the burn of it from a handful of feet away.
Cole on the other hand walked right up to it. "Ideas are loud here. Make them louder. Think of water."
Water. That's it. Water? These fonts reminded him of a waterfall. He closed his eyes, thinking of it. A torrent of water falling over cliffs. Roaring over the sound of fire. When he reopened his eyes, the fire had been replaced by fonts spouting torrents of crystal clear, cool water.
Cole grinned at him happily. "Water."
Fenris heard the demon's voice again, but he ignored it, walking through the doorway beyond. The world went white again. In the end, Fenris never truly knew how long he was in his own head, trapped by Envy.
We came back through a handful of feet from where we were. There was Alistair, alive and well next to Varric. Exactly where he was when we were removed from the timeline. I wanted to run to him, throw myself at him and cry into his chest for a thousand days, but that is not what happened.
"You'll have to do better than that." Dorian said his line.
But me. I was too angry. I grabbed Alexius by his shirt and shook him. "You bastard."
"You won," he said dejectedly.
"Not good enough! I watched people I love die!"
"There's no point extending this charade." The defeated magister's complete lack of fight took the anger right out of me. I dropped him and he fell to his knees. "Felix."
"It's going to be alright father."
"You'll die."
"Everyone dies." This poor guy.
I motioned and the Inquisition guards came. They gathered Alexius, and left with Felix in tow.
"Well, I'm glad that's over with." Dorian said with much too cheery an attitude.
The anger in me just wanted to brew, boil and bubble.
The marching of soldiers in heavy armor happened at the exact moment the doors to the castle opened. Right on cue, here came Anora with her contingent of soldiers. Ooo goodie, my ire had a new target.
Stomp stomp stomp stomp.
Really I don't like these guys. They're too...coordinated.
"Or not." Dorian said, eyeing the blonde walking with her head held high down the center of the walkway.
The Queen looked a bit older than I'd last seen her. There were a few new grays in her honey blonde hair, and the beginnings of crows feet at the corners of her eyes. "Grand Enchanter Fiona." Seems like someone's spine has some more steel in it than the last time we met.
"Queen Anora!" I kind of feel bad for Fiona. She's getting a tongue lashing she really does not deserve.
"Should we step in?" Solas prompted in a low tone.
"When I granted your mages sanctuary," Anora would never be a good warrior. She didn't even look around at who was in the room. "I thought it was understood that they would not force my people from their homes." Oh hell no. I'm the one who gets to be pissed off here.
I just watched my boyfriend die.
"Your majesty, let me assure you, we never intended any of this…" Fiona bowed her head in supplication.
"Your intentions ceased to matter when my people were threatened."
Alistair - with whom I still had a whole can of worms to deal with - edged closer to them.
"I am rescinding my offer of sanctuary-"
"Oh come off it Anora." I took the couple of steps down from the raised part of the courtroom. "Jesus, after ten years I figured either you or Aedan would have pulled that stick out of your ass. But no, it's still lodged up there with your high horse and the holier than thou attitude." What? I said I was still angry. We've never actually had it out over the time my fiance agreed to marry her and asked me to be his side chick.
Anora added to the wrinkles on her forehead by furrowing her brow as her attention turned to me. I waved at her with the marked hand. Her gaze darted to the faint green crack in the middle of my palm. Her eyes widened, mouth parting just a bit. That's right, add to those marionette lines. She faltered for barely a second before recomposing herself into the Queen of Ferelden. "Elyria…" It sounded like she was afraid to say my name. "How good to see you again."
I scoffed, stopping next to Fiona. "Please. We both know that's a lie." Look at me refraining from rolling my eyes at her. "Grand Enchanter, I am formally inviting you, on behalf of the Inquisition, to have your mages join our ranks."
Fiona's gaze shot over my left shoulder for the briefest of moments before her spine straightened up. Head higher than it was when the Queen was scolding her. "And what are the terms of this arrangement?"
"Hopefully better than Alexius gave you." Dorian's swagger is a thing I could spend a lifetime trying to imitate and would never achieve the level of confidence in every step. "The Inquisition is better than that," those big brown eyes of his were on me. "Yes?"
"A thousand times better." Alistair said, much too enthusiastically. "Ten thousand times better." For some reason, just hearing him talk grated on my nerves.
Solas opened his mouth for his line, and I'm sure Varric would have gone too but I just really didn't want to hear it. I was in a damn mood. "Take it or leave it Grand Enchanter. Your choice."
Her eyes, they went over my left shoulder again. "It seems we have little choice but to accept whatever you offer."
"Good. Great. Wonderful. Allies it is." A lot of the tension drained from her immediately. I turned my attention to my newest companion. "Dorian, would you please help the Grand Enchanter figure out the logistics of packing up two hundred odd people and moving them out?"
"Of course. Grand Enchanter," he motioned to her.
"Thank you." She said, sounding almost truly grateful. Together they began to make their way out.
"Elyria," the Queen of Ferelden turned to me, giving me what I could only assume was her best, diplomatic smile. "I am happy that there are no hard feelings between us. When I last saw Alistair," my buddy snorted somewhere behind me, "he was not quite as understanding."
Somewhere, distantly, I heard Varric let out a soft, "Oh shit."
You know what? No. Nope. We're not playing this game. "Your ass is sitting on his birthright, so yeah, I get why he's not okay with you."
