310 réponses à ce sujet

[Maria13]

Some sex, but just a quickie, the usual bad language

Chapter 9

DA 9:31 Cassus/Haring

Denerim

They had sent questions, he had said.

So here they were, she the “Hero of Ferelden” and Ferelden’s newly proclaimed King, having rapidly, almost perfunctorily, just made love, on what was supposed to be the best day of their lives, carefully scrutinizing and weighing up a small parchment manuscript containing some ten questions that lay on the bed between them.  The whole populace, it seemed, outside the window, raucously celebrating the very recent end of the Blight, at least
insofar as they could overhear, while they were engaged in an anxious debate.

“Just how much trouble could we be in?”

His frown told her the whole story before the words left his lips “Potentially a lot.”

She didn’t ask further about the implications, he didn’t need to spell it out.  She hadn’t spent most of her adult life a
captive in the tower under the close scrutiny of the templars not to know what that meant.  She remembered the
unfortunate ser Jory, there was a lesson there, wasn’t there? A lesson writ in his blood spilled on the ramparts of Ostagar, a lesson in ruthlessness and expedience.  For what Neriya had done, the penalty was death either physical or spiritual.  Daveth was in the same situation, Alistair, well, Alistair was always going to be different, she realised. But Jory? He was innocent, clean, perhaps, not as brave as he should have been, and his wife was with child…

Alistair may have idealised and idolised the Wardens and Neriya staunchly refused to disabuse him of that, it was not her place, but that did not mean she shared his faith in their inherent goodness.

On the small table by the bed stood an open bottle of wine. Part of their cover, like the hasty lovemaking.  Alistair had asked for the best from the cellar and to his great distress, they had been brought it.  He’d marched up to the room cursing the sommelier’s knowledge under his breath and the fact that he had insisted on opening the bottle beforehand. “It needs to breathe, Your Majesty, for about half an hour to be at its peak”.

“As if it wouldn't take us more than half an hour to properly make love.” He'd said scornfully as he closed the door behind them. 

Then things had happened very quickly. He had set aside the wine and thrown her on the bed and removed her small clothes and put his mouth to her.  Then when, after coming, she had all but virtually kicked him off her, he had torn off his own clothes and made love to her with a fierceness that she hadn’t seen in him for many moons.  At some point in the intervening struggle she had tried to get on top of him, and he had said:

“No” 

At first she’d thought it was part of the game because he usually enjoyed that quite a bit.  But when she persisted he’d grabbed her arms and shouted:

“I said no. No. Not that, got it? Not that...”

Then she’d remembered… Wasn’t this a grand day for unfortunate recollections?…  Well, it seemed so long ago because so much had happened since Redcliffe. 

A little later after their initial heat had burned down and when, in the aftermath, their skin had become clammy and chill and he had wilted in her, he had looked her in the eyes and said:

“You know I love you, right?”

When she had stroked his hair and told him that of course she did, and she loved him too, he had pressed his face to her neck and began to cry.

At least, she reflected bitterly, the witch had kept her word and they were both here, this evening.  She, in turn, intended to keep her word to Morrigan, or rather each and every single one of her words, the words she spoke to her in low but sincere and vehement tones at Denerim city gates, out of Alistair’s earshot, she hoped.

Every now and then Alistair would throw a longing look in the bottle’s direction.  Neriya, who really knew next to nothing about wine, had not, if truth be told, been aware until then you could love and pine for a bottle almost as much as you could another person’s touch.

Turning back again to the small parchment with its tiny, cramped spider-like script he sighed:  “I hate those Orlesian wardens already.” He said “I mean, look at this handwriting, they must be painstakingly fastidious or something, why would they ever let people like this become wardens in the first place?”

“The questions are rather good.”

“Good. Good, is not what they are, they are tight, tighter than... I won’t continue that train of thought, too distracting.”

“But at least they sent them in advance…”

“Yeah, right, thank the Maker for that, I say.” He said running his hand through his hair.

“What do you mean?”

“I think they’re trying to spook us.  Like waving the sword a few times above our heads before actually striking us.”

“How would you…”

“Come on, already, you’re not that stupid, it’s what I do. Only for real, in battle, not sneaky metaphorically like these guys… This all just gets better and better…”

“But surely this is preferable to being dead?”

“I don’t know what being dead is like, do you?” He said sourly.

“I could be the dead one.” She objected.

“There is that, I guess.” He paused then and shot her a nervous look. “Much worse, that would be much, much worse. On with it, then.”

After they had perused the questions some more, he had shaken his head and said: “It’s going to be tough.  Extremely tough.  We need to agree tonight what we’re going to say on certain issues and especially what we’re going to say about… Her. Give me a moment will you?”  He roughly pulled some of his clothes back on and quietly left the room.

When he came back after about ten minutes his hair was wet and his face very pale.  “Right” He said and lay down back on the bed on his stomach beside her : “Methodology: We’ll be split up, and possibly there’ll be separate interrogation teams but co-ordinated centrally.  They’ll attempt to adjust the teams to what they see as our character but of course, that’ll be subject to the manpower that they’ll have to hand which won’t be much… They’ll want to disorientate us, make us lose our sense of time. I doubt whether there’ll be overt brutality but they may deprive us of sleep, food and water if they think we aren’t co-operating sufficiently…”

He paused to catch his breath: “Be prepared for threats and taunts, but be especially wary of ingratiating behaviour, gifts, promises, small freedoms, stuff like that…  One may present himself as your enemy, the other as your friend but don’t doubt for a moment, they are both out to get you…  As for their gender, well as I said when I first met you, I’m not aware that there are many female wardens so it’s probably safe to assume that they’ll all be male…”

“I… How do you know this stuff?”

He turned over on his back crossed his hands behind his head and then after a pause said looking at the ceiling. “Don’t forget I was trained as a templar for a while… and a templar’s main brief is to control mages… That involves, quite often, hunting down any that may seek to flee or who have already fled, finding out where they might be…”

“Sometimes you worry me…”

“Oh? You can talk, “Ms turn you into a chunk of ice at the drop of a hat”…” He paused: “Just to summarize, then: I betray you, it’s both our heads on the block.  You betray me, it’s both our heads on the block.  We betray each other…”

Neriya held up her hand: “I think I’ve got the general idea.”

                                                                                      ~~...~~

 
It was a well-established habit of Konrad’s that he only began his briefing when supper was over and the plates cleared away. “As you all know, there are two of them. He is barely 24 and…”

“Ah” said Sagital, “Here we go again…”

“Come on” said Epson, “you know you like it really, Sagi…”

Konrad pursed his lips but otherwise made no acknowledgement of their comments. “… inconveniently for us, has just been proclaimed the King of this dreary backwater.  No doubt that will limit considerably the scope of our enquiry.  Although he has no immediately apparent powerbase outside of his… heroism.  He is, rumour has it, an illegitimate child of the late King Maric Theirin, and half-brother of the recently deceased King Cailan. No-one is quite sure who his mother was.  It is not even clear that he ever met his half-brother, but it is clear that he never met either of his progenitors.  He was sent away to the care of an uncle.  Not only a bastard then…” 

Epson grinned widely at the word, showing off lots of even teeth, but Konrad chose to ignore that, too: “But an unacknowledged one.  He was recruited by Duncan, just before the beginning of this Blight, little over two years ago.”

 “She is an elf, a mage, and, as is usual in these circumstances, her precise age and parentage are completely unknown. She was taken to the tower as a child and presumably received the standard training.” Konrad glanced briefly at his own healer’s staff that lay in front of him on the rough wooden table, within easy reach: “She was harrowed about the same time he was recruited, got into some hot water, and was then conscripted by Duncan approximately a year and a half ago. Straight from the tower”

“Ostagar…  These two were the sole grey warden survivors.  Apparently because they were sent by Duncan to the tower of Ishal and were not on the main battlefield where, as we know, he and King Cailan were to perish.  Not entirely a surprising decision because of their newness to the order, though there may have been other factors at play…” 

“Ooooh” Said Sagitel: “Did King Cailan know then?”

“Possibly.”

“And Duncan?”

“Again: Possibly.” 

“And then begins an epic tale…”

“So therefore”, said Konrad about an hour later in summing up: “Our first priority is to find an explanation for what happened, or rather didn’t happen, at Fort Drakon.  Our second… and this is almost not a priority at all, is to explore the relationship that has developed between them, which is of itself a breach of discipline, if minor and not infrequent…  I have a hunch, though, that it could be that the second which provides the key to the first.” 

                                                                  ~~...~~

Once Konrad had sent the others to bed, Pryce turned to his old friend and said: “Konrad, you never tell them the whole story do you?”

Konrad's left cheek twitched slightly: “Of course I don’t.  It’s more fun like that for the children.  They can then go play with less constraints and bring me titbits of information which they hope will impress me...”

“Don’t you ever have any qualms about doing what you do, Konrad?” The smaller man asked.

Konrad shrugged: “It so happens that I do it well.”

“Yes, you do, but that was not my question…”

“It’s a job.  Someone has to do it.”

“But it’s…”

“What, inhumane, low, brutal, deceitful, dishonest?  Of course it is…  but we are grey wardens now Pryce, not Chantry lyrium-addled drones, do gooders or white f***ing chevaliers, not even idealistic rebel mages.  Those days are behind us and the sooner you can remind yourself of that, the better.” He took a sip of his wine and scowled: “ We are all of us, dirty, and some of us are up to our necks in filth and s***… Myself not the least of them.  But we are here to get a job done and we do it…”

“But…”

“No let me finish. Our job, ironically, is to keep people in line, within certain constraints, of course.  And I have never had a graver assignment on my plate than this. You do realise don’t you that there may be an Archdeamon out there still? Festering in some Maker forsaken blasted backwater, biding its time… It is the exchange, Pryce, the restoration of balance that has gone awry here.  At the end of the day a Warden, any Warden, is nothing but a vessel, and that is almost his sole value, to be a vessel that when broken has the power and the potential to end a Blight.  Warden slays the Archdeamon’s physical form, Archdeamon’s spirit blasts out, enters Warden, knocks the living soul out of him or her.  Balance restored…  But where, Pryce, is our dead warden here?”

                                                                      ~~...~~

 

He woke her the next morning when he came into the room, after they had managed some hours of fitful sleep.  “I’ve already spoken to Anora… She’s a morning person like me…” He sounded vaguely surprised: “I told her my
intention was to be her husband in every sense of the word…” There was a long pause: “I think I just lied.” 

He sat down at the end of the bed with his back to her: “Maker, if I had only known when all this kicked off that I would be physically bandied about like some… insentient beast… some stud, valued only for my seed… Frankly, I’d rather slay the Archdaemon all over again, with a few Broodmothers thrown in for good measure…”

She crawled from between the warm bedclothes, put one arm over his shoulder and kissed the nape of his neck. “I love you” She said: “And I love you because you’re you and no-one else.” He took a deep breath and she added: “I’ve been thinking about this.  We’ve been through worse, the spider queen, remember her? The High Dragon, Fort Drakon?”

