Chapter 81
Kai found herself standing in a place like nothing she had ever seen before. This place, for lack of a better
word, was monochromatic. Everything was a dark, dull, blue-gray color. It reminded Kai of the water for rinsing
brushes after painting with watercolors all day, a day spent painting with mostly blue and black on the palette.
The air had a dank quality, like an old cellar, and it smelled like one. The moisture crawled along her skin, and
there was a low fog which clung to the ground, making it impossible to see what lay beneath her feet. The fog
moved when she moved, yet it did not go any higher than her ankles.
She was standing in ruins that looked to be a twisted hybrid of Highever and Ostagar. That is if Ostagar and
Highever had been put on a flat plain or in a surrealistic swamp. And neither of them had been made of dark blue-
gray stone like the buildings before her. The architecture was slick and twisted, as were the trees. Black
gnarled things, their branches seemed to be woven into the sky which was hanging low with roiling, bluish black
clouds.
There was something strange about the sky, but she couldn't quite place it. Something other than the disturbing
way the clouds were moving and curling in on themselves. Well, that and their sinister color, like bruises on a
corpse. She found herself staring at the writhing firmament. And then it hit her. There was no Black City
hovering in the sky. Kai found herself spinning in place looking for that which should be there but wasn't. This
had to be the Dream side of the Fade, but there was no hulking menace hovering on the horizon. Not that the
atmosphere was not ominous enough. She felt her pulse quicken, a fluttering of panic. She wasn't dead, nor was
she in the Dream side of the Fade. It was as if she was in limbo, for lack of a better description.
“Ali! Alistair! ALI!” She tried calling to him, but her voice just echoed in the soggy air. She heard no
returning cry. But there was something that scared her more than the lack of a returning answer. She couldn't
feel his connection to her anymore. His presence, always linked to hers as if by an invisible rope, wasn't there.
Maker! Kai started running through the ruins which kept changing, sometimes the architecture was more Highever,
then more Ostagar, then vice versa. The buildings even changed into a dwarven architecture reminiscent of the
thaigs in the Deep Roads.
Again she called for him, her heart beating faster, her breath coming in gasps. “ALI!” And there was only the
muffled thick silence that filled in the space with a sense of...nothingness. She felt a gaping hole in herself
that had always been filled. She realized, now that the connection was missing, that the empty place in her had
held him. That the part of her soul that belonged to him had been his even before she had met him for the first
time. He had always been with her. And now that he was not...she wouldn't, couldn't, stand the thought that it
might be forever. The anguish of it was worse than when he had died on top of Fort Drakon. The unbearable ache,
the loneliness of it, had her running headlong through what looked like the gate to Ostagar. She had no idea where
she was running to, only that she had to find him.
She was about to run out past the gate and keep going, when she heard clapping behind her which brought her up
short. She turned to see Loghain slowly bringing his hands together while leaning his shoulder against the frame
of a huge gate, with his ankles crossed. He looked as he had before the battle when she had met him in person for
the first time. He still bore the same haunted look, the same dark circles under his eyes, the same arrogant
scowl. His silver River Dane armor shone dimly in the muted light. “And I thought I was the coward who ran
away.” Kai watched as he unfolded himself from the frame of the gate and walked back the way she had just come.
She might have assumed that Loghain was just a demented vision to go with this, what, nightmare? But he seemed
solid and more real than the landscape or ruins. She strode to catch up. She found him standing on the bridge at
Ostagar, or this realm's strange version of it, at least. The bridge hadn't been there when she had run through
just a moment ago. So the ground and the architecture didn't just fluctuate, it could metamorphose completely.
It just was not within her power to cause the changes. If she had that ability, she certainly wouldn't have
Loghain here with her. Wherever 'here' was.
He startled her with a low, cynical chuckle. “So you still hate me that much do you, Warden? Not nearly as much
as I hate myself, of that you can be sure.” It was as if he had read her thoughts. “And no, I am not the ravings
of a fevered dream or your imagination, before you ask.” He turned to her with that familiar bitter smile and the
cocked eyebrow he had at the Landsmeet. “What, no recriminations? No pointed fingers? No demands, Warden, that I
explain myself? How refreshing, considering what happened when last we met.” He turned back to look down below.
Kai forced herself to stop staring at the man and look down to see what he saw. It was the battlefield with the
darkspawn and the soldiers all fighting the battle that had started it all. It was all in slow motion, as if they
were all fighting under water.
