Fissures

[silver_feathered_raven]

Title: Fissures
Author: featheredraven
Characters/Pairings: Tabris/Alistair
Rating: T-ish? Closer to M, maybe.
Warnings: Some fluff, some angst (okay, a lot of angst), and some archdemons getting mushed...so a fair amount of blood.
Summary: Make a man a king, and what will he do with the common little elf that follows (loves) him?
A/N: First foray into Dragon Age fic, and I'm a bit uncertain how well I've gotten Alistair in character. Feedback is welcome, especially if you catch any errors in what I've written. Also, I rarely ever copy in-game dialogue word for word, because what fun is reading exactly what you've already heard?

The sky is red against the horizon, wisps of clouds like bloody fingerprints across silk. Smoke and fire – Denerim is burning.

There is a sword on her back, armor heavy across her shoulders, and she feels older than she ever should have felt. Old, like the world is crashing down around her, and all she wants to do is sleep. The world about her is a half forgotten dream, with no happy ending left. She is small, and the world has grown so large that she fears it will swallow her whole.

Beside her is her king – but not her king, never hers again, and she'll never look up at him again as he threads fingers through her short hair and curves the palms of his hands over her cheeks and the pointed tips of her ears and kisses her – and he wears his armor like a second skin, and he is now who he should ever have been.

(She remembers, when she first met him – smiles and awkward bumbling, the first human who she could truly trust, the first she did not fear would kill her in her sleep – and she thinks of how she would never guessed, never known he would be a king.)

They march towards the burning city, and when he glances to her there is tension in his face, sadness in his eyes.

*
There is a rose between her fingers, a little tattered but somehow still alive, and she holds it like it is a small bird that will fly away at any moment, or some small creature that she may accidentally crush if she moves.

His hand touches hers as he gives her the rose, and even through the leather of her gloves she feels – sparks, electricity, like she's been hit with one of Morrigan's spells, a dull numbness spreading through every bit of her body – like her face is turning red, her dark skin turning darker as she blushes. And then he's grinning like a bloody loon in front of her, awkward and smiling, and he says something that makes her smile -

(Everything he says makes her smile.)

- and she responds in kind and watches as his face flames. And he bumbles and stumbles, and when he finally walks away her heart feels so light that it could just float away.

*
“You're not coming with me,” she says at the gates of the city. “Not to the tower.”

He looks at her, and she cannot read what is in his eyes. “I won't let you go alone,” he says, quiet so that no one else can hear.

“I won't be going alone,” she insists. “Wynne and Morrigan will be with me. And...and Sten. I won't be alone.”

“I'm going with you,” he says, and when did it get so hard to look him in the eye?

“I -” don't want you there. Don't want the possibility of you dying. Don't want you to watch me die -

“We're not going to die,” he says. She wants to believe him.

*
There are things she wants to say, things that form halfway within her mind, but she doesn't say them. Instead, she says whatever else comes to mind with a smile and a quick wit, and she gets through life this way, living like it's all a game, because it hurts less when you lose at a game.

And she doesn't want to think that she might feel something – anything – for a human, because that would be undeniably wrong. Like a betrayal of something within her, of those at the alienage who were taken, hurt – Shianni – and she tries not to think about it, tries to keep it all locked away.

It's only luck that she's survived so far, this life as a Grey Warden. A fluke, nothing more.

The walk down the mountain hurts, frozen toes within frozen boots, and the ashes in their little pouch hang at her waist like a weight. Tests upon tests – just enough to shatter her, not enough to put her back together. The shade of her cousin, the shades of her friends – and the one of herself. Where a walk through fire should have cleansed, it burned, though it left her skin unmarred.

He's walking beside her, just so that she can see him out of the corner of her eye. There is frost on his armor, snow in his hair, and his nose and cheeks are red from the cold.

“Well, that was fun,” he says, so dryly that she can't help but laugh, and then cough when she inhales a few snowflakes that melt once inside her throat yet cause her to choke nonetheless. “Hey, now. No dying. Think of the stories that would have to be told: Grey Warden wins valiant fight against tiny dragons and insane cultists, only to be vanquished at the hands of a hoard of snowflakes! Not that, er, snowflakes have hands. Or feet.”

“Stop making me laugh,” she says through giggles punctuated by bouts of coughing. “Oh, Maker, there's too much snow here.” She sniffs, wipes the tip of her nose with the edge of her cloak. “I think my fingers are frozen.”

“Well, that's no good,” he says. “Can't have your fingers freezing and falling off. You'd have to fight using your feet to hold your sword, and I don't think that would work so well.” And then he's tugging off one of his gloves. “Come on, take yours off. Your glove, I mean. Er.” He grins foolishly at her, and she thinks his face is red from more than just the cold.

“Your hand's just going to freeze, too,” she says, but she pulls her glove off and twines her fingers with his, and his skin is so warm against the ice that is hers.

And they walk like that for some time, until the warmth is gone from both hands.

*
They make their way up Fort Drakon, fighting, fighting, ever moving, and she wonders how they even keep going. She wonders how they can even see with so much blood about them. It's all she can taste now, the coppery tang heavy on her tongue. It's in every groove of her armor, in her hair, on her skin. Only some of it is her own.