“Yes” He said: “Yes, but it just never seems to end…”  He sighed: “Anyways, same old routine… Survival first, moral quibbling and self-pity, afterwards…” He turned: “Get dressed, pretty one, it’s gone nine.  Get dressed and help me with this letter to Eamon, our lives may depend on it… Oh…” he added “And you owe me twenty-five silver.”

They had placed bets on when the Wardens would come, Neriya had said dawn, Alistair, dusk.

“Another thing occurs to me…” She said as she started  getting dressed, stepping into her fresh smallclothes: “… perhaps we should send a message to Wynne at the tower…”

“Wynne, why ever would we want to get her involved in this mess?”

“We need all the help we can get, silly, and Wynne…”

“And how possibly could Wynne assist…”

“Wynne, Alistair. Wynne, who Chief Enchanter Irving falls over himself to accommodate, Wynne who is more
battle-hardened that both of us together, Wynne who has already lived twice as long as either you or I ever will, and has probably spent more than half of that life playing catch me with the Templars to earn her freedom…  and besides…” She said pulling a robe on over her head: “She likes you, Alistair, she really does…”

“I know…” He said blushing faintly: “But not in that way… It’s entirely maternal. I hope…”

“Agreed then.”

After writing the letters they spent the remainder of the day in aimless apathy, occasionally, rehashing out loud their version of events.  Alistair ordered a hearty meal but neither of them could really muster the stomach for it.  Neriya found a book somewhere but simply couldn’t get beyond the first few lines.  Alistair pulled out a set of rune die and
began listlessly throwing them on the table, perusing them, collecting them and casting them once again…

Neriya was about to tell him to stop because it was beginning to get on her nerves when the summons came.

They both stood and automatically began to check each other over as they used to before battle.  They were both wearing plain clothes, lots of them, and warm… They took no weapons, Alistair had sent Starfang to Eamon with the letter, although Neriya kept her staff because it was as much a symbol of her status as a weapon.

Then they kissed deeply and passionately, another pre-battle habit, making no concessions to the impatience of the waiting guards, surrendering themselves fully to the embrace.  When they had finished, Alistair tossed the corner of his cape over his left shoulder took Neriya by the hand and led the way.

They reached the top of the palace steps and paused looking down for a moment on the four hooded figures below who had come to collect them, bearing torches to break up the darkness.  They then descended, still holding hands, Alistair slightly in front.  When they got to the foot of the staircase Alistair said:

“Good evening.”

“Good evening” Replied one of the figures in turn and lowered his hood. 

"Are you the grey warden Alistair Theirin?”

“Yes”

“And you are Neriya Surana also a grey warden?”

“Yes” She echoed.

 “I am Konrad, the leader of this party and temporary Warden Commander of Ferelden.” He was a large man, past middle age, bald, who still bore some remnants of bodily strength about him; strange in a mage, but he had seem better times. Neriya noticed he had a healer’s staff on his back: “This is Pryce” a small pale faced also middle-aged man with flat red hair parted on one side, who bore, as Neriya, the staff of a destruction mage. “Dummond” A young qunari in full armour with heavy but regular features and corn rows, by far the largest of the group, “… and Epson” A man in his mid twenties dressed in black leather with shoulder-length, unevenly cut hair and sharp hard brown eyes.  No-one made any motion to shake hands.

“By the power invested in my by the First Warden you are both ordered to accompany us to our chapter house here in Denerim.”

Alistair said: “We surrender willingly to your authority…”

Konrad nodded. “Are you carrying any weapons or arms?”

“Only my staff” Said Neriya.

“You can keep that for the time being” Said Konrad: “But you will have to hand it over once we arrive at the chapter house.”

“I understand” Replied Neriya.

The wardens drew up their hoods.  Konrad said, “You may cover yourselves”

“No” Said Alistair pulling himself up straight, his grip on Neriya’s hand tightening slightly: “We would rather not.”

Konrad sighed: “Release at least your hands.”

Alistair reluctantly let go of Neriya’s hand, pulled out some gloves from his belt, put them on and clasped his hands behind the small of his back.  Neriya did likewise.

They set off the wardens forming a square around them Alistair and Neriya trudging between them. As they left the courtyard, Neriya shivered.  The cold hit them full blast in the face and she suddenly felt dwarfed standing between so many tall men.  Alistair looked at her with concern.

“Snow do you think?”

“Possibly…” She replied

“This is not the kind of evening even I would usually choose to be abroad in…”

“How far is it?” She asked him.

“About half a mile in that direction…  I’ve only been there once or twice before…”

The marketplace was sad and deserted at night but not entirely empty or silent. There were a few drunks and night trade folk or some people who had just miscalculated and had been caught out by sudden nightfall.  At one point their party crossed with a city watch patrol who stopped in surprise upon recognising them. Alistair calmly nodded and bid them good evening and they moved on, casting inquisitive glances behind them, watching as the man with the golden hair and the woman with the silver, were slowly swallowed up by the gloom.

 

 

 

Modifié par Maria13, 15 mai 2010 - 05:05 .

[SRWill64]

Oooooh...it doesn't look so good for our boy or his love...I'm on the edge of my seat now...

More please....

[nos_astra]

This story is so good! I'm intrigued, really.

There are not many stories I can really enjoy without the urge to complain. I'm not easy to please.
I love your Surana and it's rare that I happen to actually like the Warden.

Modifié par klarabella, 18 mai 2010 - 08:32 .

[Maria13]

SRWill64 wrote...

Oooooh...it doesn't look so good for our boy or his love...I'm on the edge of my seat now...
More please....

I'm working on it but it's tough, what with getting hyper, stressing about work and the new DLC (yes, stupid, I know).  Also my traffic stats have gone AWOL on FF.net for five days now...  Sigh!  But your support is very much appreciated SRWill.

[SRWill64]

Maria13 wrote...

SRWill64 wrote...

Oooooh...it doesn't look so good for our boy or his love...I'm on the edge of my seat now...
More please....

I'm working on it but it's tough, what with getting hyper, stressing about work and the new DLC (yes, stupid, I know).  Also my traffic stats have gone AWOL on FF.net for five days now...  Sigh!  But your support is very much appreciated SRWill.

Just trying to do my part...though the sentiment is real...

It seems like the Spanish Inquistion has caught up with them....the way you have it written...
Why does everybody assume the worst about this? Maybe the Wardens are just trying to find a way to cure the Calling and looking for a way to save those who kill the Archdemons....but they would want to make sure the Archdemon really is dead...

Instead of 'Rosemary's Baby' we have 'Morrigan's Baby', hmmmm.......  Yep, I'm scared!

Modifié par SRWill64, 19 mai 2010 - 08:31 .

[Maria13]

Chapter 10

DA 9:31 Cassus/Haring
Denerim

Pryce and Dummond were assigned to Neriya.  Epson and Sagital to Alistair.  They started shortly before dawn.

Epson had spent a fair few hours the night before buffing her plate-mail to an eye-piercing sheen.  So when she sat down in the chair immediately facing Alistair his gaze could not but follow the shimmering flow her body from up to down.  His mind Immediately likening it to the current of a river.

“I am Sagital” she said: “And you must be Alistair…”

“I see…” He said and then collected himself: “Yes, that’s me…”

She had an abundance of long, black, wavy hair.  Very regular features, spectacular eyelashes, bright azure eyes, good cheekbones, and her mouth… Well. One of the lowest parts of him, one that he usually managed to suppress quite easily, began to whisper to him that one day her really, really[/i] should go to Orlais if only to check out if the women were all like Leliana or Sagital here…

“Sorry, just a bit surprised.  But I thought women who engaged in melee combat tended to be rogues…”

“Oh” Said Sagital:  “I did start off as a rogue but then I… Diversified.”

They started with the basics:

“22, or perhaps 23?…”

“24”

“I… A friend betrayed me… I tried to help him escape the tower and we were caught… Well, I was…”


“I was training to be a templar in the Chantry in Redcliffe. One day Duncan came by recruiting for the Wardens.”

“Male.  No. In fact it was because he said he was in love with someone else and that there were plans to make him tranquil… ”

“Five or six years.  No.  I really wanted to leave.  I was happy to become a Grey Warden. Proud.”

“I was frightened.  Daveth died. Jory… died too.”
 
“I didn’t see I had much choice.  Things were going pear shaped in the south by then. This was, is, my country.  I wanted to help.  Two of us, only one died.  Yes, I was apprehensive, but in a way I welcomed it…”
 
“At Ostagar.”

“Ostagar”

“I was happy with it, clearly he was not.  But that was to be my first experience of battle and he seemed to have considerably more experience that I.  And he’s… as he is, he actually enjoys fighting…”

“Pissed off, frankly.  Very pissed off, but in the event, it turned out to be quite a challenge…”
 
“I don’t recall very clearly, I woke up when he started shaking me…”

“Really difficult to say … Something happened once we had lit the flame and then there was, umm, blankness for a while…”
 
“Well, I didn’t know my way about at all and he suggested we go to Redcliffe but we stayed a few days in Lothering as it was on the way…”

“I was brought up in Redcliffe…”

“I was surprised that he would defer to me.  But it seemed I was more comfortable with it…”

“You know, I’m actually pretty good at taking orders and she seemed to be good at giving them so…”

“Why…  About two months after Ostagar.”

“Uhm, we saved the mages in the tower… I and the others got trapped in the Fade for a while, she got us all out, single-handedly, Maker knows what that involved. I admired that, but it also made me realise this was serious we could die at any time. In fact, I suppose you could say I was dead for a few hours… Again.  She was too good to miss so I… asked her if… and...”

“I was a virgin.”

“I hadn’t done it before…”

“No.”

“No…”
                                                                        ~~...~~

After a break, things got a little sharper.

“So Neriya, said Pryce:  “Your best friend in the tower betrayed you, he was human and male, and seemed to have more awareness of, oh I don’t know, the realities of life than you did… And he left you in the toilet… I mean surely you must ask yourself why it wouldn’t happen again? Perhaps it already has?”

“Why would you think that…”

“Well here we are, aren’t we?  One of you should be dead… And you’re saying that you were the one in charge?”

“Yes, most of the time…”

“And you’re the mage, I mean there was some kind of magic failure here, some kind of counter spell, wasn’t there? He’s not one of us so it must be down to you?  If I were you I’d find that worrying…”

“You may have a point, but I don’t know exactly what you’re getting at… Your questions doesn’t
seem to be very specific…”

Dummond intervened:  “I don’t know anything about magic either, but perhaps what happened just happened…  Or didn’t…”

                                                                                 ~~...~~

 “This templar stuff, it means you don’t get to have sex, doesn’t it?” Asked Epsom.

“I believe the requirement is defined as chastity…”

“Well, isn’t that the same thing?”

“There’s a difference between chastity and virginity, actually.”

“But in your situation, not having done it until the age of, wait, 22, isn’t it… Gosh, a bit late to pop your cherry that, especially for a pretty boy like you… It would amount to the same thing.”

“Yes.”