“What is this place?” Kai felt her hands gripping the stone railing of the bridge, its surface smooth and almost
slimy, not rough as stone should be. She let go and stepped back from the balustrade.
“Nowhere,” he grinned at her.
“Ha, very ha. You are a right bastard, Loghain.” Kai grimaced at him.
“Very well, you might as well call it 'The Land of Regrets.' Or at least that's what I call it. I don't know if
the Maker has a name for it. It is in between the Dream Fade and the Fade of the Dead. It is part of both, and
neither.” He swept his hand out encompassing the field and the mountains and the forest below them.
“So how can I be here? And more to the point, how can I be here with you of all people?” Kai found her gaze once
more upon the chiseled profile before her. “If I had my way, you and I would never have spoken again, let alone be
stuck together in some sort of ….”
“Perdition? Purgatory?” He turned his icy blue eyes on her and gave a barking laugh. “Yes, I suppose it would be
punishment for you to be stuck with me for eternity wouldn't it? And for your edification, Warden, this isn't
Hell. That is the Black City in its corrupted form. It is a house of nightmares for souls which don't have enough
of a conscience to regret the pain and suffering their actions caused. People like Howe get sent there.”
“Well then, why are you standing here, Loghain? Did the Maker miss?” Kai's voice dripped with sarcasm.
“I said it was for people who had no regrets, Warden.” He stepped in, putting his face in hers. “I never claimed
not to have done what I did. Nor did I ever deny that my actions had painful consequences. I said I did what was
necessary. As I have always done. As I have always had to do.” At this he stepped back. His voice had become
tired, and sad? He turned back once again to the battlefield below him. He seemed to crumple inside himself.
“You are here with me, I suspect, because you and I share regrets in this place. That is only a guess, mind you.”
“It was not I who quit the field leaving his King and best friend's son to die. I didn't quit the field and leave
thousands of my own countrymen to be slaughtered by monsters, either. I got the damn tower beacon lit! What
regret could I possibly share with you about this place?” Kai crossed her arms and scowled.
He gave another low cynical laugh and spoke to the battlefield rather than her. “Oh, I don't know. That you let
your King die? That you let your mentor and your fellow Grey Wardens and thousands of your fellow countrymen get
slaughtered by monsters? You may have lit the beacon, Warden, but I suspect you always felt you lit it too late.”
Loghain turned back to her, this time with a smug look on his face.
“The fact that I lit it late, Loghain,” she hissed, “might have to do with the sodding darkspawn that had tunneled
up through those lower chambers your men were supposed to have taken care of! It might have been lit late as each
floor of the tower had more of the blighters than the last! And it might have had to do with a bloody, nug-humping
ogre at the top with the beacon!” Kai was all but yelling now. “I don't even know how the smelly bastard got up
there. What, did they have a sodding potion to make it small enough to fit through the door? A bit of cake with
magic? First time I had to fight one of those blasted things, and I almost got my arse handed to me because I was
distracted by trying to figure how the buggering bastard got through the bloody door!”
And then he did something she had not expected. Loghain started to laugh, a real laugh, not the short bark of air
from before. And she couldn't help it, she found herself joining in. She wiped her streaming eyes. “Oh Maker,
you should have seen all our faces when that beast turned around. And its breath! I thought the poor sod of a
mage who had traveled with us would wet himself. I thought I would wet myself come to that.” Kai stopped
laughing. The poor mage had died on top of that tower when the darkspawn had overrun it. She had thought she, Ali
and Argus were all dead then as well. And they would have been, if not for Morrigan's mother, Flemeth.
“So many dead, a trail of bodies that lies behind us both. I was born into a Ferelden occupied by the Orlesians,
you know. I watched that occupation eat away at the country, at my father. The taxes kept getting higher and
higher every year until the year my father finally couldn't pay.” Loghain's face had become haunted once again.
“As punishment, they held my mother down and raped her. They made us watch. When my father tried to fight, to
stop them, they hit him in the head and knocked him out. But I watched. I watched every second of every minute of
it. Have you ever had a moment in your life, Warden, that seems to take hours? Days? Weeks? Years?” He looked
back to the battlefield. “They slit her throat when they were done. My father went after those men that same
night. He slit the Captain's throat. I lost my mother and my home in a blink of the Maker's eye. We became
outlaws as you are now, Warden. Ironic isn't it?”
