Sundown - Chapter 2The sky was cloudless and pristinely blue, dotted with soaring white birds. They hovered effortlessly on the warm thermals of air, a beautiful sight, and much too high for anyone down below to hear their raucous squawking. Alistair was as senseless to the sight as he was to the clamoring fanfare of trumpets blaring from Denerim's main streets. He slept. The sun crept up the sky and the birds wheeled away over the ocean, and still he slept. It was a deep dreamless sleep, the sleep of drunks and children who've cried themselves out. At that moment he was both.
"I dare you!"
"No, I dare you!"
A group of ragged children surrounded Alistair, staring down at his prone form. One reached out and touched his foot, then danced away breathlessly.
"That ain't nothing," the tallest one scoffed. "Chicken."
"You do it then, you was the one dared first."
The obvious ringleader screwed up his mouth, glancing from side to side. His freckles stood out darker as his face paled, but all he said was, "Watch me."
The boy stepped forward and bent down next to Alistair, balancing on the balls of his dirty feet. He inspected the sheath strapped to the armored calf carefully, as a hushed silence fell over the group. After a final consideration and a good, long look at Alistair, his hand shot out, nimble fingers plucking the small gleaming dagger free with hardly a sound. His grimy face broke into a smile.
"That's how it's done," he tossed the weapon from hand to hand, raising a challenging eyebrow to the small band of children ranged around him. "Dare me to cut a piece of his hair?"
"Unnnggghhh," Alistair groaned, and the boy leapt away. No one laughed at him, they were all too busy scrambling away through a small hole in the fence. After a moment's hesitation, as if loathe to give up so easily, he turned and ran after them.
"Zevran?" Alistair mumbled, his voice thick. He raised a hand to his face, as if to rub his eyes, but his hand was too heavy and his gauntleted fist smacked into his cheek bone. "Owww!" he yelped, jerked into sudden wakefulness.
Well, that was monumentally stupid, he told himself, opening his eyes blearily. His head ached like he'd lost a drinking match with Oghren. And why was he lying in full armor with his face in the dirt? Had he fallen asleep on watch? Oh, they would never let him live this down. He felt disoriented and nauseous and his mouth tasted vile, like sour milk and rank socks. Maybe he
had been drinking with Oghren. It hurt even to lift his head.
"Maker," he groaned again. His whole body was stiff, even his eyeballs felt bruised. He had to blink several times to bring the world into focus. No one was there. He'd thought he heard voices. He blinked again, trying to make sense of his surroundings. He wasn't in camp. He was in an alley. A narrow filthy alley with decrepit houses nearly blocking out the sun.
Oh.He let his head fall back into the dirt, almost relishing its cold, dusty feel against his cheek. The Landsmeet. Yesterday. His temples throbbed as the memories came rushing back, and he squeezed his eyes shut as if somehow that could stop them. But it didn't.
He wanted to sink into the ground. Maybe he should just lay here and wait until someone came to cart him off. Would they take him to prison? Did Grey Wardens do that? Or would they just force him to fight along side Loghain? He'd rather go to prison than to battle back to back with that traitor.
Last night he'd tried to lose himself in the twisting streets of the city, taking turns and alleyways at whim. He'd ended up lost in a maze of side streets and buildings that seemed to loom from the darkness, like some great hulking reminder of how small and insignificant he was. One side street had opened up onto a tiny, dark card den smashed in-between tiny dilapidated storefronts. Men had slouched in the shadows, talking in low voices. He'd waited, just standing there, out in the open. Waiting for what, he wasn't sure. Bandits, thugs maybe. Or even just some hot-headed troublemakers out for a fight. Not one person had accosted him. Not one. That's when he remembered Oghren's flask. Liquid courage for the Landsmeet, the dwarf had said, sliding his prized boot flask into Alistair's armored boot.
