bringspeopletogether | [milliways] conversations with dead people

[milliways] conversations with dead people

It's been a long day, and Alistair's only tried to drag it longer by bringing the evening reports into Milliways. The survey's moving along at a remarkable pace, but what it's finding...isn't good. He's shaded in too much space on the map of Ferelden that marks off the blighted lands. Families are still sick and starving, people are still stranded across the Waking Sea -- and there may be nothing to do but wait until the land heals on its own.

(It's early yet, he tells himself. The Blight's only eight months gone. They will find a way to bring Ferelden back to her full health and bring her people home.)

Fuzzy's dozing at his feet. Alistair's eyelids have begun to droop. Surely it won't hurt if he puts his head down for a moment; time stops here, after all, which is why he brought the reports to the tavern in the first place. A nap may even help him clear his thoughts a bit.

Hopefully he won't snore too much.

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A dagger slams into the tabletop, driven by a mailed left hand.

The right hand of that pair lands on Alistair's shoulder, a heavy, cool weight.

"Sleeping on watch, Alistair?"

He jolts upright, adrenaline propelling him before true wakefulness arrives. Alistair blinks stupidly at the dagger; that can't be good, he thinks, and then --

And then the voice settles in his ears.

Everything seems to go very still for a moment. He can hear his own breathing, and little else.

Slowly, hardly daring to hope, Alistair looks up.

Duncan smiles a little, the skin at the corners of his eyes wrinkling up.

"Sleeping deeply, were you?"

Alistair swallows hard. Everything's quite blurry all of a sudden; his eyes burn, sudden and fierce.

(He's known the dead can visit the tavern ever since his first visit. He thought about it, sometimes, but he never -- )

He's never been good with things like decorum, or reservation, or anything like that. Half a heartbeat later, Alistair surges to his feet and wraps his arms around Duncan, clinging as desperately as if his mentor just awakened him from a nightmare.

Duncan reels a little, mentally if not physically.

He does eventually pat Alistair's back firmly, before putting both of his hands on the young man's shoulders and moving him back a bit.

"There, there. No shame in it. The dreamless nights come so rarely these days."

Alistair sniffs, completely undignified, and wipes the side of one hand across his eyes. His whole chest aches. He can't get any words out through the painful lump in his throat.

Duncan. Here.

Oh, Maker.

He'd started to forget what the man's voice sounded like, he realizes. And here he is, talking...talking about...

Oh no.

Dread prickles at his gut as he thinks of Cullen and Ysa, years ahead of him. Alistair draws a deep, shaky breath, desperately trying to steady himself; in pretty short order he's scrubbing away more tears, unable to meet Duncan's gaze.

"You're alive."

(He doesn't sound relieved by that fact. At all.)

Duncan exhales, a long, long sigh that goes on for some time.

The wrinkles on his face are not the kind that come with smiles, not just now.

"No, lad. No, I'm not."

Oh. Well, that's --

No, that's not all right. (That will never be all right.)

Alistair bows his head. He nods a little, after a moment, and sniffles like a child again. "I'm sorry," he says, voice thick. "I shouldn't be -- "

"There's no such thing as 'should' for a Grey Warden."

Again the heavy weight of Duncan's hand comes down on Alistair's shoulder and stays there.

"Though perhaps there is for a King. I can't say as I like the idea."

Alistair laughs: choked, barely a huff of breath. He chances a look up at Duncan.

"It wasn't exactly my idea in the first place," he points out.

Duncan laughs, only a little ruefully.

"And what does that mean, after all?"

A tiny, crooked smile. "Very little, I've found."

Alistair gives his eyes another fruitless scrub.

"I could have said no." It's barely audible. "Maybe I should have. Too late for that now."

"Not all oaths are as binding as the Joining."

Duncan's voice deepens on that last word, turning to a rough, scraping rumble.

"Nor should they be."

"I know." Alistair shakes his head and glances to the reports scattered over his table. A deep breath (still shaking a bit); he does his best to square his shoulders.

Be brave, he thinks.

"But I won't break this one. And I can still help Ferelden here. I've done good, I can -- " He swallows. "I can bring them out of the Blight."

"I doubt any who know you would deny it. Once they see past the terrible and ill-timed jokes."

There's a softening in Duncan's face, just for a moment.

"But you looked back less when you joined our brotherhood, Alistair. What lies behind you that you can't bear to let go?"

...Damn it, and just when he thought the tears might be backing down.

