(no subject)

[joiedecombat]

Still have not made any appreciable progress on the Redcliffe segment. This is the bit after Redcliffe, which is also after Orzammar, and thus contains spoilers for Orzammar and Redcliffe and the Brecillian Forest besides.

I did not actually mean for this past to be longer than the other parts combined. The dialogue just sort of... ran away with itself.

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"Something the matter?"

Alistair's voice jolted Clare back into awareness. She looked up with a jerk and found him standing close by, looking concerned and, presently, vaguely sheepish.

"Sorry," he said. "I didn't mean to startle you. Although in my defense, I don't think you can really call it sneaking up on you if I just, you know, walk up in plain view."

"I suppose not." Drained though she felt, she found herself smiling a little at the sight of him, face gilded with firelight. "I'm just more used to hearing you coming."

That got a short laugh out of him. "Yes, the armor. It does rattle a bit, doesn't it? But getting back to my question," he went on, lowering himself down to sit next to her at the fireside, and it occurred to Clare that he must really be worried if he was refusing to be distracted even that far by friendly banter. "Is there? Something the matter, I mean. Because I could be wrong, and there could just be something really fascinating in the campfire that I'm not seeing, but... You've been - quiet, since we left Orzammar. Since before we left, in fact. And there've been so many disturbing things happening lately that I can't work out which one it is that's bothering you. Or if it's just the one. And I really wish you'd say something," he concluded, "because I'm making a terrible hash of this and I'm beginning to think maybe it's the campfire after all."

He hesitated there for a moment, watching her face, then pressed on with an awkward earnestness that made Clare's chest feel tight. "What I mean to say is, if there's anything I can do..."

The question trailed off unfinished and hung in the air, suspended amidst the quiet snapping of the fire and the more distant, rhythmic sound of someone sharpening a blade, and Clare tried to work out what answer to give him. "...You could sit with me for a while," she suggested at last, and watched Alistair's face relax into a smile.

"As long as you want," he said. And then paused and thought it over. "Well. Zevran might be a little upset if I'm not up to take over for him when it's my turn to stand watch. But, do you know, strangely enough I'm not all that worried about what the assassin thinks of me."

"You still don't trust him."

"He did try to kill you," Alistair pointed out lightly. "You don't seem to have taken it very personally, I know, but it's given me a bit of a prejudice."

When she didn't say anything to that, he looked away, bringing a hand up to rub uncomfortably at the back of his neck.

"Zevran isn't what's bothering you," he said, a little helplessly, brows drawn together in renewed concern when he looked towards her again. "I wish you'd tell me what is."

Clare was the one to look away this time, down at her hands where they lay in her lap, Wynne's warning echoing in her ears.

She would never have made it through the Deep Roads without Alistair. Not without any of them, really... but it was Alistair's shield-arm she depended on the most in battle. He was the one she went to when the darkness of the night grew too oppressively thick.

As much as she cared for him, she couldn't help but wonder if she was being unfair.

And even with that, she couldn't seem to shake the damp cold of the Deep Roads.

Letting out a long, sighing breath, she picked herself up just enough to scoot over to where Alistair sat, pushing his knee out of the way so that she could settle herself down between his bent legs. He made a quiet, startled sound in his throat as she leaned back against his chest, not quite seeming to know what to do with his arms for a moment; Dog, supplanted as a backrest, grunted irritably and scrambled up to lie back down next to them, where Clare could rest a hand on the back of his neck and scratch absently behind his ears.

Here, at least, with the heat of the campfire bathing her face and the comforting strength of Alistair's arms wrapping around her, she could leave behind the chill of the caves. If that was unfair of her, she couldn't help it.

"Tell me." His low voice vibrated in his chest.

"Really," she admitted, "I've been trying not to think about it." Thinking about the days they'd spent wandering the old dwarven roads and halls led her unfailingly back to the ruins of Bownammar, and the sting of bile in her throat as she bent double and vomited onto the filthy and blood-covered floor - to the sick realization of just why there were so few women in the Grey Wardens.