It was a good thing he'd waited to try that courage in a bottle. He would've been drunk senseless before the end of Eamon's speech. As it was, the world went foggy somewhere in between the third and fourth swigs. He had no idea what happened afterward. Not that it mattered. What did it matter what he did, he had no effect on anything. He wasn't even a soldier, not even militia, and the armies they'd gathered would all fight without him.
Alistair breathed in dirt and coughed, great hacking coughs that made the world spin. He dragged himself to the closest wall, pain shooting through his muscles as he forced himself into an upright position. His lungs burned, and now his mouth felt dusty and dry as well as tasting like an old soured leather shoe. One ray of sunshine touched his foot, and he looked up. The sun was nearly overhead. It must be almost noon.
What if… what if Elissa hadn't gone through with it? A sudden rush of hope coursed through him, making him feel both sick and elated. What if she realized her mistake after he left and was even now looking for him? She might not find him here, wherever here was.
Alistair stood, his armor feeling doubly heavy and his muscles aching with protest. He steadied himself, fingers scrabbling into the grimy wall, and waited for the blood to circulate back into his limbs. Finally, fingers still dragging along the wall, he made his way down the alley, shuffling out into the overly-bright noonday sun.
From what he could see 'here' was definitely far away from the elegant houses with their beautiful gardens and cobbled streets. The street was packed dirt, deep ruts running along its sides. The surface was uneven – some places were dry and cracking, some were wet with thick, foul-smelling mud. The houses were built too close together, many of the wood frames riddled with insect holes, the clay-like daub spread between the frame rotting and flaking away. Debris found little nooks and crannies to hide in and pile up in, making homes for the rats he saw scurrying along in the shadows.
An overwhelming stench of garbage and unwashed bodies filled his nostrils, the pungent scent of human sewage hitting him a moment later. But it was laced with something else – bread? A few barkers had set up stands, urging passersby to look at their wares. Most the wares seemed to be rags and wilting vegetables. Even so, Alistair's stomach rumbled. He would find something to eat, but not, he told himself, from a stand selling rotten vegetables over a pool of muddied ******.
A stand of dark flat bread looked promising, and for a few bits more he could get a slice of cheese with the bread. It was moldy around the edges, but he'd eaten worse.
"Wotcha want?" The seller's voice was bored and he drummed his fingers against his own rounded belly. His eyes lit up when he saw Alistair in front of him. Or, Alistair thought wryly, saw his armor in front of him.
"Cheese and bread, please." Alistair paused, "and… uhmm… have you heard anything from the castle?" His voice went up alarmingly on the last word.
The man gave him an odd look. "What were you, in a hole this morning? Tell you what, Ser, I got something better for you than this plain fare. One silver. The freshest bread you've ever tasted and cheese like butter. Two silvers, and I throw in the latest castle gossip. You won't regret it. My wife makes—"
"You're a thief, Seamus." The old woman in the cart across the muddy path called out, interrupting. "You'll break those pretty teeth of yours on his bread. His wife ain't worth a spit. My apples are what you want." She motioned at a pile of wizened apples so wrinkled Alistair had to wonder what year they'd been picked. Certainly not last winter. "And
I'll tell you all about the Queen's announcements for half that."
"I'd… umm… thank-you very much. I really just…" Alistair stopped, his stomach twisting into a hard knot of hope and sickening dread. "Could you just tell me… the Wardens…?"
"I know all about them Wardens, I'll throw it in for free," she pronounced, narrowing her eyes at her competitor.
"Fine, one silver for both bread and gossip."
"And cheese?" Alistair asked, turning back to the portly Seamus, who looked as if he ate much better than his own fare. The man sighed heavily but nodded. "Deal." Alistair reached for his coin purse only to remember he'd left it behind at Eamon's. "I… uh…" He didn't have any coin. Not one silver, not one bit.
"What is it?" the vendor set his hunk of cheese back down, but his hand didn't leave the knife.
"Uh… this is sort of embarrassing, but I… well, I don't have any coin."
The man's face slowly flushed from red to purple. He hadn't seen quite that shade of color before, not even on the elder templars in the chantry.