He smirked and looked once again to the distant battle. “I met Maric a year or two after that. A gangly, naïve
idiot. Then, my father died so Maric could get away. I hated Maric for that. The last of what I had, the last
connection to who I was, taken away from me. But my father made me swear to save him, that stripling of a boy who
didn't even want to be king.” Loghain looked at her and laughed. “You know it just occurred to me, Warden, that
his bastard....” Kai made a low sound in her throat as her fists clenched and her eyes narrowed. “I beg your
pardon, Warden, his son Alistair is more like Maric than Cailan was, and not just in his ability to fight.”
“If you hated Maric so much, how did you ever become so close?” Kai found herself fascinated despite herself.
“Maric was not the greatest leader, but he had one thing that few do. He had the ability to make people love him.
And it wasn't just that he was the son of the Rebel Queen. I abhorred him, and yet I too came to love him as much
as I had once despised him. You remind me of him, you know.” He quirked an eyebrow at her.
“I remind you of Maric?” Kai snorted. “I met him once, outside of the Fade. He seemed so sad, even when he smiled
and made jokes. It was there, behind his eyes. It was still there when I met him again after we ended the Blight,
and I was in the Fade.” Loghain cocked an eyebrow at this. “I was dead, well mostly dead. It's a long story,
involving your daughter and a hired assassin.”
Loghain looked at her steadily, “Yes, I know about Anora. Her actions are some of the regrets that get played
before me here.” Kai would have asked him to elaborate, but he did not pursue it further. Instead, he continued
as he looked back out to the small figures below them. “And you, Warden, will wind up the same kind of tortured
individual as Maric if you insist on taking the responsibility for the actions of others on yourself. That is the
other trait that you and Maric share.” He turned his intense gaze on her once again, and Kai felt herself
flushing. “He blamed himself for the deaths of all those at West Hill. He blamed himself even as he ran a sword
through his beloved, the traitor who actually made it happen. He didn't blame Meghren or Orlais for their deaths
either. Himself, it was always himself that he blamed. He said the men died because of him.”
“While you always blamed Orlais? Or blamed Cailan for being a fool? Or the Grey Wardens? I am not you Loghain.”
“And for that you should be bloody grateful, Warden.” He growled at her putting his face in hers. “My hatred of
everything Orlesian stemmed partly from their actions but also from my own guilt. I know that now.” He turned to
the battlefield yet again.
“Oh, so many things that I have done and not done, Warden. Shall I give you a list? Some of them you know of
course, you were present for them. Shall I tally the ones you weren't aware of?” Again he flashed her a smile
that looked pained.
He ticked off on his fingers. “I couldn't stop them hurting or killing my mother. That was the start of it all.”
He gave a sad chuckle. “And after that events seemed to just pile one on the other. I was the one who found Maric
while I was poaching. It was because I brought him to our camp that my father died when the supporters of Meghren
came looking to kill the would-be king. I fell in love with Rowan, who was betrothed to my then best friend. She
was the only woman I ever loved. I convinced myself that it was okay to do so as Maric loved another and Rowan
loved me. But I am the one who told Maric about his beloved's...about Katriel's, betrayal. He killed his love
because of me, and it broke him. And then I shoved Rowan back at him to fix him and save Ferelden. I married a
woman I did not love and who deserved better. And I had a daughter I did not spend time with because she was not
Rowan's. A daughter who, despite my absence, is more like her father than I would have thought possible, if her
actions at the Landsmeet were any indication. Doing whatever it takes. That is my Anora.” He grimaced
painfully.
“All of my guilt and anger with myself, which I could not bear, I then put on Orlais and Cailan and the Grey
Wardens. On you, too. It colored everything I did and became a trap from which I could not escape. So, I spend
my eternity in this farce of the battle of Ostagar wondering if a part of me let Cailan die because he should have
been mine and he wasn't. And wondering if I didn't spend time with my daughter because she was another woman's and
not Rowan's. Was it all because a part of me hated Maric for being with Rowan, even when it was I who made her go
to him?” He gave her a smile that was a mix of bitterness and sorrow. “You see, perhaps, why I am here, Warden, in
this nowhere place? It is a fitting, is it not? A nowhere place for a hollow man.” Kai was prevented from making
any response by a lyrical voice behind her.