“So basically, you left the Templars for the Wardens to have sex…”

“No. It’s not that simple, I’ve…”

“Epson, he has already told us why he joined…” Sagitel touched Alistair’s arm: “Actually, I find it quite sweet…”

                                                                                     ~~...~~

After a meal around midday they held the first debrief.

“So?” asked Konrad.

Pryce started: “She’s hiding something… I don’t know what it is, I mean Neriya, she’s nice, bit cold, like all mages really, but straight… but there’s something there…”

“Dummond?”

“I agree.  I get the impression she’s protecting him.”

“Epson?”

“It’s sex.”

“Oh Epson, you always say that, always, always…” Said Sagital.

“That’s because it always is sex!”

“I think Epson needs an interpreter, allow me. Yes he is sensitive about sex but, we have two late starters here.  Men are more thin-skinned when it comes to that… He blushed and I only touched his arm… but we did not explore his protectiveness … it may also be premature to draw a conclusion linking the Fort Drakon incident to their relationship.”

“You all know how I like to work here.  We must be in lock-step. Epson, Sagital, protectiveness, all, the companions right?  Now, special emphasis on the outsiders and the mages.  I mean Ogren, Leliana, Morrigan, Zevren, Wynne, Sten… See if we can do a run through this afternoon. Note not only the information they give about them but also their reactions to them, that will tell us more about Neriya and Alistair.”

                                                                                                 ~~...~~

 “Burping appeared to be his idea of a sophisticated conversation… But in his way he was very knowledgeable, and great with an axe”

“I wish I could swear as inventively as he could … And he was always pissed but functional. Lucky sod.”

“Very severe, detached, oh, and argumentative.  He had a way of turning your own points against you that was quite incisive.” 

“Great fighter but not very approachable… He didn’t like banter, didn’t seem to get it…”

“I really admire her.  She always seemed to be in control and calm…  And under that, well, she was strong.  The strongest of us all.”

“… She could be a bit naughty.  I mean, she’d tease me and tell me off for not repairing my own shirts, things like that.  But I owe her my life, like, hundreds of times over…  All of us do.”

“She was… Looking for something.  Looking for something to fight for, to give her life a sense of purpose, a cause… Perhaps love.”

“Leliana?  Mad as a box of crickets but, much, much prettier…You know, she had this whole Orleisian bard, courtesan, seductress thing going for her…” 

“First he tried to kill me, then he tried to bed me, then… We became friends and he was still trying to bed me, but it seemed to me more out of habit, a sort of reflex rather than genuine passion. In between times, he was always telling me these weird, racy, stories.  He talked almost as much as Alistair…”

“Yeah, he tried to kill her, all of us really, and she forgave him… I still have trouble getting my head around that.  Oh, and before you ask, yes, I felt threatened, he was another elf, she’d forgiven him… He was clearly trying to get his leg over her and then… I felt threatened, personally, well a teeny bit, playing with both decks… That was our Zev”

“She was useful but opinionated.  And not in a good way like Sten.  She seemed so unforgiving of any weakness, or anything she perceived as weakness, which actually in not the same thing." 

“Couldn’t stand her.  She couldn’t stand me.  Always carping and criticising. Arrogant. Somedays I wished I could slap her.  I really regret I never did.”

                                                                                     ~~...~~

“So Alistair: Neriya, you agree she was the boss, the dominant one…” said Sagital smoothly.

“Mostly…”

“Then anything that happened, anything that went wrong and especially anything involving magic would really be her responsibility, don’t you think?”

“That’s simplistic… We’re all adults and ultimately responsible for our own actions, or lack of them… It doesn’t matter who’s giving the order or making the request, if you’re following it and you know it’s wrong, that’s your responsibility and no-one else’s.”

                                                                                            ~~...~~

Konrad invited Sagital to share the meal with him and Pryce that evening:

“Yes” she confirmed: “He’s seeking to protect her too… Comparing their comments on their companions.  It’s quite interesting… His reactions are much more emotional than hers, I liked this, didn’t like that… Hers are more
practical, more analytical, she goes more into their motivations far more than he does.”

“The difference between a leader and a follower, perhaps?” Said Pryce.

“Maybe, but maybe it’s not only a question of character but of perspective…” Replied Sagital.

“So” Said Konrad: “If we were to apply emotional pressure he would be more responsive to that but on the other hand she would be more receptive to logical argument…  Well, that’s some sort of progress.  Oh yes, and I have a piece of news, I received a letter from the queen today…”

He passed it to them and Sagital and Pryce bent over it:

“Why” said Pryce: “If it were a little less tepid…”

“It would be covered in frost…” finished Sagital.

“Late session tonight.  Yes, I apologise, never popular, but one way or another, I anticipate this will be over fairly
quickly.  Think about it, if you are tired, they are even more tired and this might allow you to make some headway
and then you’ll finish sooner and be able to get some rest…  I need you to cover the last few days: Redcliffe to Fort Drakon.”

                                                                                    ~~...~~

“We were at Redcliffe when we heard that the horde was heading for Denerim…  Riordan told us, he said he’d listened in.  We decided we had to try and stop them… Riordan asked to speak with us alone… We both went up to his room and then he told us… That only a Warden could ultimately slay the archdemon and that it would be at the expense of his or her life.”

“Wait. You didn’t know this before that day at Redcliffe, Neriya?” asked Dummond.

“No, I didn’t”

“And that was…?”

“What? …Oh about ten days before slaying the beast.”

“Did Alistair?”

“No.”

“How do you know he didn’t?”

“He would have told me…”

“Are you sure?”

“Oh for the… yes. Look I need to pee and I need to sleep.”

“Answer the question and I’ll escort you to the toilet…”

“As for sleeping… Not yet.” Intervened Pryce.

“He told me all the bad things early on…”

“What bad things?”

“The increase in appetite, the nightmares, the effects on fertility, the reduced lifespan…”

“When did he tell you this…”

“No. Toilet now.  I’ve answered your question…”

While Neriya was out of the room.  Pryce went and tapped on the door of the room where Alistair was being interrogated and had a quick heads down with Sagital.  Alistair had apparently also already mentioned that he did not know that killing the Archdeamon would spell death for the grey warden delivering the fatal blow until the conversation with Riordan. They both agreed that this could be significant to Konrad’s first priority.

Neriya returned with Dummond:

“Thank you. We were at Lothering, look, Alistair Theirin can’t keep his mouth shut for love or money.  Especially for love. So if he’d known about this, he would have told me. He went through this period of drip, drip, dripping this Grey Warden stuff on me… I think he was trying to see how I reacted to it all.  Some weird, Alistair, pre-courtship, kind of
testing of the waters.  In the first few weeks after Ostagar he told me that I was eating like a pig and I told him to
shove it and then he explained the appetite thing and gradually all the rest… Plus he was as surprised as I was when Riordan told us…”

“How could you tell?”

“Oh for the love of the Maker! He went still, he went pale… I have been laying the  guy for almost two years now… I read him.  I read him in that room in Arl Eamon’s estate.  His first thought was, “This is f***ed”… His second: “I’m the one to do it…” He can be such a transparently macho idiot in that way…”

“And how did that information make you feel, Neriya?”

She sighed:  “How do you think, Dummond? It made me feel physically sick… like someone had kneed me in the stomach.  And before you bother asking: I do know how that feels… Even though Riordan had reassured us that he would take the blow. Riordan was great, he did what he could… but I am no fool, so many things could go wrong, I’d seen brave people, good people, people just in the wrong place at the wrong time, die… After all we had done, it seemed that at least one of us was going to die.”

Both Alistair’s and Neriya’s accounts of the slaying of the archdeamon overlapped considerably.  Whereas Alistair was happy to agree he was the neares t to the archdeamon when it died, he also pointed out that while he was striking it Neriya was casting so neither of them were able to determine who actually delivered the killng blow.

“Does it matter?” Asked Alistair.

“Isn’t it possible that we both struck the final blow?” Asked Neriya.

Pryce thought Neriya’s question was particularly good.

They went to bed at around 2:00 am and Konrad scheduled a meeting with Pryce and Sagital the next meeting at around 8:00 after a quick breakfast. 

                                                                       ~~...~~

 

Konrad pondered theRedcliffe question. 

“It does shorten the timescale in which they could do something considerably… Between Redcliffe and Fort Drakon there is little more than a week… And not an empty one for them at that…”

“Is what they say credible knowing Duncan?” Asked Sagital.

“I think so.  He was always quite careful not to break all of the bad news up front.  It makes sense, people tend to be traumatised after the joining.  The last thing you want to do is overload them with bad news.”

“You gave me all the bad news fairly quickly, Konrad” Sagital pointed out with just a hint of resentment.

“And what kind of life had you had before the joining Sagital?  Everything I told you about the grey wardens, however unpalatable, was an improvement on almost anything that had come before, was it not?”

“I guess so…”

“I thought you would appreciate my refusing to patronise you after all you had been through…  Anyway, back to our task, these two…  They were relatively comfortable, he in the Chantry she in the tower, they had a place, a status, modest, but nonetheless,  Duncan would not want to shock them too soon and perhaps risk losing them.  In any event,
since Ostagar beckoned what was the point? They might not even survive… We may be able to do a rough check.  Ask them what they know of the effects of the taint. Drop it in the middle somewhere between the other things. Redcliffe to Fort Drakon again.  Aggressively. And finally, another day, another letter, received early this morning. A bit more effusive than the last.”

“Who is it?” Asked Sagital taking the letter Konrad was proffering her.

“The uncle, a fairly high ranking noble.  Kingmaker, I suspect. His power and influence will accrete proportionately if the lad proves to be a successful monarch.  At this stage it seems he’s the only active supporter Alistair has among the
nobility.  Who’d be a bastard, eh? Talking of whom, how is the bastard King?

 “Epson informed me that Alistair is playing with die in his cell…”

“Hmm.  We’ll address that later perhaps.”

                                                                           ~~...~~

 “So, pretty boy… Redcliffe, imminent death, cue mercy f*** or pity f*** or would that be a mercy/pity f*** combined?”

“You really don’t have anything else to do with your mind, Epson, do you, apart from turning it into an extension of your penis?”

“Why, and you do?”

“To answer your question: No, Neriya and I did not have intercourse in Redcliffe that night we did not, in fact, have intercourse again until after the Archdeamon was slain.”

“See, I find that kinda strange… Here you are throughout all these other trials and tribulations, at it like bunnies, but from Redcliffe to Fort Drakon, nothing…  What happened in Redcliffe Alistair, what killed
the urge?”

Alistair looked towards Sagital but she had turned away, purposefully he thought.

“Stop eyeballing my girlfriend, will you, and answer the bloody question…”

“Your girlfriend.  I am really surprised…”

“Why?”

“Too good for a numbskull like you, Epson.”

“Back to the question, pretty boy, I may be a “numbskull” but I know a diversion when I hear one and so does she…”

“We were not… in the mood…”

“But why not, what happened between you?”

“Nothing happened between… us.”

“So something happened with someone else that queered your pitch… for a while…”

Alistair remained silent.

