Chapter Text
The Hero
They said the blight made even the air sick. She’d seen with her own eyes when, after the battle at Denerim, the sky was tinted red for weeks; the air hot and heavy as blood. She wondered if it would ever stop feeling like the world was ending.
She couldn’t remember when it has stopped, but she was sure of when it started again. She’d seen for herself the crack in the heavens that felt like the end of days; this time bright as the dawn instead of dusk. But you could almost miss the whole sky falling down behind the raging storms, she thought, were it not for the sickly hue that painted everything pale green.
She was sure she’d never been so cold in her life, her armor siphoning away even the slightest amount of body heat, the edges rubbing her skin so raw she’s sure it would be agony if she weren’t so numb. She ached down to the bone, too tired to even shiver, so cold that had she the energy she might have heaved her meager rations. The traders she and saved just a few days ago had been kind enough to patch up her injuries, but her arm, once carefully wrapped in a linen sling, was slipping from itss careful perch; her hands too stiff to work the fabric apart and back together again. There was rain in her eyes — surely she must be lost, and any moment now she’d fall into a pool of Crestwood’s seemingly endless rain.
It was beginning to feel like there was no other color left in the world when she saw it, the a warm orange light of a fire. Warmth. Safety. Him.
It was like taking a weight off her shoulders as she entered the cave, water dripping off her cloak as she blinked the rain from her eyes. Bottles lined either side of the entrance, bridged together by a thin piece of thread; a primitive alarm of sorts, an old trick Leliana had taught them a lifetime ago. Normally she would have been more careful not to disturb them, less for stealths sake and more so she wouldn’t have to set them up again later, but her legs were too heavy and clumsy to care, and she could feel him startle as the glass clinked against the cave floor. She swore she could hear him holding his breath.
“Ali?” She breathed, and as if anticipation, her husband rounded the corner of the cave and appeared before her. In two steps his sword was forgotten on the cave floor and he was sweeping her into his arms, so quickly she could hardly catch sight of him. She laughed despite the weariness of her body, the damp of her clothes soaking thought his, and he kissed her, once, twice, hard, spinning her off her feet before finally letting her down. “S-sorry I’m late.” Her voice shook from the cold.
“Maker, you’re freezing,” he finally said, taking her in. “We need to get you out of those clothes.”
“M-miss me that badly?” She quipped, but the joke fell flat from her trembling lips. Alistair managed a smile and a shake of the head, but the worry never left the space between his brows. It rarely did these days.
They started on removing her breastplate, though he did most of the work, her fingers too numb for such nimble work. As each clothing article was removed, he began to hang it by the fire, next to his own drying clothing. She tugged her good arm through her shirt and Alistair frowned.
“What happened there?”
“Long story. Bandits,” she muttered, and he carefully untied the sling around her arm and removed it along with her shirt. It was an old, aggravated wound — she’d injured her shoulder long before the blight, long before Arl Howe’s men forced her from her home; a training accident, if memory still served her, or maybe a riding accident. Her mind struggled to remember, even her body did not.
She hesitated at her smalls — standing in a cold, wet cave completely naked wasn’t exactly ideal, but they were soaked, and by the fire she could see Alistair’s bed roll inviting her over. Finally she worked up the nerve to strip, the cold cutting sharp as a knife, and Alistair quickly covered her with a shirt and pants of his own from the line (slightly damp, but drier than hers by a long shot) and they wordlessly curled up together in the bedroll by the fire. She clung to him like a lifeline, partially to banish the shaking, partially because she was so relieved to not be alone.
Normally their reunions were brief (although no amount of time in the world would be enough) — and by now they would be all over each other. Her skin constantly hungered for his, and it felt like there was nothing that would satiate it but having every millimeter of him touching every millimeter of her. Sometimes she wished they could close close every gap between them so completely, they would morph into one being; never to be separated again.
Their last reunion had been their longest in years – what else does one do when it feels like a goodbye? The calling had crashed over her like a wave — nothing like the slowly rising tide she’d been promised. One day she had been wading, and the next the dam had burst and her head was swept silently beneath the surface. Panic rose in her throat — they were supposed to have more time. She wasn’t ready. She didn’t want to die alone. She wrote to Alistair and took off for Denerim at first light.
When she arrived at the palace three days later, he was an island surrounded by a sea of crumpled letters – all of his attempts of telling her that he was dead in the water as well, although he had no way of knowing he wasn’t the only one drowning.