“The question for you, Kaidana Cousland, is will you be able to keep yourself from the same trap, made of regrets
and guilt, that you are surely building for yourself? Or will you end up here, as Loghain?” Kai turned to see a
familiar hooded female figure. And in less time than it would take for Kai to snap her fingers together, she felt
the missing piece of her soul return. The feeling of him trembled into the void within her before she even saw his
beloved face as he walked out from behind Andraste. She almost fell to her knees weeping with relief.
Instead Kai propelled herself forward and leapt into his arms, which had opened for her, their lips meeting. His
hands fisted in her hair, as hers gripped his shoulders. She tasted salt tears. So, she was weeping after all. It
was after she or he had pulled back so they could look at one another that she realized his own tears were making
tracks down his cheeks. One of his hands brushed the hair back from her face, while the other cupped her upper
back. Her hands were fused to his waist. Her blue eyes met his gray ones, and she felt a foolish grin on her face
that mirrored his own.
“I would suggest you that two get a room, but the accommodations here leave a bit to be desired.” Loghain waved
his hand at the landscape, a sardonic smile playing on his lips. Alistair looked over Kai's head at Loghain,
wrinkling his nose slightly while grinning.
“Ah, one of my favorite people in all the world, living or dead. You look different, taller. Oh, you have your
head back.” Alistair's voice held genuine amusement, and his statement received a deep chuckle in response.
“I am so pleased to see you as well, Alistair Theirin.” Loghain grinned and gave him a slight bow. “And I don't
think I have had the pleasure of meeting our other visitor.” Loghain had turned to Andraste who threw back her
hood and, with a smile, shook out her honey colored hair.
“Loghain, meet Andraste, or as Alistair and I like to call her, boogity boo lady.” Kai turned toward Andraste.
“How did I end up here if I’m not dead?”
“Just dead tired?” Alistair quipped, and Kai frowned at him. He held up his hands. “Sorry, beloved. You know I
get this way when I'm under stress.”
“Or when you are hungry, or when you are...” He put a finger to her lips stopping her.
“Point taken.” She grinned at him.
Kai turned back to the figure. “Well?”
Andraste grinned at her. “You, Kaidana Cousland, and you, Loghain Mac Tir, have unfinished business. I felt it
was time you met again, so I brought you here.” Kai flashed a look at Loghain. “You both have more in common than
you thought, no? And I thought perhaps you both could learn from one another.”
“She's right.” Kai turned to look at Loghain. “You and I both do what we feel we have to, no matter how unpleasant
or what the cost is to ourselves, don't we, Loghain Mac Tir, Hero of River Dane?” Kai's lips twisted into a wry
smile which Loghain returned.
“And you are like Maric, don't forget that, Warden. You won't let your guilt turn into a hatred that blinds you to
all else as I did. But see that you don't let your guilt break you the way it did Maric. And now that your two
escorts are here, I suppose it is time for you to go. I will not lie, Warden....”
“Kai, Loghain, my name is Kai. To my friends.”
“Are we friends now then?” Loghain's icy blue gaze held what looked like, hope? Kai nodded and smiled. “I will
not lie then, my lady,” he held up a hand when she started to interrupt by repeating her name, “I have enjoyed your
company. You are going to have to kill Anora, you know that, don't you?”
Kai swallowed before nodding. “Yes, I know.” He nodded at her again.
“It cannot be helped, remember that. I am her father, and I don't want to think of it. But the responsibility for
what she has become lies with me.” Loghain gave her that cynical, sad smile again.
“And with me, I suppose.” Kai turned to look at Alistair. “Oh, come on. She might not have gone round the bend if
I hadn't chopped his sodding head off in front of her. Probably not the best thing we did, even if he did deserve
it. At the time.” Alistair directed this last statement at Loghain with a cheeky grin.
“So you have changed your mind about me too, boy? You have forgiven me as well?” Alistair nodded. “Well, isn't
this just a day for surprises? If it is day, so hard to tell here.” Loghain gave a low laugh. “You are your
father's son. I should have seen it sooner. Maric could always forgive others. The only person Maric could never
forgive was himself. Forgive yourself, young lady. You have many more miles to travel and so much more left to do
yet.”
Kai took one last look around 'The Land of Regrets,' as Loghain had called it. She couldn't leave. Even after all
he had done, she understood Loghain now as she had never done when he was alive. And she understood herself better
as well. “I won't go. If Loghain stays, I stay.”
Andraste shook her head. “I am afraid you need to go back. As Loghain said, you have miles to go before your
rest.”