“Your eyes just dropped down to the left, Alistair, and your feet started tapping…”

“We were afraid… we…”

“But by that time you’d both been facing death almost every day for over a year…”

Alistair rallied: “Death uncertain, not death certain.”

Epson leaned forward put his face close to Alistair’s and said very quietly: “So one of you did do something…
Ohh… blinking… pardon me, correction” He sat back: “YOU, did something. You betrayed your oath as a Warden, huh?”

“I don’t have to put up with you calling me a traitor to my face… After all, what have you ever done?”

“Actually, you do. You both surrendered yourselves to our authority, remember? Chain of command and all that?”

“Just get on with it already and do what you want with me!”

“Why do I get the feeling that you’d like that, pretty boy? That it would almost come as some sort of relief?”

“I am not answering any more of your questions…”

“Feel free, but see here’s where the fun starts… because there’s two of you.  If you don’t co-operate perhaps Neriya won’t get supper this evening or we won’t allow her to sleep… It can be arranged, right?”

Epson turned to Sagital who nodded silently and then held up his right hand spreading the fingers: “Five minutes, we’re going to leave you for five minutes now to think this over”.

 

Modifié par Maria13, 20 mai 2010 - 07:59 .

[SRWill64]

I just want to kill Epson....sorry. This is great! It really draws me in....you are a great storyteller, Marie13. Keep up the great work...

[Maria13]

OK, so I'm a bad, bad, woman... 

This is a little extra-curricular addition to Dark Ritual, sexually very explicit so don't read if easily offended, and in no way necessary to following the flow of that story. 

Absolutely adults only.

clariana13.livejournal.com/

[SRWill64]

Maria13 wrote...

OK, so I'm a bad, bad, woman... 

This is a little extra-curricular addition to Dark Ritual, sexually very explicit so don't read if easily offended, and in no way necessary to following the flow of that story. 

Absolutely adults only.

clariana13.livejournal.com/

If you're bad I'm worse 'cause I read it and thoroughly enjoyed it.
I have thought about doing the same type of story but I have no clue where I could post something like this that I wouldn't get in trouble for...

[Maria13]

SRWill64 wrote...

Maria13 wrote...

OK, so I'm a bad, bad, woman... 

This is a little extra-curricular addition to Dark Ritual, sexually very explicit so don't read if easily offended, and in no way necessary to following the flow of that story. 

Absolutely adults only.

clariana13.livejournal.com/

If you're bad I'm worse 'cause I read it and thoroughly enjoyed it.
I have thought about doing the same type of story but I have no clue where I could post something like this that I wouldn't get in trouble for...

Thanks...  But as the writer I must insist I'm the primeval corruptor. <3

Well, it would appear that for this kind of posting Livejournal is your friend.

[SRWill64]

Maria13 wrote...

SRWill64 wrote...

Maria13 wrote...

OK, so I'm a bad, bad, woman... 

This is a little extra-curricular addition to Dark Ritual, sexually very explicit so don't read if easily offended, and in no way necessary to following the flow of that story. 

Absolutely adults only.

clariana13.livejournal.com/

If you're bad I'm worse 'cause I read it and thoroughly enjoyed it.
I have thought about doing the same type of story but I have no clue where I could post something like this that I wouldn't get in trouble for...

Thanks...  But as the writer I must insist I'm the primeval corruptor. <3

Well, it would appear that for this kind of posting Livejournal is your friend.

Thank you. I appreciate the info. Perhaps you'll see me posting there soon.

[Gilgamesh1138]

Hey Maria thanks for naughtiness and another chapter!

[Maria13]

Dear SR, more than happy to help. Please tip me off when you do, we could make this an orgy or a shagfest!!!



Gil dear, thanks for the support.

[SRWill64]

Maria13 wrote...

Dear SR, more than happy to help. Please tip me off when you do, we could make this an orgy or a shagfest!!!

Gil dear, thanks for the support.

LOL  Sure. I'm not ready yet but sure why not? It could be a lot of fun!

[Lintanis]

Maria13 wrote...

Epson turned to Sagital who nodded silently and then held up his right hand spreading the fingers: “Five minutes, we’re going to leave you for five minutes now to think this over”.

 

 Been a long five minutes . We want MOAR!!! :DB)

[Maria13]

Lintanis wrote...

Maria13 wrote...

Epson turned to Sagital who nodded silently and then held up his right hand spreading the fingers: “Five minutes, we’re going to leave you for five minutes now to think this over”.

 

 Been a long five minutes . We want MOAR!!! :DB)

Umm, OK dude, but I can only go so fast you know....  Today or tomorrow do you?

María13:wizard:

[Lintanis]

  Just a little play on your words . I can wait , know how hard it is to write. Loving the story 

[Maria13]

Chapter 11

DA 9:31 Cassus/Haring
Denerim

When they returned they found that Alistair had collected himself better than they would have assumed possible.  As they proceeded going through the events of the last days leading to the slaying of the archdeamon Alistair would reply briefly but precisely, mostly repeating what he had previously told them.  When Epson attempted to open up things, Alistair would strive to close them down.  Sagital was growing weary of phrases like: “That’s a supposition…” “May be your theory…” “’Fraid I disagree”. 

Eventually she intervened:

“So tell us, Alistair, what do you know of the symptoms of the taint?”

“Am I now being asked to give you guys a 101 on being a grey warden?”

“Humour us.”

“Very well. Increased appetite, reduced lifespan, impaired fertility, nightmares, tapping into the Darkspawn hoard mind…”

“Why does it reduce your lifespan?”

“The nightmares get worse, you start hearing more and more…Whatever… It affects your sanity, drives you mad.”

“Anything else?”

He held his hands out, “No.”

They called time on it shortly after that.  Konrad asked for them all to meet after lunch.

                                                                                    ~~...~~
 
“So from this list we have from both of them on the effects of the taint, what is missing?”

Dummond replied: “The physical effects…”

“Precisely.”

“So assuming Alistair’s knowledge of the effects of the taint was obtained from Duncan and Alistair in turn informed Neriya… Does the fact that information on the physical effects of the taint were withheld from them by Duncan support their assertions that he also failed to inform them of the ultimate sacrifice outcome?”  Summed up Sagital.

“I tend to think it does,” replied Konrad, “but of course it is not conclusive proof. In any event, I don’t and never expected to obtain conclusive proof of anything in this whole sorry turn of events.  I have not been disappointed.”

“Do we move on now?” Asked Pryce, “and accept that if Alistair or Neriya did anything to twist the outcome of slaying the archdeamon it was done within the space of some ten days?”

“I think we should explore other alternatives, that the initiator of what happened was neither the lad nor the lass, although they clearly benefited, but someone else who was

making preparations considerably in advance of the last ten days…”

“Magic.” Said Epson.

“Yes it would involve magic of some kind and that reduces the field, at least among the group to Wynne and this other one, this… Morrigan.”

“But Wynne’s old school and a healer…” began Pryce.

“And so am I.  What was that you were telling me about the other day, Pryce?... Nevermind. But for the record I would agree, we can eliminate Wynne on the grounds that this outcome does not fit her and would be entirely out of character. So we are left with Morrigan.”

“Morrigan, who disappered.” Added Sagital.

“Yes, curious that…” Said Konrad.

“They both made very clear their dislike for her, perhaps that is intriguing in itself, seeing how diverse their little group was in the first place…” put in Dummond “Grey wardens to the hilt, use what you can, how you can, and enjoy the ride…” he added admiringly.

“I can’t speak for Neriya, but Alistair’s dislike seemed genuine. Very genuine and he does not strike me as a person who hates easily, especially someone of the opposite sex.” Said Sagital.

“Insofar as Neriya shows any emotions, she also expressed a dislike of Morrigan, although she explained it by saying that Morrigan lacked compassion. I think that was genuine.” Added Pryce.

“And what do we know of Morrigan apart from that?”

“A practitioner but not circle, an apostate, as if that really means anything…” said Sagital.

“A hedge or wild witch,” added Pryce. “The problem with us mages is that we are too trained,” he opined, “we’re generally taught in the same way so we develop the same skill sets and practice similarly, we’ve lost our appreciation for what hedge magic might be like and might do, so in a situation like this, we are lost…”

“Any suggestions on how we might bring this together?” At the end of the table Epson gingerly put up his hand. “Epson?” Said Konrad.

“Ummm, well…They couldn’t have done it, but it may be this Morrigan. They don’t like Morrigan, but we seem to agree that they’re hiding something. Some guilty little secret.” He waggled his eyebrows, “And… Morrigan did a runner… She did a runner just when the potential for payback seemed at its highest, him being king and all now. So she got something from them, in a moment of weakness, say that night at Redcliffe, something more valuable to her than a King’s gratitude.”

He paused and looked at Konrad, “seems to me we have some sort of blackmail scenario going here. Of course,” he said glancing quickly at his companions, “Not that I know anything about blackmail myself… but… Morrigan, having made her preparations, like all good blackmailers do, set the trap and when she saw the opportunity, trading them their lives in exchange for… We don’t know, something they didn’t like giving, something shameful…” Another pause and a shrug.

“Please continue.” Said Konrad.

“OK, so I’m the dunderhead here, but magic, wild magic, bad magic, doesn’t it often require a trigger or a source of energy to activate it? Blood, death, child sacrifice…  Um, I don’t know…” He said eyeing Sagital, “sex?”

Konrad look at Epson and then cast his eyes around the table: “Epson… That intervention was… Compelling… Extremely compelling.”

Epson glowed with satisfaction.

“Well, it seems we have a way forward here now… Morrigan.”

                                                                                            ~~...~~

“Morrigan…” said Alistair, looking at his fingernails. “We met her after Ostagar.”

“How?” Asked Sagital.

“We were struggling to get away from the battlefield after our recovery.  The place was overrun with darkspawn… She
seemed to be doing the same thing. So we joined forces, you can’t really be picky in a situation like that…”

“What do you know of her?”

“Hardly anything.” Said Alistair making eye contact, “an apostate obviously but she was very cagey about who she was, where she came from… We didn’t get on, as I’ve said, the whole templar/mage apostate thingy, but apart from that, we just didn’t get on  on a personal level so it’s not like she ever told me the story of her life.”

“Would she have told Neriya?”

“Don’t think so, especially since Neriya and me… Became involved.”

“So what do you know about her?”

“Apostate, heartless, arrogant, conceited… Liked jewellery.”

“Jewellery?”

“Yeah, you know, shiny stuff… bub…, I mean baubles”

“How…”

“In the early days, Neriya tried to keep on her good side… There not being many of us and all.  Occasionally we’d find stuff and that’s what Morrie liked.  Trinkets. Sooo superficial.”

“Why did she leave?”

“How do I know?”

“Humour me: Speculate”

“She wasn’t up to the big fight.  Self-sacrifice, not her style. She was all about self-interest.”

“And you had nothing to do with Morrigan, Alistair?”

“I wasn’t her type, she wasn’t mine.”

“Not in those last few days…”

“We barely spoke.”