They spent six days trying to pretend the inevitable wasn’t at their doorstep; it felt almost like a honeymoon. Basking in each others warmth, spending most of their hours locked in their bed chambers, refusing anyone but servants delivering food and drink, tracing the outline of each others bodies as if to record them for posterity. They rarely slept those days. Some of it was making up for lost time. Some of it was because of the nightmares brought on by the calling. But for her, the quiet of night only reminded her of how little time they had left. Time she’d gambled away, and for what? A slim chance of a future? She was going to die. Alistair was going to die. And she’d wasted what little time they had together scurrying across the world like a frightened animal, chasing a cure that, if it even existed, was far out of her reach.
When at last, the call felt so loud it felt as if it were drowning out the world, Hawke’s letter arrived; this was not the swan song of their demise, but a mockingbird’s tune.
They still had time.
That was one month ago. Maybe a sane person would have taken it as a sign from the Maker to remain inseparable, to appreciate what they had while it lasted. But then there’d been the Venatori apprehended in the castle, that whole mess with Redcliffe, and Morrigan‘s letter containing a new lead…
“There are other wardens looking for you,” she said, finally, while Alistair was busy rubbing her aching shoulder. Her eyes were too heavy to keep open, and he startled a moment, probably thinking her asleep. “Well, us, I suppose. Orlesian. I made sure they were going in the wrong direction.”
Though her back was turned toward him, she could hear the smile in his voice. “How’d you manage that?”
She grinned, putting on the thick, heavy Orlesian accent that had always made Leliana laugh. “Aye told ‘zem I was sent along to ‘elp in ze search, and I had seen hoof prints heading to ze west!”
Alistair rolled his eyes, but his smile betrayed his amusement. “You’re almost as bad a liar as you are an Orlesian.”
“And thank ze maker for that,” she responded, grinning, turning to kiss his jaw before dropping the fake accent. “I saved a trading caravan from those bandits camped out at the hold. They were more than happy to spread some misinformation along.”
“That how you hurt your shoulder, the bandits?”
“Most of the traders were families. They had children,” she quipped, automatically defensive before realizing she was speaking to the one person who could possible understand. She sighed. “It was a small price to pay, if it buys us even a little time.”
Her satchel was laying in a puddle nearby, the contents wrapped carefully in a tarp to protect from the rain. Still, with how soaked she’d gotten, they probably could use some time by the fire to dry out.
Prying herself from the bedroll, she pulled the parcel free and as she sat on her haunches, began to lay out the contents. Her own journal tumbled out first, the pages damp and charred in places, stuffed with at least dozen or so letters, mostly from Alistair but many from Morrigan and Leliana and her other friends. Some, mostly Alistair’s, were sentimental, but mostly she used it to record everything she had relating to a cure for the calling. Every chased rumor, every near miss or failed attempt; she doubted there was a more throughout record of anything in the world. She’d been meticulous in recording every step, every corner of the world she searched. If something happened to her, if ever she lost her mind or her memory, the next warden to pick up the mantle would be ages ahead of where she’d started.
There were a few other artifacts in a small linen pouch, taken, not exactly with permission, from Weisshaupt when last she was there. A vial containing a few drops of blood from the archdemon of the fourth blight. Letters, many of them in Elvish and unreadable to her eyes, wrapped carefully in twine. A brooch with a center so black it seemed to eat up the light around in; wrapped carefully in a layer of cloth; holding it for too long against her skin gave her the chills.
“Brie,” Alistair touch startled her as he brushed a hand across her back. She hadn’t even heard him get up. “Leave it to dry before you catch your death. You’re still freezing.”
“In a moment.”
“Well…I’m cold,” he huffed, plopping down and wrapping all of his limbs around her as if he were attempting to climb a tree, nearly making her lose her balance.
“What are you—“ She managed to get out with a laugh before his weight was too much and they both tumbled over, landing over him in a heap of limbs, giggling like they were young again as he dramatically clung to her for warmth. When at last they had settled, their faces nearly touching, she finally allowed herself to truly look at him. Time had been mostly kind, but he looked tired; the spot between his eyes that crinkled when he was worried seemed to be carving itself a permanent home.