"Don't have any coin? You maker-cursed son of a ****!" the words finally exploded, "What do I look like? A sister of the chantry? You bleeding well better get out of my sight, if you know what's good for you. You're driving away paying customers."
"I…" He looked from the blustery round face of the man to the old woman, who now looked as puckered as her apples. One good swipe of his fist and the man would be crying into his bread instead of hawking it. That cheese knife would do nothing against his armor, and the man was all fat and no muscle. Yet, he couldn't summon up the effort even to argue. It wasn't worth it. Alistair turned away.
They would probably all be at Eamon's estate now, maybe enjoying their own repast, and he didn't even have money for a crust of dry bread. Loghain would be a warden.
A warden. If he hadn't died in the joining. Alistair smiled at that, a dark poisonous hope twisting through him. It would serve her right. She and Riordan could fight the whole blight by themselves. See how they liked that! Alistair found himself stomping down the mud-caked street away from the vendors, hardly looking twice at the shabby man who fell to the ground in his haste to get out of the way.
"Hey, Ser," a voice piped up, running after him. A boy with bright eyes and a smattering of freckles popped up at his elbow. "Them's both just old thieves, don't you let them get you down."
"It's not them."
"It's the castle, right? The queen's words this morning? I could help, I'd even tell you for free, but I'm just so hungry, I haven't eaten in days." The boy held his stomach, a pained expression on his face. "And neither has my baby sister."
"I'm sorry," Alistair said, and he truly was. He knew the boy had to be playing it up, but the hollow cheeks and thin, stringy arms told there was truth within the lies. "I don't have any coin."
"No… but I saw you got an empty sheath there, and what good's a sheath without a dagger?"
"What?" Alistair looked down. The sheath strapped to his calf was indeed empty. He felt the breath knocked out of him, and had to reach a hand out to the boy's shoulder to steady himself. His dagger. His lucky dagger. Duncan had given it to him after his joining, and Elissa had talked a dwarven smith into emblazoning it with a rune while they were in Orzamar. A rune for luck. Alistair felt tears welling, and had a mad urge to laugh. It burbled out of him, the laughter coming sharp, tinged with something dark and uncontrollable.
"Ser?" the thin waif of a boy looked up at him, his voice surprisingly steady. "Did you run out of drink? I know a place you can get it cheap. Tastes worse than ****'s ******, my da used to say, but it'll do."
With a last convulsive gasp that was more sob than laugh, Alistair let go the boy's shoulder and sat heavily on a set of old, rickety stairs. "I look that bad, do I? Or is it the smell? Oghren would be proud, one night on the street and already being mistaken for a drunk."
"Ser?" the boy asked.
Alistair didn't reply. The child's eyes were too old for that grubby, skinny face, he thought.
"Hmmph," the urchin gave a small sound, as if deciding something, and crossed his bony arms. "You look right fine and don't smell too ripe, not for these parts. That's the problem, see. No one comes down to this end of the city 'less they got reason. And I knows what a man needing the bottle looks like, I seen it plenty."
"Whatever you've seen, I've no coin for food or drink or news, no matter how cheap," Alistair said wearily, wishing the sun wasn't shining quite so bright.
The boy heaved a sigh, and said reluctantly, as if it were against his better judgment, "Well, I guess if'n you don't you don't. So this is just free then. Don't tell anyone I told ya free, though." He cleared his throat and spit off to the side. "So's this morning. The Queen rode around the city, not here o'course, just in the fancy streets, and told everyone to stop fighting each other and instead to join up her army to fight some monsters," he paused, but seeing he had Alistair's attention continued. "She didn't say so, but I heard she exiled the bastard prince or maybe had him killed, and now all the nobles are all kissing the Queen's toes like they weren't just calling her a dried up old harpy the day before. Army is to leave day after tomorrow, and she's going with them. With no arl, she's leaving the chantry to mind us. As if'n the chantry will do anything but preach at us."
"And what of the Commander?" Alistair asked, his voice barely above a whisper.