Epson butted in, leaning forward: “What did you give her? What did she want from you?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean in exchange for ensuring that you both survived when the archdeamon was slain?”

“I don’t follow…”

“My question is, she cast some kind of spell to prevent either of you from perishing when the archdeamon was slain, so what did you give her in exchange for that?”

“You are really going out on a limb here.  I don’t know where you got this crazy idea from…”

“She prevented you both from dying, pretty boy, so your love could continue to flourish and in turn you agreed to make some form of sacrifice…”

“Sacrifice? Are you accusing us of being apostates now?”

“In exchange…”

“Epson, what can I say? This train of thought is completely barking, even for you…  But think this through, why would we strike a bargain like this with someone we both despised, especially since, if she didn’t deliver, at best there would be only one of us still standing to call her to account?”

“You were desperate…”

“You’re desperate, desperate to hang the full blame for some kind of, of… Of mystical foul up, on Neriya and me…”

                                                                      ~~...~~

“I hate him” Said Epson after they had called time: “hate him, hate him, hate him and HATE HIM…!”

“Calm down, Epson” said Sagital, “you really shouldn’t take this job so seriously…”

“If I didn’t take it seriously, I wouldn’t be able to do it…” He took a few deep breaths holding his hand to his stomach, “right, I know what I’m going to do, I’m going to confiscate his die…”

“Gosh, that is just so mature…” she jumped up to try to prevent him from leaving the room but was too late.  She let herself collapse against the wall and sighed…

Alistair was casting the runes as Epson stormed into the cell.

“Give those, here! You’re not meant to have those…”

“OK…”

Alistair stood, held out his hand, let his wrist go limp and tipped the rune die into Epson’s hand.

“Childish things” said Epson, looking down at the runes, “the toys of a snivelling baby…”

“Go F*** yourself, Epson. I’m sure you do it very competently…”

Epson threw a punch. Alistair blocked it, “Oops!”. 

At that moment, inconveniently, Sagital came in “Stop…”

“Look, Sagital,” said Alistair whilst still restraining Epson, “why don’t you just give us ten minutes or so? Numbskull and I have something to sort out…”

“Yeah, couldn’t agree more…” snarled Epson without so much as turning to look at her.

“Because,” said Sagital, “that is not what we do around here…” she hit Epson on the back of the head with a fist.

“Ow!”

“Get out, next time it’s my sword.  And as for you…” she said turning on Alistair, “ It’s about time you started living up to your station…”

“And what would that be? Alistair the brief? Bastard king in waiting?”

“No! Alistair the A**h**…The idiot who hides behind his own illegitimacy to avoid making uncomfortable decisions, the guy who plays to his weaknesses rather than his strengths! Grow up.”

 She slammed the cell door before locking it.

                                                                                            ~~...~~

The mood was far more subdued around the table at supper than it was at lunch.

“Well, this part seems prepared too.” Remarked Pryce. “It was to be expected, these are resourceful people…  It would be interesting to see if they got on previously with Morrigan or if this animosity was recent, the result of a falling out, but again… there has always been the possibility that they are innocent… That this was some kind of fluke.”

“But the records…” said Konrad

“We know they are hiding something,” said Epson, “we all pick up on that…”

“But innocents sometimes also hide or feel guilty about things…” Objected Dummond “which of us here doesn’t have a secret or two in their past…”

“The records are centuries old,” replied Pryce “the fourth blight ended 400 years ago, how do we know that good old Garahel didn’t die in Antiva of heart failure or his injuries rather than because he slew the archdeamon?”

The question only seemed to add to the prevailing gloom.

“I for one…” said Konrad “feel I would benefit from an early night today, I need to think things over…  Tomorrow we start little after dawn.”

                                                                                     ~~...~~

When Sagital entered his cell Alistair was just a bundle on the left wrapped up tightly on his cot fully dressed facing the wall clutching the rather thin blanket.  She put the candle down on the floor beside her and watched him for a while even though she could see little more than the back of his head.

Then she reached out and shook his shoulder gently.

“For the love of the Maker…” he groaned, “bugger off…”

“Alistair…”

“Umm, Sagital…  Not the usual wake up…”  which was a fork being struck on a metal bucket, “I am having some good dreams here… why…”

“What do you dream about?” she asked her voice suddenly full of inquisitiveness.

“Oh sod, that’s none of your business is it?” He sighed, “happy things…”

He threw his legs over the side of the cot and quickly pulled the blanket around him, and rubbed his eyes  “I’m cold… Anyway… Why are you here?” he said looking around at the darkness, “Is this some kind of perverse new interrogation technique, asking about my dreams?”

She put her finger to her lips, “I thought we should talk…”

“Now? What time is it anyway?”

“I’m sorry I can’t tell you…”  

He took a breath and coughed “Even the air feels cold, has it snowed?”

“I’m sorry…”

He was silent for a moment or two as if taking stock of the situation or mulling things over. He looked down at her and added in a quieter voice “Is this extracurricular?”

She shrugged.

“Do the others know you’re here…”

She looked towards the door.

“Well, what is it? Yes or no?”

She shook her head.

“Is there a way to get my runes back?”

“I apologise, but Epson is very taken with them, he went to sleep clutching them…”

“Huh, so who’s the child now… Well since he’s asleep and you’ve woken me… Couldn’t we do something to help me get back to sleep? Me being relatively inexperienced and all…”

“That suggestion is beneath you,” she whispered scathingly “you sound like…”

He interrupted her, “so how’s Neriya coping with this, knowing her, I bet she’s doing just peachy compared to the hash I seem to be making of it…”

“I…”

“Yes. You’re sorry but you can’t tell me… OK, so, to sum up: No runes, no nookie, no news of Neriya… What exactly are you offering me here, Sagital?”

And she stunned him for the second time in three days when she leant over and put her arms around him.  Alistair froze.  Then she started to cry.

He allowed her to sob for a few minutes, wondering if the tears were genuine, and then opening his arms to loosen hers from around him said: “Let… me… go…”

“He beats… me” She said lowering her arms but burying her face in his chest.

“I am sorry, but what is that to me? You seem a big enough girl and not short on your own resources…”

“When you… Give me refuge…”

“Is that a strange new way of asking for… Forget it.”

“I am serious,” she snuffled “here in your kingdom…”

He took her by the shoulders and pulled her off him holding her in front of him: “Darling, don’t know if you’ve noticed but in these last few days the sum total of my “kingdom” is this little cell… I’ll be damned if I cut another desperate deal with a devious woman to get out of a tight corner. And I’ll deny ever saying that.”

She looked down at the floor.

“Give me your knife.”

She looked at him surprised.

He sighed.  “You’re in casual clothes if this is extracurricular you are breaking plenty of rules just speaking to me like
this.  If Epson beats you, wouldn’t he beat you even more if he found out you were with me, like this?… you must
have brought something along.  I would… I promise I won’t use it unless I have to defend my or Neriya’s life.  You want my help? I won’t tell anyone you gave it to me and I will return it, I swear by Andraste’s virtue. Give it to me here…” he held out his hand. 

She pulled the knife out from under her sleeve and laid it in his outstretched palm. It seemed a delicate thing, but strong, as long as the distance between his wrist and the tip of his middle finger. Its blade was shaped like a leaf, pointed at the end, wide at the middle. Where the midrib would be it was cast thickest tapering towards a razor thin, razor sharp, edge.

Unbidden she pulled out the scabbard and handed that to him too.

He breathed in “These are my terms. Information, you give me information, two questions… and a promise to get me a sword if things start going pear-shaped. If not, I’ll still have the knife... If I get out of here I’m sending you all packing back to sacré Orlais. You too, but, I will turn a blind eye if you return.  I’ll give you passage, not refuge.  Just passage, say to the port here.  You told me to be mindful of my station.  There you have it. If you agree nod. Then you can say you didn’t tell me anything.”

                                                                          ~~..~~

The servant girl did knock but entered before Konrad, who was shaving, got a chance to say “come in”. He reflected ruefully that that was fairly typical of the general lack of finesse he had observed ever since coming to Ferelden, both in the people and the country. 

“You have a visitor…” said the redheaded lass, “downstairs…”. 

Konrad snorted “Why did you let her in?”

“She’s an old lady, I wasn’t going to but she told me I really should leave her standing in the snow and would I do that to my own granny? My granny died… two winters ago, and no, I wouldn’t, so…”

Konrad wished he had noticed before he hired her that she talked too much “Where is she?”

“In the parlour… I lit the fire.”

“Tell her I shall be right down once I have finished here.”

“Yes”

He had heard of her by reputation but somehow he hadn’t been told how tall she was and that she was still very beautiful.  She had been warming her hands at the fire but she stood to her full height when he entered. The pale winter light from the window made her skin look slightly translucent and unearthly.  He had heard some very strange rumours about her lately, not that he gave them any credence.

“Excusez-moi de vous déranger,” she began, “and please overlook my poor Orleisian, it was much better, once, alas now a long time ago.  It has been some time since I have had the opportunity to practice it…  You must be Konrad…”

“And you must be Wynne…”

She put her hand up and patted her hair, “Well… It is slightly perturbing to be recognised.”

“Lass” he said “Fetch us some spiced wine.  Please sit down.” He said turning to Wynne.

“Thank you” she said, “it may be a bit early in the day but conversation always flows easier with wine, don’t you think?”

The girl brought them a cup each and they sipped in silence for a while.

“Why are you here?”

Her blue eyes met his, “You are holding my king downstairs, why should I not be here?”

“But of course he is more to you than that…”

“They are more to me than that.  You are a soldier, no?  They were my commanding officers, or near enough, for almost two years.  They are good leaders and dedicated fighters. I respect them.  I respect them a good deal and it pains me to see them in this situation.”

Konrad did not reply but concentrated on his wine.

“May I ask, what is the purpose of your investigation?”

“From mage to mage?”

“From mage to mage.” Replied Wynne.

Konrad explained as briefly as he could.

Wynne let her hands fall into her lap: “And you think Alistair or Neriya would have the power or the means as well as the intent to do that… Always assuming, of course that Grey Warden tradition has it right… When did the fourth Blight end?  As I grow old I find my memory for quaint historical facts is not what it once was...”

“5:20 Exalted…”

“Four hundred years ago! Well, as I say, do we really know what happened four hundred years ago…  But even setting that to one side, what you hypothesize would require a good deal of magical practice and preparation time.  Neriya is of course a mage but far less experienced than you or I.  As for Alistair… Well, mage to mage again, the Theirins have always had their own brand of magic, but it is magic that runs through their veins, not learnt or consciously applied.  Most of them are quite unaware of it and ‘tis better so.”

“This Morrigan…”

“An apostate sure enough, but not even a civil one.  Very full of herself, very arrogant… Very young.”

“Blood magic…”

“Surprisingly no. But what you contemplate here goes far beyond simple blood magic…  We are in the realm of transubstantiation, spiritual transference on an unwieldy scale…”

“And yet they seem to be hiding something…”

“And who does not?  If I were to spin for you the tales of all the sins I have committed in my life, we would be sitting here a very long time indeed.  As for yourself… Oh, you know how mages love to gossip even at our level.”

