No Armor Against Fate (a Dragon Age fanfiction)

On His Own

"Are you going to be all right, with everyone gone?" Leliana asked. She was sitting in Thora's chair on the other side of Alistair's desk.

"I suppose," Alistair said. He stood staring out the window. "In some ways, it's easier. I'll be free to focus on my new duties. Certainly won't have anything better to do," he muttered.

The bard looked at him sympathetically. "At least we had last night," she said softly. They looked at each other for a moment, remembering the happy night in the estate kitchen. The group of them had filled hours with do-you-remembers and shared jokes, all of them gathered around watching the flames, as they had so many nights in camp. Except Morrigan, but then she'd always kept to herself anyway, so no one missed her overmuch.

Alistair's brain still refused to contemplate the night he had spent with the witch. The act itself hadn't been as difficult as he'd expected, particularly once she'd blown out the candle. He recognized that the memory probably would continue to bother him until some darkspawn blade eventually found him in the Deep Roads. He just hoped that the product of that night wouldn't come back to haunt him. Maybe it was cowardly to wish that on a future generation, but there you had it.

Leliana's voice broke into his thoughts. "How long do you think it will take them to get to Amaranthine?"

"Several days, I would expect. Depending on how hard they travel." They had said good-bye to their former companions earlier that morning. When Alistair closed his eyes he could still picture his last glimpse of Thora. The hood of her grey cloak had fallen back, leaving the gleam of her wind-tossed red hair open to the sunlight she loved. There had been a small smile on her face as her eyes sought his one more time, and they'd stared, memorizing each other's face. As if they hadn't done so already, night after night, day after day. And then she was gone, and the sunlit sky might as well have been the dark vault of the Deep Roads.

"I'm surprised Oghren went with them. I'd have thought he'd be heading off to find that dwarven girl."

"Thora said he was afraid to."

"Or maybe he just likes Wynne," Leliana giggled.

"Oh, that's not funny. Not funny at all," Alistair said, shuddering at the image.

There was a knock at the door. "Come in," he called.

Arl Eamon poked his head in. "Ah, my boy. I wondered if you might need some company. Oh!" he said, seeing Leliana. "I didn't realize you already had some."

"It's all right, my lord," she said, getting up. "I was just leaving. They're expecting me at the Chantry to talk about plans for a trip to Haven, to study Andraste's ashes."

"They couldn't have made a better choice," Alistair said. "When are you leaving?"

"That'll depend on the Chantry and how long it takes Brother Genitivi and me to get them to open their purse strings," Leliana said.

"So you'll be around for a while, then," Eamon joked. All three laughed.

Leliana gave Alistair a hug. "Will you be all right?" she asked quietly. He nodded.

After she'd gone, Eamon took a seat next to the desk—not the one Thora had sat in, Alistair thought. He was glad this wasn't the royal palace, so that soon he could move out of here and stop thinking of that as her chair every time someone came in. Alistair sat down behind the desk, idly flipping through the stack of papers that lay there. All things considered, he thought he wouldn't mind the paperwork part of this job as much as the politics and the court manners.