"The old commander or the new commander? The new commander is that Grey Warden, she's captaining all the armies. I heard her whole family got slaughtered right in front of her, and she drew the symbol of Andraste all over her body in their blood, swearing revenge. They say the spirits of her slain kin rose up and linked their spirits with hers, giving her the power of ten warriors. Do you think it's true?"
"I… I don't know. Some of it, maybe." Alistair's eyes were unfocused, remembering the night she'd finally confided in him. He hadn't known… all through Ostagar and Lothering, he'd gone blithely on, wrapped up in his own woes and not even realizing how much she was suffering. It had mortified him when he learned his mistake, but holding her the night she cried – it had changed him. For the first time he realized what it was to be there for someone else, to take care of someone. He'd strived to be a man she could count on after that, a partner. It wasn't something he was good at, but he'd thought… he'd thought they'd finally come to be equals. Alistair clenched his teeth in an effort to push back the pain opening in his chest, but then the boy continued on with his news and the words struck him like new, fresh blows.
The Hero of River Dane. A Grey Warden.
Alistair's hands fumbled at the sheath on his calf. It wouldn't come free. He threw one gauntlet on to the ground and tugged at the sheath, not caring he'd sliced the tip of a finger in his haste.
"Take it," he said brusquely, shoving the item into the boy's grimy, grasping hands.
"Thanks!" he said, and was off around the corner before Alistair could reply.
It had been a foolish hope. She never changed her mind, he knew that. It'd been stupid even to think it. And to even consider the tainted blood would harm Loghain— He should've known nothing so simple could kill Ferelden's hero. Alistair felt as if he was balancing on the edge of a precipice, looking down into a dark chasm so deep he couldn't see the bottom. Who was he now? He didn't know.
"Spare a coin, soldier?" A hunched woman held out her hand, coming toward him on the stairs.
"No." Alistair pushed past her, almost tripping in the deep rut carved into the road. He had to move, he had to get away. But where could he go? He had no money, no belongings except for Oghren's empty flask.
One thing he knew, he wasn't going back to Eamon's. He just wasn't. They could keep everything, he would find some other way to make money. Or no, he
would go back. He'd go back and demand they give him his share. He'd earned a cut from their coffers. Hadn't he killed and stolen and ransacked every corpse they'd come upon, just like her? But they would all be there, probably sitting around talking about him.
Leliana's eyes had been so sympathetic at the Landsmeet – now he imagined her composing a new ballad, one of the bastard prince who would not be king. The man who would never be a Hero. And Morrigan – Oh, she would be oh so pleased. He could hear her voice in his head now, taunting him.
Fickle, fickle, man. I knew you were stupid, Alistair, but I had no idea it ran so deep. Giving up on your Grey Wardens already? What would your great hero Duncan say? I'm sure he would be sooo proud of you. It's no wonder Elissa chose Loghain. Tell me, Alistair, are you a coward? Or do you just not like to share your toys with someone better than you?"Get out of my head!" he yelled, causing a few people to turn their heads. They didn't seem bothered by it. Maybe this was where all the crazed people ended up when they had nothing left. Maybe he should just start stealing. They'd done it often enough. Or, he could be a sword for hire. But – No sword. No shield. Oh, Maker… where had he left his shield? Duncan's shield?
A flood of tears threatened to overwhelm him, water swimming in his eyes until he couldn't see. What had he done? Oh, Andraste, what had he done? He couldn't go back, he couldn't give her the satisfaction. He couldn't face her. But first the dagger, and now Duncan's shield… The great blossoming pain he'd felt at he Landsmeet was back, opening like an immense cankerous sore in his chest. He slid down the trunk of a small tree, its branches hardly spanning six feet, and rested his head on his knees. The hard metal joints of his armor pressed painfully into his forehead, but he welcomed it. He'd take the physical pain. It was better than the dark welling ache inside him. What had he done?