Konrad held up his hand “I should presume my many misdemeanours are well known… But suppose they were
the means, the means for the maleficar’s end.”

“They are very much what they appear to be. Two young people very taken with each other, coping in circumstances which many others would find hard to endure. If they were, they would hardly do it consciously… No, they would not.”

They were silent again.

“Is there anything further I can do to assist you?” Asked Wynne.

“You have been extremely helpful and have given me much to think about.”

Her mouth tightened slightly but she nodded. “I am sure. I should go.”

“To the circle tower?”

“No. I will be remaining in Denerim to await your determination.”

They rose and she turned towards him.

“Do remind me… the formal farewell…”

“You lean towards the other person to your right and then to your left.”

“Ah yes of course!” she said and did it perfectly.  But keeping her hands on his shoulders, she looked straight at him once again and said “There are still many of us here who recall how things were over thirty years ago… And a few of us would do anything to avoid a return to that situation…”

Konrad hesitated, “I am sure you would…”

“Be assured. Irving sends his regards…” She said releasing him.

As she left the room, Konrad couldn’t help muttering to himself: “I’m sure he does.”

 

Modifié par Maria13, 29 mai 2010 - 01:17 .

[Maria13]

Chapter 12

DA 9:31 Cassus/Haring
Denerim

Konrad was late putting in an appearance that morning so it was Sagital who went up to see him.  She came down about twenty minutes later, brighter than usual it seemed in her silver plate and announced:

“Swapsies time…Pryce and I taken Alistair, Dummond and Epson, Neriya”

Epson looked sourly at Dummond.  “I’m going to speak to Konrad.”He said.

He came down five minutes later.

“I get Neriya, entirely on my only.”

“This is all kinds of wrong and you know it…” Dummond protested.

“What? Identifying with the captives already Dummond?  I’d hoped you’d last longer than that.  As for me, I just want to see what pretty boy’s girlfriend looks like. Alone. Is that so bad?”
 
                                                                               ~~...~~

“Well since my girlfriend’s flirting something nasty with your boyfriend, I’d thought I’d swing by a take a peek at you but, you’re…” He made a smacking noise with his lips: “Pswr… Too elven… Unfortunate. Well, what have you got to say for yourself, elf, cat got your tongue?”

“Sorry, I wasn’t aware you had asked a question…”

“Uuuuh, sharp are we, bet you’re not like that with him, bet you’re all sweetness to pretty boy.”

“You would be surprised.”

“Oh so he likes a challenge, I like challenges too… Give me your hand”

“No.”

“But why not? Am I not desirable or worthy?”

“Ask me questions, relevant questions, and I will answer them but I will not play stupid, pointless games with you…”

“So here’s a question then, suppose I were to hurt you Neriya, would do you think the outcome of that would be?”

“I am not afraid of you, you sad, stuck up human…”

“Well that’s really a bit stupid of you, isn’t it?” He said and jabbed his fist forward hitting her straight in the solar plexus.

Neriya was knocked backwards off her chair and landed on the floor face upwards heaving for breath.  

At first she succumbed to panic, realising she couldn’t breathe but she told herself she’d been through this and worse before, that either her breathe would come back, in which case she’d live, or it wouldn’t, in which case she wouldn’t, so why worry about it either way? That only left the pain radiating from the pit of her stomach which was excruciating and seemed to flood every corner of her being and which she was sure would make the tips of her fingers curl, if she could only feel them…

Epson squatted down beside her: “While you’re paying attention, three things: First, there’s more where that came from so you better start co-operating. Second, I’m sure you’re aware if pretty boy gets to hear about this, the proverbial will hit the fan, and it’s quite possible none of us will get out alive, including pretty boy, and that doofus Dummond who seems to like you.” He paused “what those guys see in you, beats me. And third, as regards pretty boy you are aware that everything you are, your profession, your status and especially your race is a liability to him, aren’t you?  I hear he’s gonna marry his sister-in-law, a bit creepy if you ask me, but at least she’s human, right?

Neriya became aware that the idiot was apparently talking to her.  As if she cared. As if she cared about anything he could say to her at this moment as if the pain would let her care, he seemed to be jerking and gesticulating grandiosely like a marionette full of himself and entirely unaware of his insignificance.  Suddenly her chest heaved and her body independently of her mind took in a lungful of air with an inelegant, stuttering gasp.  She did not miss the fleeting expression of relief that crossed his face.

“… there’s more where that came from…” he repeated.

Exhaling deeply, Neriya turned herself over on the floor so she was resting on her arms and didn’t have to look at him, her chest heaving torturously,

“So what do you have to say?”

“Sad… sack… fuc… king … lo… ser”

“What?” He seemed genuinely startled.

“You… lost. You… just …lost”

He stood up.  She then realised rather dimly, how physically vulnerable she still was. She looked at his boots, they were muddy and scuffed and there was a tiny hole on the tip of the right one.  He took a small step back, what would come next? She wondered detachedly, a kick, or a stamp? Smart money on stamp, she thought…

At that moment there was a jolt to the cell door, as if someone had kicked it or thrown themselves against it.  It burst open and Dummond filled the doorframe.

“Epson, you, F***wit” 

With a speed that she would not have thought possible for such a large man he was on Epson holding him by the neck up against the wall.  Epson was jerking impotently saying in a strangulated voice, “Self defence… It was in self-defence”

“Like hell.” Said Dummond and without a moment’s hesitation punched him in the balls.

Epson screamed and after an extra few seconds, Dummond released him and let him drop without further ado
moaning to the floor.

She realised Dummond was on his knees beside her and suddenly he was picking her up and putting her on the cot in a sitting position and hovering over her.  He put his hand on her head as if to stroke it and took it away again really quickly. 

“Are you alright?”

“Clearly not…” she said almost choking.

“This is all my fault, I’m so sorry…”

                                                                                     ~~...~~

“So said Pryce you entered templar training at what age?”

“I was 16.”

“And you became a grey warden when you were 22…  I thought the average training period for a templar was three years…”

“I was probably a bit slow…”

“You don’t strike me as slow.”

“I… I really don’t see the point of this…”

“That’s not up to you, is it? Did you enjoy it?”

“Sometimes… I liked the discipline, no, not the self-purging, but the emphasis on hard work…”

“Tell me, how many mages have you slain?”

“Apostates, blood mages, deviants… A fair few.”

“I mean in your time as a templar…”

“Personally, none.”

“But templars don’t ever do their work personally, do they?”

“I guess for the most part that’s true.”

“I mean when they have a take down?”

“A take down?”

“When they have to hunt or “suppress” a mage, that is the correct term isn’t it “suppress”?

“It’s the term sometimes used…”

“They work in packs, like wolves or jackals, four to a mage don’t they?”

“Five…”

“Five, there you are, you know then. You know because you’ve done it. That’s one to hold down each writhing limb and one to beat, stab and cut, Sagital.”

“It wasn’t like that. It really wasn’t like that… most of the time…”

“And they tend to be young most of them, don’t they? Virgins too.  No true experience of living and there you are five guys to a girl who barely reaches up to your chests holding her down and slicing the life out of her while she screams and begs and cries for her mother, and promises she’ll do anything, anything for you if you’ll just let her go…” 

“I… I don’t really want to recall…”

“How many times did you do that?”

“I… What is the point of this?…”

““Not personally… I don’t want to recall” You’re pathetic, pathetic…  Protecting yourself, when they couldn’t, when
they didn’t stand a chance… No you know exactly how many, don’t you? And you remember them all…”

Alistair looked ashen.

“When you look at Neriya, sometimes don’t you think of them, that she could have been one of them?”

Alistair took a deep breath “Yes… Yes I do.”

Pryce continued as if he had not heard Alistair’s reply, “Tell me, when you were making love to Neriya, did you think about that?”

“Pryce…” said Sagaital

“I…”

“Did you get off on it?”

“No!... Just, no…”

“Pryce!” said Sagital “Pryce, that’s enough, enough… Go, get out now… Out!”  When the small mage didn’t show any sign of moving she bundled him physically out of the room and followed.

“No, I try not to, I try not to think about it … that is sick and twisted… I told her, not how many, not the detail… but I told her…” said Alistair to their backs.

Pryce started crying… “I saw it so many times, I… Some of my friends, people I grew up with… I saw their blood and heard the Templars laugh…That’s… ”

“Yes, I know” Said Sagital patting him on the back, “and believe me I am sorry. But how is hurting him now going to help that?  Will it bring your friends back to life? Do you think he was one of those who laughed as they killed and worse?”

Pryce glanced into the room. Alistair had turned his back to the door and had his head in his
hands.

“No, you are right…  I don’t think so. I just lost it…”

“You yourself say that the average training for a Templar is three years.” She continued reasonably: “Why did he not become a full Templar for twice that period?  He is not incompetent or inadequate as a warrior, quite to the contrary…  He was never THERE, Pryce, never one of them…He actually embraced becoming a grey warden, unlike most of us, including you and I, as an alternative…  He said a few days ago that taking the grey made him happy and proud, and I believed him… I think he meant because, in his view, it involved assuming suffering himself rather than inflicting it on others…”

“What happens now?”

“Now this ends.  It was getting ridiculous before it even began to get out of hand…”

“But Konrad…”

“I will talk to Konrad.  You just pull yourself together, Pryce…”

Suddenly they heard a commotion from the other side of the basement. “Oh for f***’s sake… what is going on here today!” said Sagital taking off at a run.

                                                                           ~~...~~

Konrad went to see Neriya first.  She was still sitting on the cot where Dummond had placed her. Her face was pale and slightly pinched. She was looking at the wall opposite the cot.

He sat down on one of the chairs.  “I am extremely sorry, this was entirely my fault, I am supposed to be in charge here…”

Without moving her eyes from the wall, she put up her hand as if requesting he be quiet but then asked, “how is Alistair?”

Konrad smiled sadly to himself. “Insofar as I know, he is fine… I am going to see him after speaking to you.  How are you?”

“It’s strange, I keep on having to say this, I’ve been worse…”

“I will discipline Epson, of course. He deceived Dummond into thinking he had spoken to me.  Dummond therefore carries no blame for this… When he realised what was happening he intervened and quite rightly so… I will be giving my determination in a few hours time.”

                                                                               ~~...~~
 
Alistair, of course, was a different matter. He was standing very straight and very formal in the middle of the cell with his hands clasped tightly behind him making the bruising on his knuckles that came from punching the wall of his cell several times about half an hour before, smart.

“What was that noise I heard earlier? Is Neriya alright? If she is not, so help me, I will make sure you all, all of you, pay for this…”

“She is fine, I have just come from speaking to her…” replied Konrad pointedly ignoring the threat.

He turned abruptly away. “Well for your sakes I hope you are right…”

“She is an adult, and a grey warden, too, you know. Not some flower you are bound to protect…” said Konrad to his back.

“I am aware of the first two points. As to the last… I feel what I feel and I am not ashamed of that…”

“I will be announcing my determination in a couple of hour’s time…” Konrad turned to leave.