“You need a shave,” she smiled, pressing her hand to his face, tracing the outline of his jaw to his chin, over his lips and his nose and his eyebrows until finally she could trail her fingers along his hairline; still thick and wavy and golden like the sun at dusk. It was longer now than it had ever been, and it had a slight curl to it, mostly around his ears. “This though, I like your hair like this. I don’t think I’ve said that before.” There wasn’t time, she told herself. But there was time. All the time in the world. But she spent it, no, sacrificed it; chasing shadows of an answer. Their noses were touching now. He smelled of smoke and damp and home. “Maker, I missed you. I’m sorry.”
“There’s nothing to be sorry for,” he took her face in his hands and their lips landed clumsily against each other, as if no time has been lost; as if they were young again and the last awake in their camp. The world was ending for the first time again and his hands were trembling and her own heart was rattling in her chest. His smile, unchanged in all these years, still boyish and a cautious, his lips barely mouthing the words ‘was that alright?’ before they were crashing against one another again. The next morning, they’d discovered they hadn’t been as alone as they’d thought; Alistair would still go red from the memory of Zevran’s teasing.
They stayed like that a long while, drinking in each others warmth. It couldn’t last. In those moments of stillness, the calling was louder than ever; like the chill of ill-wishing eyes on her back. The cave flashed with lightening, the clap of thunder following instantaneously.
“We have time,” he answered as if in response to the words that didn’t have time to pass her lips. “They’ll likely need to take care of the rift, first. Another day, at the very least.”
“So they can really seal them? The inquisitor?” She asked, quietly. It seemed impossible. But then again, so had the tear in the heavens. So had them both surviving the blight. Her father had said it best, once, back when she was small and still training with wooden swords, and her father still agile enough to get the upper hand when they trained. There’s always a way out.
“Stranger things have happened,” he answered, as if he were responding to so much more than her question. He pressed his lips against her forehead, and for a moment, it felt as if no trials in life or death could tear them apart.
***
Two days later, the rain stopped. Their combined rations were dwindling, and Alistair had spend much of their stay rubbing a healing balm into her aching shoulder and all the other scrapes and bruises; it seemed as good a time as any to leave their tiny shelter in search of food.
They spent most of their morning slopping through the flooded fields, searching for berries and catching a few small fish for their breakfast. She’d even managed to shoot a small quail with her hastily fashioned bow. By noon, the sun was warm enough that she stripped from her mud-caked clothes to rinse them in the lake, leaving them to dry on the rocks as she sunk herself into the water; working apart her matted braid and washing the grime from her skin. A moment later, Alistair joined her, holding out a small parcel from his bag that had been wrapped neatly with twine, as if meant as a gift. Tears nearly came to her eyes as recognized the smell immediately; soap, from home. The kind her mother always used, with the rosemary and thyme, made by a woman in the merchant district of Highever who raised goats. He’d carved it into the shape of a rose, a hobby he’d gotten rather skilled at in their long hours on watch during the blight, and a lump formed in her throat. After all these years, he never stopped being good at that. Reminding her with more than words that no matter the distance, he still thought of her every day.
Without saying anything, he carefully undid the rest of her braid and massaged the soap into her scalp as she reveled in his touch. She couldn’t help but think of those summer nights in the Brecilian forest, sneaking off to bathe together, back when his touch had been new and hesitant and his eyes would dart away as she undressed as if asking for permission to look. Behind all these years, he was still that boy who would blush up to his ears at the slightest tease, and she loved him for it.
When he was done, she returned the favor, pressing her lip to the scars across his back when she was done and closing her eyes to enjoy this moment of peace. Part of her hoped the inquisition would never come, that they’d stay like this forever; basking in each others warmth until they lost their minds together and maybe even long after that. And when someone eventually stumbled across their intertwined bones, ten, twenty years from now; their love would still be palatable, and nothing else would matter.
But this was a fantasy; the water was cold, and their lips had turned blue and their fingers wrinkly, and such a moment could not last. They dressed quickly in their still-damp clothes and brought their gathered breakfast back to the cave. They were able to manage a surprisingly decent meal, despite their companions unanimously banning them from cooking after so many burnt meals, and spent the rest of the morning in each others arms. He braided her hair and she worked to repair a hole in one of his shirts; and this felt like home.
They had been lying with their legs tangled together, her face pressed into his neck when they heard it; the clinking of glass bottles as they fell and rolled along the rocky floor.