Her diplomatic smile dissolved instantly.
"And no, there are no hard feelings Your Grace." Douse her title in sarcasm and light that shit on fire. "After all, I'm the one who got the offer to be your husband's mistress and turned it down out of self respect." Then, leaning in, "How does it feel to have two husbands willing to cheat on you?"
Her gaze hardened and, with a sharpness to her voice she said: "Get out of my kingdom."
Smiling a wide, bright smile, "Love to. Agents of the Inquisition," I circled one hand in the air. "Move out!" We're nowhere near as organized, or stompy, but we've got numbers. And our uniforms are pretty cool.
Alistair managed to hold it together for exactly three seconds after we cleared the castle gates. "Ellie! Ellie!" He bounced like a child. "That was so…" he yammered on but in my head, all I could hear were the other Leliana and Fenris.
He raised a rebellion in your name. He tried to lead, but you know Alistair.
I might have let the residual anger get the better of me. While he was excitedly talking about confronting Anora after all these years, I stopped walking and he stopped walking. Varric and Solas too, stopped walking. Alistair grabbed my shoulders, or at least went to.
"You idiot." I snapped at him right before I hit him square in the jaw. "You complete and total idiot! Why did you have to-" Go and fall for me? Me of all the people in the world, two words. Me? Fuck. He held his jaw, looking at me with shock and confusion. "Why wouldn't you say something? After all these years?" He didn't get it. I could read it all over his face. He did not get it. Which just made everything worse. "Stay out of my sight."
The three of them looked at Ellie's back as she stalked off. If that was the right word. Varric drew a blank where the word between sulk and stalk should have been. Any faster and she'd be running.
Cheesy stood there looking confused as hell at Ellie's back, holding his face together with one hand. Varric would have laughed if the poor boy didn't look like a lost puppy. Poor guy. His secret was out.
"I think she knows Cheesy."
"Knows? Knows what?" Alistair asked in confusion, holding his jaw where Ellie had given him one hell of a punch. For what? He didn't know.
"She knows." Varric said with more emphasis.
Alistair, still dumbfounded as to what exactly Varric was alluding to, glared at the dwarf. "Knows what?"
Solas, sighing deeply, what fools mortals could be, took it upon himself to end the confusion. "He doesn't know himself, Varric."
"Well shit." Varric grunted in response. "I don't know what to say. I don't think this has ever happened before." Shocked and mildly disturbed by the reality that he had nothing he could say to Alistair to get him to see what was pretty obvious to everyone but Alistair, Fenris and up until a few minutes ago Elyria. "I have no words." He, Hawke, Isabella, Leandra and Bohdan had a bet on it. Of course none of them accounted for Alistair not knowing.
"You tell him." Varric finally said to Solas.
"Me?" Solas asked incredulously, "do you think it wise?"
"He won't believe me, he's known me too long. You, he's known a month." Varric pointed out with crossed arms. "Hell, I had a bet on it."
"You had a bet on what?" Alistair demanded. Andraste, yelling made his jaw ache. "Solas, do you think you could?" He motioned to his jaw which he was fairly sure was at least sprained if not fractured.
The elf, unlike every other magic user Alistair had ever encountered, made no protest about healing a simple injury that would heal with a few days of rest. "Alistair," Solas began as the cooling air of magic permeated the warden's skin, "when you are with Elyria, does it make you feel warm, happy, comfortable?"
"Of course, she's my best friend." He said after his jaw began to feel much, much better. "Why?"
"That's not the way we feel about our best friends Cheesy." Varric grumbled at him. "You think I feel like that about Hawke? Sure, he's a great guy but I don't tell him I love him."
"That's just something Ellie does." He dismissed quickly. "She says she loves you too."
"Yeah, not the way she says it to you." At Alistair's still confused expression. "Andraste's frilly bits, Alistair, you can't possibly be this dense."
"Self preservation is a difficult thing to overcome Varric," Solas told him sadly. "If Elyria had kissed you rather than hit you, Alistair. Would you have kissed her back?"
Well...well…that was a fantasy once. A very long time ago when a pretty girl fell out of a tree. A pair of pink lips in a lopsided grin when she handed him those sour candies that stuck to his teeth. Water droplets on sun-warmed skin as she laughed with him in the lake. The stir of her breath when they slept. Alistair suddenly found it very hard to breathe.
"Oh Maker. I...um...I have to…" He put his hand to his jaw and rubbed over the area again wanting to feel the ghost of pain to ground his brain in the here and now rather than think about, well, anything else. "I have to...go. I have to go." Go he did, walking away with a dazed, befuddled, and uncertain look on his face.
"We should try to get rooms at the tavern. I don't want to be anywhere near that fight."
"Are you quite sure it will be a fight? Perhaps they will-"
"Elyria is still in love with Fenris. The moody, broody elf with all the tattoos who is also still in love with her. Her best friend just realized he has probably been in love with her for over a decade. She found out. You really want to be around when the shit hits?"
Solas, sighing once more, "I think not."
"Me either Chuckles."
In fact, as the two of them found out later when they couldn't get a room at the tavern at all, it wasn't a fight. They returned to camp to find Alistair setting up his own tent, silently with another fresh bruise on top of the old one. He did not ask to be healed this time.
It was a tense three day ride back to Haven.
This story is now nearly over 150 pages.
I hope everyone is staying home, and if you can't, stay safe.