What had he done?He'd given Elissa and the Wardens over to Loghain. Handed them to him. But no, no they'd forced his hand. He couldn't watch Loghain become a Grey Warden, it went against everything—everything—they stood for. It was a blight upon the memory of Duncan and their whole brotherhood, just as the darkspawn were a blight upon the world. And he hadn't let her… she'd insisted. She'd stood with Anora against him.
He'd had dreams… such dreams. Foolish, little boy dreams. He should've known better. There was no such thing as true love. How silly, how extremely silly he must've seemed to all of them. All that waiting—
Well, he was done waiting. He stood up. He would find a woman. Then she would see. His stomach gave a great, gurgling growl. First, he needed money. Pickpocketing was out, that was Leliana's speciality. Elissa had picked it up quickly, her nimble fingers as fast with a blade as they were with a pocket—No. He wouldn't think about that. He would—
The delicious aroma of hot food wafted over to him, rich and meaty, interrupting his thoughts.
"Pies, pasties, get your meat pasties here!" A thin man called, long arms simultaneously smacking away the grabbing hands of two skinny, shoeless children.
"What kind of meat is it?" Alistair asked, dubiously looking over the oily pasties as the children ran off. The pies glistened in the sun, but not with the flakey sheen he was used to. More like… he glanced at the vendor… more like the shine of the man's bald pate. A few strands of hair tried valiantly to cover his scalp, but failed miserably. Alistair wondered when the man had last had a bath.
"What kind of coin you got?" The man's voice was appraising and just as greasy as the rest of him.
Alistair shrugged, wondering if this man would get as mad as the last, "Does it matter?"
"Does it matter, he asks! The big strong knight. Wotcha doing down here?" His voice turned defensive. "I'm not selling anything illegal."
"No – I didn't think you were. I was just wondering." Alistair's stomach growled again.
"Well," the man drawled, eyeing him consideringly, "if you got coin…"
He shook his head.
"I don't give food away to beggars, no matter how finely dressed they are. Now, a real knight would have a weapon or two. You steal that armor? No? You take it from your father's armory? He kick you out?" The man's squinty eyes looked Alistair up and down. "Gold armor, if you please. Now
that would fetch you more than a few bits. I might know someone…" He let the words trail off and they hung in the air.
"No, I…" Alistair stopped. Why shouldn't he sell it? He didn't need it anymore. Obviously no one cared about Cailan's legacy, not even his wife. They were all too busy seeking glory for themselves. He'd already lost the sword and Duncan's shield. Duncan's shield. The last thing he had to remember him by. Alistair ground his jaw, trying to keep his face hard. "How much do you think I could get for it?"
The man smiled. Alistair noticed he was missing three of his front teeth and a fetid odor wafted from his mouth. He turned his face away from the nasty odor only to see another man hunched in the alleyway, defecating behind sparse shrubbery. If he had been made king, he'd do something to help these people, the children. No one should have to live like this. Even when he'd lived in the stables, at least they had been clean.
"A little squeamish, are ya? I can see why you don't carry weapons. Takes a powerful stomach to gut another person."
"I'm not squeamish. And I've done my fair share of killing, too. More than you can even imagine."
The man laughed, placing a dirty hand on Alistair's shoulder. "Sure you have, son. Sure you have."
Alistair sighed. What was the use? Like the man said, he didn't even have a sword.
"Come on," he nodded towards the other end of the street, where the houses drew even closer together. "I'll introduce you to my friend. He'll make you a good deal."
"The pies…" Alistair started, but then noticed the vendor had collected them all in a grimy scrap of cloth.
"They'll heat again," he said, following it up with a wink.
"Oh." Alistair's stomach dropped like a stone, his hunger fleeing. He wasn't sure what to say to that. He was glad now he'd had no money to buy one, and was already regretting agreeing to meet this greasy fellow's friend. If his deal was anything like the meat pies, it was sure to be a bad bargain.
But what choice did he have at this point? He followed the man down the street.
Retour en haut
So maybe Monday!
:crying:
But I'm happy you liked it! 