Alistair tensed, reaching for his sword, and she had nearly nocked an arrow before she was standing in the doorway, a crooked grin on her face, hands on her hips and she glanced around casually as a houseguest strolling into their sitting room.
“Thought I might do you a courtesy and check on you first, lest half the inquisition walk in on the royal family engaged in some illicit act. You’re welcome, by the way.”
She hadn’t changed a bit, always laughing in the face of danger; no different than the last time they’d stood in this cave together, albeit under very different circumstances. Her lips curled into a smile on her name. “Hawke.”
***
She’d never told a soul what had happened when she’d first met Hawke.
Except Alistair, of course, but not until long after the fact. It was not the kind of secret she was willing to risk over letter.
It had been three months since that mess with the Circle in Kirkwall. Letters were piled high on her desk, mostly unopened, her name scrawled with shaking hands and haphazardly sealed. When she’d heard the news, she’d reported to Amaranthine at once — sending word to her brother to expect refugees in droves, many of them mages, many of them dangerous. Perhaps some of them, she thought, could be saved from Templar swords and recruited into the wardens, but not all of them. And even those they saved might not survive the joining, if you could say that any of them really survived it. She ofter wondered how Duncan made these kinds of decisions. How he weighed the joining in both hands, simultaneously rescuing and condemning with one press the lips against a chalice.
But three months had passed and none came. From her reports, most of the refugee mages fled to Orlais — many of them taken in by the wardens there. She’d written half a dozen letter to Weisshaupt expressing her concerns with their recruitment rates, yet had received no reply. She was hardly surprised. The first warden and her had hardly ever been on fair terms. He’d never bought she and Alistair had no idea how they’d survived the archdemon, but there was little he could do to call their bluff. They couldn’t exactly kidnap and torture the information out of the monarchs of a nation they had just barely made amends with, which they no doubt would have done had their titles not protected them. They were at a stalemate, then, which seemed inevitable. The first warden and his inner circle never seemed particularly enthusiastic to aid her search for a cure, and while some of that could be attributed to doubt, she’d always suspected they knew more than they let on.
She’d been sitting at her desk and pouring over a particularly worrying letter from Leliana by candlelight when there was a knock at the door. “Come in,” she’d called, massaging her tired eyes.
To her surprise, their newest transfer from Orlais was standing in her doorway, still in his armor despite the late hour. He gave a short bow. Stroud had warned her by letter when he had arrived the month before that he could be a bit surely and defiant, but he had never given much trouble for her so far — and not much information on the situation on Orlais, either, unfortunately.
“Carver, what are you up to at this late hour?” She’d asked, standing to retrieve her house coat to cover her nightgown, turning Leliana’s letter face-down on her desk.
“I’d ask you the same thing, warden-commander,” he responded, shifting uneasily in his armor. “I’d like to request a leave of absence. Family matter.”
“Family?” She’d inquired, “You never mentioned you’d had family.”
“None in Ferelden, ma’am. Not until now,” he cleared his throat. “My sister arrived from Kirkwall not long ago. She’s the only family I have left — and I fear she’s in trouble.”
“I see,” she pursed her lips. “A refugee, then? Is this why you requested transfer? To follow her?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“She is a mage, then? Or simply an unfortunate bystander?”
Carver thought for a moment, perhaps deciding the safest answer. “It’s a very long story.”
“You may tell me on the way, then.” She shuffled the papers on her desk a moment, searching for a bit of paper to scribble a note to Alistair.
“Ma’am?”
“I need to piece together what happened at the Kirkwall chantry, I fear a storm is brewing,” she told him, not looking up from her desk as she stamped it with a messy seal, slipping it and Leliana’s letter in her pockets. “I will help protect your sister with my life, no matter what she is — but I must hear what she knows.” From Leliana’s letter, it also didn’t seem like a bad idea to make herself scarce for a while. She’d had no interest in what the Divine wanted from her, and even less in putting herself in the crossfire of another war.
Carver hesitated. In retrospect, he was clearly trying to think of a way to refuse, but how could he? Not only was she his direct officer, but his queen as well. “Then I thank you for your help, commander. Will we be able to set off soon?”
“We’ll set off at first light, before morning guard shift.” Before anyone can try to talk some sense into me, she added, silently. She smiled, but he did not return it, simply bowing out of her doorway.
If she had known the full story, perhaps she would have ridden off into the night without even pausing to find her shoes.