Better to lose herself in the hypnotic, shifting glow of the fire and let her mind empty.

"...and," she added, after an interval, "I've been trying to think of a way to apologize to Oghren."

"Apologize? You mean, for..."

"...Branka. Yes."

"Hm," said Alistair, tucking his chin against her shoulder. "Yes, I see your problem. There isn't really a nice way to say 'I'm terribly sorry your wife turned out to be crazy and I had to put her down like a rabid--'" He checked himself there, and she felt rather than saw him look askance at the small mountain of mabari that had settled against his leg. "--well."

"I'd do it again," she said. "If I had to."

A little half-laugh hitched out of him. "I definitely don't recommend telling him that. Considering that it's Oghren, perhaps you should just buy him a drink and call it done."

Clare laughed a little herself at that - a short little exhalation breath - but her heart wasn't really in it. Even if what Alistair said was probably mostly true. In any case, there didn't seem to be much point in talking about it. Instead she sat in silence, listening to the steady in and out of Alistair's breathing, and the other noises of the camp. The shing of whetstone on metal had stopped, but in its place she could hear the lilt of Leliana's voice, and Wynne's steady reply, and more distantly the deep rumble of Oghren's snoring. Beyond the campfire, Sten stood watch, a silent, armored sentinel; past him, through the heat shimmer of the flames, she could see the gleam of Shale's crystals, and Morrigan's shadow moving in front of the tent she preferred to pitch well apart from the others. Though she couldn't hear him, Zevran, too, would be nearby, soft-footed and alert - and then there were the Feddics, and the liaisons that the elves and the dwarves had sent along for the sake of coordinating the troops when it came time for war...

We march for you, Warden.

Clare loved them all desperately. And they followed her, trusted her to lead them. As Branka's house must once have trusted her...

"What are we doing, Alistair?" she whispered.

"Hm?" His sleepy reply sounded close to her ear. "...Sitting by a campfire? Last that I checked, anyway."

"No." She shut her eyes, blocking out the sight of the camp, and shook her head blindly. "I mean, what are we doing? All these places that we've been to... I can't even keep track of how many people I've killed any more."

He stayed quiet a moment, sitting quite still, before saying carefully, "I do feel the need to point out that by far most of them were trying to kill us first. Not to mention, in case you'd forgotten, there's a little thing called a Blight. And, you know, an archdemon, and a legion of darkspawn, and all."

"I haven't forgotten." And that wasn't what she'd meant... but how in the world to articulate to him what she did mean? "It's just... I can't help but worry that we're going too far. I killed Prince Bhelen, Alistair. I ended a royal line with my own hands. Why?"

Alistair shifted a little, arms pulling closer around her. "You did hear what I said just now about 'trying to kill you first,' didn't you? Because he was."

"Because I chose Harrowmont over him. Because I got involved in something I knew nothing about." She bit down hard on the words. "I'm not a dwarf. I don't know anything about Orzammar. What business do I have deciding who takes the throne?"

"Darkspawn?" Alistair prompted. "Archdemon? The Blight? Potentially the end of the world as we know it? There wasn't any choice."

It sounded too much like an excuse. "There's always a choice," she said. "There has to be. Even if it's just to walk away. Maybe we should have followed Brother Genitivi's lead on the Sacred Ashes first. Maybe given a little more time they would have sorted things out for themselves."

"And if not?" he countered. "We need the dwarves on our side against the Blight. You did what you had to do, for the greater good."

"That's what Branka thought she was doing, too," Clare murmured darkly. "What makes me any different?"

"For one thing, you're not crazy," Alistair said.

She sat up, pulling away enough to twist around and look him in the face. "I'm being serious, Alistair."

"So am I." He reached up to lay his hand against the side of her face, and leaned in to rest his forehead against hers. "You could never be like Branka," he said, slowly and with absolute conviction. "Not ever."

That tightness in her chest again - his faith should have been touching, and it was, but instead of being reassuring, it only felt like more pressure. If she let him down... "I don't know," she said helplessly.