“Tell me” said Alistair veering around quickly to face him again, “what would have happened if you had determined at any stage of this whole process that there was a case to answer and that we were culpable?  I doubt we would have been afforded the luxury of an ‘announcement’.  It would have been a quick cut to the throat for the both of us followed by a mad dash to the border for you, am I right?”

Konrad flinched.

“I see.”

“It would be a breach of your most fundamental duties as grey wardens.  You know how that is punished.  Very soon you will be making the self-same decisions …”

Alistair shook his head.

                                                                              ~~...~~

As they were being taken to the room for the determination, Alistair made a dash for Neriya and Sagital barely made a token grab for him.  Dummond let go of Neriya’s arm and actually stepped back so they could embrace. 

“Are you alright?”

“Alistair, I am fine…” but she appeared to be squirming a little too much in his arms.

“Are you sure?” he said swiping a stray braid away from her forehead.

“Yes, I am sure.” She replied testily, “let’s get this over with shall we?”

“This determination has been reached by myself with the assistance of my colleagues Sagital and Dummond. Originally it was intended that Pryce would assist but he has excused himself and I have agreed to his being replaced by Dummond.

It is clear to me, if not to my colleagues, that you are hiding something.  The others are much taken with you both, as
of course am I.  You are young, brave resourceful and have both suffered much.  You are plainly quite taken with each other and that is a pleasure to see.  But I am older, and, although I may be flattering myself when I say that I do not allow my beguilement with you to blind me as may have happened with my younger colleagues, I do not think so.  I sense you have both done something wrong here, something deeply wrong for which we may all end up paying, but certainly the both of you will...”

Alistair glanced over at Neriya, her chin was resting on her hand and she seemed to be paying deep attention to what Konrad was saying. He found this slightly disturbing. Konrad’s speech reminded him very much of the tedious sermons he was compelled to sit through, almost on a daily basis, when he was in the Chantry and his very first impulse was always to get out of there as quickly as possible either physically or, more commonly, by daydreaming. 

“It is for this reason that I would urge you for one last time today to tell us what it is you are concealing.  If you were wise you would do so because you would be sparing yourselves considerable future misery. So Alistair Theirin, erstwhile templar, King of Ferelden and grey warden, what say you?”

Sagital touched his arm.  He stood and cleared his throat, and said quietly, “I have done my best to assist you and endeavoured to answer all your questions.  I have nothing further to add.”

Konrad sighed, “And you, Neriya Surana, mage of the circle, hero of Ferelden and grey warden?”

Neriya stood: “I have nothing more to say.”

“Then since we have been unable to prove of find any wrongdoing on your part, you are both free to go.”

                                                                                        ~~...~~

“So I suppose you can tell me now what the time is, how long we have been here and whether it has snowed?” Said Alistair rather dryly to Sagital once Konrad had left the room.

She narrowed her eyes and tilted her head to one side, “Of course, Your Majesty…  It is approximately one hour past midday, you have been confined here for three days which makes it the 27 of Cassus or Haring, if you prefer, and it snowed the day before yesterday and again this morning.”

“I want to send a message to the palace and I think we both need a clean up and I need a shave… And…”

“Keep it…” She said very tartly, “but remember, you owe me… I’ll attend to your requests…”

                                                                                ~~...~~

Alistair was still very concerned by Neriya’s skittishness, contrary to their usual habit she insisted on cleaning herself alone. So he found himself leaning against the washroom door asking “So you are sure, you’re alright? Absolutely sure now?” To which he got a muffled response of “Later, later…”

“Oh.  She really doesn’t like you…” He said holding up the dress Anora had sent for Neriya which was black velvet with silver detailing, “It looks like a mourning robe… I wonder if there is a message there...”

“I like it.” She said holding out one hand while clutching a towel around her with the other and he gave it to her.

For himself he was quite pleased with the crimson doublet and matching trousers but had to suppress a little ick feeling when he thought that it was quite probable that they had belonged to Cailan.

Half an hour later they were standing at the doorway of the Denerim grey warden chapter house.

“So snow, a wash, fresh clothes… We are so out of here… Snow… It even makes dear, dirty Denerim, look clean, for a little while, at least… Let’s do this thing…” He held out his hand and she took it. “OK, try to look serious, and not as if you were resisting an almost overwhelming urge to throw yourself into the nearest snow drift and start romping around…”

“But I… Oh, I get it.” Her stomach still hurt but, as usual, she found his enthusiasm contagious.

Unlike on their outgoing journey there were a fair amount of people crowding the streets and their little procession drew quite a bit of attention with most standing to one side and getting a good look and a few even following.

Halfway to the palace, in the middle of the market square, he said, “We need to stop…”

“Why?”

“Busy here today, isn’t it?...” He said coming to a standstill and casting his eyes around. It was, the new year being just around the corner, shoppers were thronging the place and merchants were pushing their wares with redoubled enthusiasm but much of the buying and selling and wheeling and dealing had ceased when their presence was noticed. 

Before she could process things much further, he added, “So we can do this…” He pulled her tightly up against him clinching her waist with his arm and put his firm lips on hers and kissed her intensely, slipping his tongue impudently between her lips and exploring every corner of her mouth as if they had never kissed before. “…I always wanted to do this to you in front of lots and lots of people…”.  

After a while he mumbled “Open your eyes just a little bit and take a peek under your eyelashes, are they all watching us…”

“You are mad… Oh dear Maker…” uncharacteristically, she felt her cheeks flush.

“My turn…Wow… Back to real kissing, we don’t want them to think we’re faking…”

When they finally let go of each other it was to find themselves surrounded by a stunned silence. After patting Neriya on the cheek, Alistair suddenly seemed very preoccupied with adjusting his right cuff.  Then somebody wolf-whistled, someone else whooped, a small group discreetly began to clap and a child dodged between the guards and handed Neriya an apple and quickly ran away again. And the crowd roared.  Alistair smiled and waved and even Neriya felt compelled to aid by wielding the apple in the air.

 “OK” he said. “Job done. Time to move on now…” as they entered some back streets away from the square he leaned towards her and whispered “thank you for you very enthusiastic participation in my first political act…”

 

 

Modifié par Maria13, 01 juin 2010 - 06:20 .

[Gilgamesh1138]

YAY! I finally caught up! So sorry Maria13!



Okay, *gulps big glass of cold water* after that kiss, I need a cold shower too! Or a lake, a pool, a hose would do... maybe. Great job!

[SRWill64]

Maybe the whole Pacific Ocean is more like it! Yowzah! I LOVED it! Alistair is so awesome anyway! Love that man in so many ways...too bad he's not real...if he was my husband would have some tough competition!

[Maria13]

SPLASH!!!... There goes a bucket of cold water over you two...



I'm glad you both enjoyed it.

[Gilgamesh1138]

ROFL! *sputters* Thanks for that!



LOVED IT! But then, I love it all so... there ya go. : D



Maria you rock my socks!

[Lintanis]

Cant beat Smoochies lol

[Maria13]

Chapter 13

DA 9:31/9:32
Cassus/Haring Denerim

“She wanted me to have supper with her this evening but I told her I needed to see how you were… We’re
on for tomorrow… So this is the King’s private bedchamber is it? My bedchamber.  It’s pretty… ghastly…” 

There were overlarge and pointless tapestries on two of the walls and some very convoluted needlework on
the hangings of the four poster bed that had faded over time.   Over the fireplace there was a boar’s head surrounded by a mounted display of knives, swords and spears.  

“Well at least it has a bed and a big one. And you, of course, always a plus that… So tell me what happened back there?”

“Epson hit me.”

“What?”

“You heard.”

“Where? Where did that son of a b*** hit you?”

Neriya pulled up her dress and showed him the fist size bruise just below her sternum.

Alistair jumped to his feet off the bed where they were sitting as if he had been stung. “It’s my fault, he did it to you to get back at me…” then he walked back to her and took a careful look at the bruise.

“It is alright, Alistair, it is done and rectified.”  She said pulling the dress down and she told him about Dummond.

“I would have given the bastard more than partial strangulation and a punch in the balls…”

“But I am not sure he would have been able to appreciate it… He was rolling on the floor of my cell making some quite strange noises…”

Alistair suddenly cracked a grin “I really would have liked to have seen that…” then he added, “are you sure you are alright?”

“I am fine. Nothing a good’s night sleep won’t fix…”

“I’ll go easy on you tonight then…”  He said, “but I think we need some supper first.”

A little later when he had his arms tightly wrapped around her as they were about to fall asleep he said “Arrgh… so much happening in these last two weeks… I really need to process it… Did I tell you how I nearly got us killed?  I was just so awful…” 

                                                                        ~~...~~

The next morning Anora was just going round a corner towards her study when she came upon a gaggle of her maids and one of her younger chamberlains looking out of a window laughing and giggling.  Noiselessly she stood behind
the young people to see what the cause of such hilarity might be.  Three stories below in the deserted palace
courtyard there were two figures engaged in a snowball fight.  She was about to slap one of the maids lightly on the shoulder and order her to summon the palace guard to detain the trespassers when it suddenly dawned on her who they were.

After telling the servants to stop dawdling and get about their business, she went to the study that happened to have a very good view of the courtyard, pulled a chair up to the window and watched while she sipped her herbal tea. 

Unsurprisingly, his reach seemed to be longer but she was better on timing and precision.  They tossed snowballs back and forth for about fifteen minutes or so until Alistair seemed to loose patience with the distance battle and began walking towards Neriya who at first peppered him pitilessly with missiles and then tried to make a dash for it.  Eventually after some ducking and dodging he was successful in grabbing her and hauled her up, squirming and squealing, slung her over his shoulder, walked very calmly over to a snow drift and dropped her in. 

A few moments later she emerged dripping from head to toe and started berating him while he laughed.  She chased him then and it was his turn to attempt to get away.  After several minutes, though, he dropped to his knees and put his hands up, obviously suing for mercy.  There was none.  She gathered an armful of snow and dumped it over his head while he screamed, rubbing it into his scalp. Eventually, while standing over him, she pulled out his tunic top and stuffed the gap between the fabric and his skin with snow.

Half an hour later, when they were still trying to warm up in front of the fire, between his chattering teeth Alistair asked, “Remind me again why we’re doing this… Why I’m having to marry that woman?”

                                                                                        ~~...~~

Anora had always been a serious-minded person and because she had known Cailan since childhood and only
very rarely had they been apart, she had for many years assumed they were cut from the same cloth.  It was  therefore a surprise to come upon him one evening with a group of male friends and overhear him joking and teasing with the best of them.  It was more than a surprise, actually, it was a revelation. 

Shortly after that, the pieces of a puzzle the existence of which she had previously been completely unaware of, had suddenly began to fall into place and she started to suspect he was being unfaithful to her.  She would always ask herself whether at the heart of his infidelity lay, not a lack of chastity, but rather his inability to share his lighter side with her.  Not that in her mind it diminished in any way his blameworthiness.