*
“Is it...is it too soon for this?” he asks her beneath the trees, just far enough from the fire that the shadows barely flicker, and he draws her to him, fingers pressing gently against the curve of her cheek, and she rises on her tiptoes as he bends his face to hers.

It's only the lightest touch, his lips upon hers, but it's enough to send little thrills of electricity racing off through every bit of her body, leaving first numbness and then a delicious warmth in their wake. It's a heady feeling, leaving her feeling breathless and silly, and it's only the briefest of touches. The press of lips against the corner of her mouth, like he's afraid to actually kiss her, holding her so gently, like she held his rose. Her hands rise, fingers catching at the grooves of his armor, pulling in to her, against her, and he's unbalanced enough that he stumbles just a little, knocks his nose against hers, his breath puffing against her cheek, warmth over skin.

She gives a helpless little laugh and turns her face enough to fully capture his mouth against hers, and she feels like she's turned incandescent, like she's going to burn up right there, and for a moment her heart is so full of happiness that she can hardly breath.

*
There is a dragon – it's always a dragon – and it rears above them, screaming to the sky, fire and corpses all around them. And she's yelling – screaming – for him to cut it's wings, keep it from flying.

And this is what they were all waiting for, isn't it? The archdemon before them, blood like bile all about them, fouler than foul, and it splatters across her face as her dagger bites through scales, and she can't stop tasting it.

There's no room for any other thought, and it's all she can do to keep out from under it's feet, away from it's swinging head and helplessly flapping wings, all she can do to keep from being crushed.

Its tail sweeps towards her, and it is only his quick movement, the push on her armored shoulder that sends her sprawling to the ground as the downward sweep of his sword cleaves the end of that tail from the rest – it's only this that keeps her from being thrown against the stone walls behind her.

The demon bellows its pain to the sky.

*
“I'm sorry,” he says, and she hears it from a great distance, like there's cotton wool stuffed into her ears, like there's an ocean crashing within her skull, drowning out all but the echo of his words.

But she nods, not daring herself to speak further, not daring to move. If she moves, she will go to pieces, and it is not yet time for that. There is a demon to slay, and she must be intact for that. She is fractured, hairline fissures all the way through her now, but if she speaks they will become more than fissures.

So she nods, because she knew this was coming. Tried to ignore it, but knew it was there, like a little mouse from a dream, gnawing, gnawing, ever at the back of her mind. Make a man a king, and what will he do with the common little elf that follows (loves) him?

She knew, and she should have ended this long before. Saved her heart before he broke it like a pane of glass.

She doesn't speak of it to anyone, and when she is in her room later, alone save for the dog that curls up beside her, she tries to keep from crying.

*
She jumps – leaps – onto the demon's head when she gets the change, stabs downward with her dagger until the steel breaks from hilt, metal driving downward through scale and flesh and muscle, but it's not enough. It's never enough.

It tries to throw her, head rearing up, and vertigo catches her, sending her heart and lungs up into her throat, but she grasps at whatever s
he can, holds on, relaxes into the movement and keeps herself from falling, and as the demon tries to dash her body against the wall, against the stones of the floor she moves, twists herself under it, slashing with her bloodied sword against scales, moves until she has torn open its throat, until she thinks she is going to drown in its blood. And as it slumps to the ground she pulls her sword free and then drives it into the creature's neck as deep as she can.

*
“I can't ask him to do that,” she says, and Morrigan gives her a look that could kill a lesser creature.

“Have you come so far as to die now?” she asks, and no, no, she hasn't, but she cannot ask him to do this, no matter how much she wishes to live.

“I cannot be that selfish,” she says, so softly, so quietly, but later she stands in his doorway and she asks him to – begs him to – because she is so frightened, her mind spinning with every way that things may turn out, every ending possible now, and every one ends with one of them dead. And she is selfish, because she does not want to die. Selfish, because even now she does not know if she could survive if he were die. Selfish, because she wants just to live now, nothing more.

And, somehow, he agrees to do the ritual. She won't allow herself to think about why.

*
There is light, and pain, and for a moment she thinks that the ritual didn't work, that she's dead anyway, that she's going to die. But her fingers cling to the hilt of the sword until she can hold to it no longer and is thrown back, against stone, so hard that she cannot see for the blackness that clouds her vision.

And it takes time, but the black fades to grey, grey to sparks of color till she can see save for little spots in her eyes that burn like fireflies. She lies there, for a time, tired and battered, while smoke rises around her, fires from the city.

And, somehow, elation bubbles up, swims up her throat to burble out her mouth in choking, coughing laughter, and all she can think is: it's over.

A hand reaches out to her and she takes it, is pulled to her feet, stumbles against him. For a moment – only a moment – he holds her, steadies her, and – somehow – when she pulls away, her heart doesn't break.

They are alive.

And there is a part of her, yes, that wants to hold him, to kiss him, to pull him to her until there is no space left between them, but she ignores that part. Instead, she smiles at him and laughs, because everything is over and they are alive.