Alistair fell quiet for a space, while Clare settled back against him again and lay her head against his shoulder. "Tell me this, then," he said at last. "Do you regret all of it? Not just Harrowmont and Bhelen and the whole business of the dwarven succession, but - helping Caridin. Putting an end to Branka's madness. Or saving the Dalish hunters and freeing the werewolves, or - saving arl Eamon's son. All of that. Do you regret it all?"

"No," she had to allow. "Not all of it. We've all been making the best decisions that we know how. I just think... there has to be a line, somewhere. One that shouldn't be crossed, even in the name of the greater good, and I can't see it from here."

"Can't you?" he said. "Because you seemed to see it pretty clearly back at the Anvil. Wasn't that why you destroyed it? Or did I miss something?"

"It seemed clear at the time," she murmured. "It always seems clear at the time, but when I look at it from further off, it gets muddled. We need the dwarves to fight beside us against the darkspawn, but I gave up the chance to have an army of golems, too. What if we end up needing that kind of strength? What's the difference?"

"The cost was too high," he said.

"Maybe it's all been too high, and we just can't see it yet." Clare curled her fingers into the fabric of his shirt, turning her face in against the angle of his neck and shoulder. "Caridin reminded me a little of the Lady of the Forest," she said. "I keep thinking back. Even though we did the best that we could do for them... and I know what happened was what they wanted... I still can't help feeling like I've been part of the destruction of something beautiful."

"...so," Alistair said slowly, after something of a pause for consideration, "trying not to think about it... not working so well, I take it."

She laughed a little in spite of herself. "Not really."

"Don't you think," he ventured, after a quiet space, "that there's something beautiful in self-sacrifice, too? Not forced - not like in blood magic, and things like that. But laying down your own life, willingly, for the sake of something greater than yourself?"

This was not anything that she'd expected to hear out of Alistair. Unexpectedly she felt her throat closing, for a moment thrown horribly back to the larder at home and the smell of her father's blood and the sight of her mother's face, pale and terrible with the choice that she'd made.

"Like arlessa Isolde wanted to?" she said, and regretted it as soon as she felt the jolt go through him.

"That was--"

"--uncalled for," she said more quietly, while Alistair was still searching for words. "I'm sorry. It's just... that kind of thing seems so selfish."

Alistair hesitated a moment, sitting quite still. "Selfish?" he echoed at length. "Not selfless?"

She sat up a little straighter, bracing her hands against his shoulders so that she could meet his eyes again. "Giving your life away for something that's important to you, as if your life isn't worth living except for that one thing - not caring about what it'll do to the people you're leaving behind, or what they'll think about it - isn't that selfish?"

"I--" Taken visibly aback, Alistair stumbled over the words. "I hadn't thought of it like that."

"I know." And she felt so guilty for bringing the touch of tarnish to his ideals, but... "But think about it, Alistair. If there hadn't been any blood magic involved, back at Redcliffe. If what the arlessa wanted to do had only been like what you were saying just now... would that have made it all right with you? Or would you still have been thinking of arl Eamon, and what it was going to do to him if we had to tell him that we killed his wife to save his son?"

He looked away, with an uncomfortable expression coming over his face, rather as though he'd swallowed something that wasn't agreeing with him, and didn't answer her question directly. Instead he asked quietly, "Do you think like Morrigan does, then? Anything in order to survive?"

Clare felt the point that she'd been trying to make crumbling away beneath her like so much unsteady ground. "No," she admitted, bowing her head to stare at his collarbone instead of trying to meet his eyes any longer. "It isn't that. I just don't want there to have to be any more sacrifices. That's not so wrong, is it?"

"Of course not." His hand came up to touch her cheek again, warm against her skin, and she shut her eyes and tilted her head into the contact. "But... and this is just what I think... there are worse things a person can give up than their life."

"Like what?" she asked in a murmur.

"Like... honor. Like responsibility to others. Humanity. The things Branka gave up.

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