Alistair pinches the bridge of his nose, trying to keep the fresh stinging at bay, and doesn't answer.

"Ah. Love. I thought it might be."

So it was with Genevieve, long ago.

"Will you let its loss shrivel your heart and turn it bitter? I have seen it before, many times. Such a heart is not one a king should bear, much less a Warden."

Alistair shakes his head. After a moment or two, he manages to say, "No."

Another long breath.

"No. I know. I'm...trying." He looks up, blinking hard. "I can put it aside. I have to, if I think about her too much I just end up like -- " A rueful twitch of a smile crosses his face, and he gestures to himself. "Well, like this. The pinnacle of dignity and usefulness."

"Do too much of that, my lad, and you'll doom it to forever dog your steps."

Duncan's sigh is heavy.

"Better a short time like this than a lifetime of running."

And Maker knows he's spent enough time running, hasn't he?

"I miss her." No revelation, that -- for him or Duncan, he's sure -- but saying it aloud, instead of scribbling it in a letter he'll never send, helps a little. (A very little.) "It would be easier if I could be angry all the time. But I can't. I miss her, and I still love her, and -- "

And if he keeps going his voice is going to crack, so Alistair stops there.

Duncan remains silent, though again he rests his hand on Alistair's shoulder and squeezes.

Affection, consolation, and perhaps something else.

(Fatherly regard?)

But he stays silent, waiting out that 'and'.

"I wish you could have seen her."

There, at last: a smile that doesn't tremble, tiny and fond and more helpless than Alistair would prefer.

"She was amazing. Still is, I presume, wherever she's gone. Whatever she's doing. She stopped the Blight. She did the Wardens proud."

"So, too, did all of you. Even those who never swore any oaths."

He shakes Alistair gently, as if to drive his words home.

"Perhaps we find it too easy to sacrifice, we Wardens. Your Lyna certainly learned that lesson well."

Alistair exhales. Hangs his head.

"It's not fair of me to wish she hadn't, is it."

"Fair is just a story we tell ourselves to justify our pain. Or to deny it."

He tries to be kind, does Duncan. But decades as a Grey Warden has left him mostly unfit for it.

His eyes aren't burning quite so much any more. Alistair dabs at them again, praying it'll be the last time he has to do that.

"I've missed you too." Barely audible. "The whole time, I kept...thinking of what I might tell you next I saw you. There's so much I wanted to ask you. We muddled through all right, I mean, we had to, we did stop the Blight and all that, but I just wish -- "

He's gesturing a little, with each word, like he's laying them down in front of him.

"That you'd been there."

"I'm here now," Duncan says, and it seems to be the truth.

"Which is more blessing than many get, with their dead."

"Yes." Alistair drags a hand through his hair, and utters a small laugh. "And now of course I can't think of half of what I wanted to say. The Blight's past, Loghain's dead, I'm king, Lyna's gone -- that about covers it, doesn't it."

He meets Duncan's eye.

Duncan meets Alistair's gaze with his own, level and calm as ever.

"It covers what's past and gone, yes. What is still to come -- I'm glad to have even seen this much. You're a good man, Alistair. Trust that I have always believed in you, and would yet, if I were alive to do so. Your sacrifice shall not be forgotten."

His throat constricts anew.

"Nor yours," he manages -- and in lieu of being able to say anything else, Alistair pulls Duncan into another fierce embrace.

Duncan returns it for one moment.

Two.

"Not by those who matter."

And then --

"Agh."

Alistair opens his eyes to find Fuzzy inches away from him. The mabari's hefted himself onto the chair next to Alistair, front paws on the table as he peers down at his person. When Alistair doesn't move, Fuzzy whines and tries to stick his nose in his ear again.

Oh.

Still creaky with sleep, Alistair pushes himself up. Fuzzy scoots closer and starts licking his face, scattering a few reports as he goes. Alistair doesn't have the heart to push him away. His face is plenty damp already, anyway.

Just a dream. Right, then.

He sniffs, and rubs his shirtsleeve over his face once Fuzzy's done. The reports are -- no, they're not getting finished tonight. He's in no state to keep working. Back to the palace for now; he'll try again tomorrow.

As he sweeps the papers together, his fingers brush over a gouge in the table. It looks quite fresh.

Alistair's positive it wasn't there when he sat down.

As careful as if touching a dagger's edge, he runs his thumb over the mark, back and forth -- and breathes, and breathes, and breathes.

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[milliways] conversations with dead people

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