“Ward...Kai, I appreciate this more than I can tell you. But you do not want to stay here, believe me. And
Ferelden needs you. More now than it did when I was running things during the Blight.” Loghain had moved closer
and gently grasped her arm.
“I am sorry, but it is cruel to leave him here. Look at this place! He did many things, but he doesn't deserve to
stay here any longer.” Kai turned back to Andraste. “He doesn't deserve this! He stays, I stay. Or did I not
speak plainly enough?” Kai's hand sliced the air for emphasis.
“She stays, I stay as well.” Alistair's hands gripped her shoulders still giving his lopsided grin.
“You are both out of your minds.” Loghain addressed Alistair. “If you love her as it appears you do, you will
take her out of here and never come back.”
“Hmm, my father said you could be as stubborn as a Ceffyl,” Alistair grinned at Loghain. “For the record, so is
she.” And he gave Kai a little shake.
“I prefer 'implacable',” Kai grinned.
“Your father...talks about me?” Loghain stared off into the distance looking through the landscape.
“Uh huh, Cailan, Duncan and Rowan do too.” Alistair reached out and grasped Loghain's shoulder. “Even an elven
woman, Katriel?” Alistair chuckled at Loghain's incredulous expression. “They want you to come home.”
“Why in the world...how...?” Loghain seemed at a loss for words.
Kai turned to Andraste. “I don't understand, I thought he was here because he was being punished by the Maker.”
“No, my daughter, not by the Maker. He is being punished by himself. The Maker only punishes the worst, and as he
told you, they go to the corrupted Black City for that. No, people here, they put themselves here. And they hold
the key to leaving at anytime.” Andraste walked up and gently stroked Loghain's cheek. “You have only to release
yourself, Loghain Mac Tir.” And she gestured behind her where a door had opened in one of the buildings and
figures lit from behind by the welcoming light of the Fade could be seen. Kai couldn't see their faces, but they
were all gesturing to Loghain.
Loghain turned to Andraste and the look on his face made Kai's heart squeeze painfully in her chest. It was a look
of longing, sadness, disbelief and hope. Andraste smiled and nodded, holding out a hand to the doorway.
“Go to them, Loghain.” Kai reached out to grab his arm, and instead of the metal of his armor, she felt rough
leather. The arm was muscled and hard, and she was looking at a boy of eighteen, his face more rounded and less
chiseled. The same intense blue eyes looked into hers, but they were not ringed by dark circles. Nor were they
hard and icy. “Go to them,” Kai nodded as she felt her throat constrict and tears well in her own eyes. He nodded
at her, gave her a cocky grin and grasped her arm in a warrior's grasp. He threw a grin at Alistair over her head
and loped off in the careless gait only teen-aged boys seem capable of. The figures at the door all gathered
around him, and he started to go with them. He turned back at the door, waved once again, and then he was gone.
“And now we need to get you back, my daughter. The others will be worried.” Andraste walked towards yet another
doorway and Kai found herself following.
“So, you needed me to do your heavy lifting once again? What am I your go-to-girl for every task no matter how big
or small, here and in the Fade?” Kai could hear Alistair stifling a laugh. “Really, I can't keep coming back here,
except in dreams. I am going to have to build a Summer home here!” Alistair did laugh this time.
Andraste stopped at a doorway that was pitch black rather than filled with light. She pointed inside the door.
“Remember what you learned here, daughter. It will serve you well in the future. You will need it, I'm afraid.”
She smiled and kissed Kai on the cheek.
Kai turned to Ali; she hated this part, leaving him. She put her lips to his and sighed. When they broke apart, he
gave his trademark lopsided grin and ran his fingers down the side of her face. “See you in your dreams, mi'
gra.” She nodded and tried to smile around the lump in her throat as she walked backwards into the darkened
doorway.
She was about to be engulfed in the darkness when a thought struck her. “Hey, what did you mean by ‘the others will
be worried?’” She saw Andraste shake her head and smile while Alistair blushed and looked down. “Sod it! Not
again! Aw...”
“BRASKA!” Kai found herself yelling into a room filled once again with the concerned faces of her friends. She
had a moment to register the faces of those present before she was crushed in Zev's arms.
Modifié par Gilgamesh1138, 24 juin 2010 - 07:49 .
Retour en haut
you ! Just take extra care with those wrists! And as fellow migraine sufferer you have my sympathies! You are the awesome sauce yourself! I love when you used that. I borrowed for a friend on the forum, I hope you don't mind. : D