Looking at Alistair play with Neriya, because that is what she recognised it as, pure childish, joyful play, she realised that they were so far apart emotionally that she could never hope to have any kind of mutually satisfying relationship with him.  If Cailan had been for the most part diffident and deferential towards her she realised that here was a person who had long ago cast off any diffidence or semblance of deference, he may have possessed in the first place.

                                                                                             ~~...~~

“So,” she asked him over supper, “what was this matter between you both and the Grey Wardens all about?”

He paused his fork half-way to his mouth, “Nothing really, a technicality… A minor technicality.”

“A minor technicality,” she echoed “whereby they detained you and Neriya under interrogation for three
days…”

“Minor, but complicated…Quite complicated, really.”

“Alistair… can I call you that?”

“Always been my name, Anora.”

“You are the most appalling liar.”

He looked at her, shrugged, put the fork down and helped himself to some wine.

“I don’t suppose you will tell me exactly what this minor technical complication, actually involved, will you?”

“You suppose right.  Over my dead body.”

“Well at least that is an honest answer.” She paused, “and what you told me a few days ago about being my husband…”

“I lied.” He interrupted. “I am sorry for that.”

She rolled her eyes at him and took a few more bites of her meal. “You know, I do have a use for you.”

“I’m so thrilled.”

“That was probably badly phrased. I meant to say that Ferelden may have a use for you.”

“Same reply.”

“Aren’t you even curious?”

“Should I be?”

“Alistair, I may be wrong, but I don’t think so.  Like Cailan you have… presence.  As your little street demonstration yesterday showed.  What I mean to say is, people will remember you. Long after both you and I are gone, it is you they will remember…”

“My ‘little street demonstration’. Right… As I said: thrilled.”

“We can use that…”

“Anora, since I assume we’re talking frankly. We are, aren’t we? I feel obliged to explain to you that I am not, and never have been, overly-enamoured of being ‘used’, as you so quaintly put it.”

“But you are very docile with Neriya…”

“That was and is different.  We were fighting, I was following orders, in combat someone has to command and others have to obey. This is an entirely dissimilar situation. I see no reason why I should automatically defer to you, or to your
opinions, or you to me, come to that.  As for now, I love her, so yes, I defer to her and humour her and may,
occasionally, be tempted to kiss her in public, that is what one does, is it not? I do not love you.”

“I appreciate your frankness, but I suspect that this is not going to be easy on either of us.  I was only attempting to establish some guidelines.”

“Well, here’s more: I am what I am and I am not backing down.  You may know more about governance, diplomacy, politics, guidelines and getting on with people who are not like me, all sophisticated stuff, I grant you…  But I have been places and done things you never will and you would never want to do.  For Ferelden, I should add, and without guidelines. I am sorry to be so brash but I did not go through what I did to become your lapdog or your thrall.”

She leaned back, there was something taunting in her eyes.

“Ah yes, and before you say it, I’m a hypocrite for marrying you, but that’s probably better for Ferelden at this stage than a civil war, which is what it would take to dislodge you from power, I imagine…” It gave him a sort of grim satisfaction to see Anora shift uncomfortably in her seat.

He got up “I may be wrong, but if we have anything in common it’s that we both like a challenge…  And that is something we both can use for the good of Ferelden…”

He paused and grabbed a pear from the fruit bowl in front of him. “I am sorry I have lost my temper, you’ve probably realised I have quite a quick one, but I find you extraordinarily irritating, especially when you talk down to me.  That’s a weakness I obviously need to work on.  Have a good evening.”

 
                                                                             ~~...~~
 

When he got back to their room Neriya asked him

“How did it go?”

He didn’t answer immediately but walked over to the fireplace, stood on tiptoe and not without some difficulty prised the boar’s head off the wall. 

“I have never, ever, understood why some people would slaughter animals not for food or survival but for fun, especially when there are darkspawn around.  I really don’t understand why they would go even further and put their heads on their walls… So, you, my friend, are out of here…” and put it lightly on the floor. 

Then he began on the weapons.

“This is rubbish, and this… Crap…” and started to throw them with a loud clatter on the floor next to the unfortunate boar’s head.

“So?” insisted Neriya.

“Trite.” He said, “it was very trite,” and then, holding up an ancient sword to his right eye and squinting down it, “look at this one, it isn’t even straight…”

                                                                          ~~...~~

If Konrad was slightly nervous at being summoned at such an early hour to the palace, or whatever passed for a palace in Ferelden, he felt more at ease when he was ushered into the little room that evidently was not a dungeon.  Alistair was leaning against the desk with his head lowered as if he were looking at the floor and his arms crossed over his chest. 

“Thanks for coming. Please sit down…” Alistair gestured at the chair just in front of him.

“If you don’t mind…”

“I do.” He said quietly, “sit down.”

Konrad sat.

“I’ve been trying to get my head around what’s happened these last few days.  I have also spoken to Neriya. We appreciate that you were doing what you believed you had to do and that you were doing what you felt was your duty…  So I, we, thought it was better if we came to some sort of accommodation…”

“Fair enough.”

“I’ve written to the First Warden.” He handed Konrad a page of vellum covered in surprisingly neat handwriting endorsed with a simple seal in grey wax.  Konrad looked slightly taken aback.

“I can write, you know. I can even spell when I put my mind to it.  As you see, I am suggesting that you, Pryce, Sagital
and Epson all leave Ferelden, never to return, at least in my or Neriya’s lifetime, which will probably amount to the same thing, anyway.  Since you were originally based in Orlais and your assignment here is finished I cannot see that you should object.”

Konrad returned the letter to him, “I don’t” he said, “Speaking on a personal note, I’ve not been feeling too well lately and I miss Orlais.”

“Good.  I am also proposing that Dummond be made commander of the grey here in Ferelden, given that both Neriya and I have other duties and there is a potential conflict.  Neriya speaks well of him and that is good enough for me…”

“How is Neriya?” interjected Konrad.

For the first time Alistair looked at him directly. 

“She is well,” he said stretching, relaxing a little “very well. A tough gal, just like you said. One other thing, have you heard of Warden’s Keep?”

Konrad nodded.

“Well, I am proposing that for the time being the crown will hold it in trust for the order, to be returned to the order’s full control at some future date...”

Konrad shrugged.

“Then we are in agreement?”

“We are.”

“Good. I would ask you write in support of my proposals then, send me a copy at your convenience.  You don’t have to go immediately, it is… sad, having to travel in the new year but by the end of Verimensis I will expect you all to be gone.  Apparently we are having a party here tomorrow to celebrate the First Day.  Around six I believe.  Dummond should come. Ah, yes, one final thing, I would suggest Epson be confined to the chapter house while he is in
Denerim. Ferelden can be a dangerous place sometimes.”

                                                                                    ~~...~~

“Do I really have to greet all these people in person?”

“You are their host, Alistair, so yes.”

So he stood next to Anora and took his cue from her.  Shaking people’s hands, smiling slightly, asking who they were and attempting to listen with some interest to their, usually, totally unengaging, replies.  After an hour of that he felt as if he would rather have a poisonous spider run its nether parts over his face or a shriek go for his eyeballs.

There was the occasional exception.  He remembered Alfstanna, for example, and enquired about her brother, Irminric.  When he saw the shadow cross her sad pretty face, he wished he hadn’t.

“He is quiet most days,” she said “but I’m not sure he knows where he is anymore, who I am or who he is
himself…”

“Neriya is here, too, somewhere.  You may wish to speak to her…”

“Yes I shall.” Replied the Bann, he couldn’t be sure that there weren’t tears in her eyes.

Then Anora suggested he “mingle”, apparently this involved doing very much the same thing all over again but this
time walking around the great hall, but at least it could be done holding a wine glass.  A glass.  He had seen glass in windows, of course, and the occasional coarsely grained glass object, but he had no idea that glass could be folded (did they “fold” it, like steel?) so finely so as to produce the delicate object he now held cautiously in his hand.

The questions began:

“Tell me all about your adventures…” said one very eager well-off lady, judging by her dress.

“Adventures…” he echoed

“Yes, you were at Ostagar, weren’t you?” she prompted.

“Ostagar wasn’t an ‘adventure’… It was a rout, a defeat, a massacre, well nigh on three thousand people, good people, died.  My half-brother died, your King died, my companions, my mentor…”

“So the hero of Ferelden’s an elf?” asked a young man who should have been better informed.

“Apparently… Although she’s only just broken the news to me… I’m still trying to come to terms with it...”

Undaunted, the young man lowered his voice “What’s it like kissing an elf and, you know, what’s it like… an elf.”

“Let me see…” he said twirling the glass, pretending to give the question deep consideration… “It’s probably an improvement on having sex with a maleficar, a darkspawn or a marbari…” “or your mother” he added for himself.

Dummond was also feeling quite lost and overwhelmed, being probably the largest person in the hall he also found himself the focus of much curiosity and strange looks.  Additionally, his Fereldan was getting pretty stretched and he wasn’t quite sure whether people were being rude to him or whether they were simply abrupt and less effusive than their Orleisian counterparts.  He was also beginning to ponder whether so many women bumping into him was purely accidental when he felt a tug on his sleeve.

“Dummond… It is good to see you.”

“Neriya, I… Yes, it was very kind of you to invite me…  This looks like quite a party.”

“I never got the chance to thank you…”

“Well, those were hardly the right circumstances… The last days, everyone was getting a bit fraught and
worked up…”

“Well you are here now” she stood on tiptoe and kissed him on the cheek. “Thank you. Anyway, I’m sure you
have splendid parties in Orlais.”

“I’m sure there are but this is the first one of its kind I’ve ever attended…”

“Really?” said Alistair draping his arm over Neriya’s shoulders.

“Your…” said Dummond placing his hand on his chest.

“Oh, cut it… new commander of the grey, otherwise I’ll have to call you “captain” or “commander” or something like that, won’t I? And the next thing I know you’ll be ordering me out of the palace to slay darkspawn…”

“Alistair…” said Neriya

“What?” He rather loudly said turning to her

“You know what…”

“Anyway,” said Alistair going back to Dummond, “this stinks. What I need to know is if there are any decent taverns around here… I’m sure there are but I haven’t yet found one.  We could go look together one day not too soon, Dummond.”

“I’d like that.”

“Good. It’s a done deal, then.”

                                                                                 ~~...~~

Alistair was attempting some sobering up sitting quietly on one of the balconies overlooking the hall.  He decided that there were two types of people attending the function.  The minority, those hanging around in the corners looking sad depressed or uncomfortable, but attempting to socialise anyway, and the vast majority who didn’t appear to give a hoot about anything, most of whom hadn’t even bothered to engage their brains.

“I would have thought this would be your kind of thing, Alistair.” Said Anora standing next to him.

“No, no, it’s not really. Too many posh people, so many women it’s simply daunting… I can’t dance… The only good thing is the drink. Is our wedding going to be like this?”

“No…”

“Thank…”

“It will be considerably worse if my marriage to Cailan was anything to go by.”

 

 

Modifié par Maria13, 06 juin 2010 - 03:54 .