Love's Blush

by Sabrina Zbasnik

  "I fell into a river once," Alistair began to talk. The current slopped filthy water into his mouth, some of it he swallowed, others went up his nose, but he kept talking, that fatherly instinct needing to soothe the scared boy. "I was six and I thought I saw a fish."

  He reached forward, prepared to grab tightly to the rope, when the section behind him finally snapped free. Oh shit! Alistair wrapped a hand behind himself around the boy while clinging knuckle white to the rope. The current whipped them back and forth, both man and child tossed into a whirlpool. Unable to see, Alistair had no idea when the water would wash into his throat or down his nose -- the blackness strangling him without reason or remorse.

  Their only chance was if he kept tugging forward on the only bit of rope still attached to the tree. And if that one broke as well, he was going to join with that light crystal wherever it went in the void. He tried to tell the boy to hang on, but water gushed into his mouth. Having to trust that the dalish child was smart enough to know how to survive, Alistair let go of him.

  Thank you blessed Andraste! The heavy weight clinging to him didn't wash away with the rapids. Reaching as far as he could, Alistair renewed his tug, but it was even slower going as they fought directly against the current. Beside his ear, the whimpering doubled in terror.

  "That fish I saw, I wanted it to be a mermaid. Do you know what mermaids are?"

  The boy buried his face in his neck, not saying a word aside from the terror whimpers. Taking that as a yes, Alistair continued his tale while inching forward, "Well, I'd never been in a river before, not even a lake or pond. Baths were pretty iffy at that age too. So..." Bubbles snorted out of his mouth as he drank more of the water. Whipping his head back and forth like a dog with a bee in its ear, the cold wrapped around his dying limbs. Its icy ache dug nails up every joint, crushing the nerve and calling for him to give in.

  "Without knowing a damn thing about swimming, I leap feet first into the river," Alistair said, not about to give up. He reached a hand forward, but the grip slipped off the frozen, waterlogged rope. This sent his face plummeting into the river, sucking down enough water and fish poop he'd probably grow gills. Beside him the child howled, his own face cresting near the waves. Alistair moved to comfort him as best he could, when something tugged on the rope.

  The movement threw him off, almost sending him tumbling backwards. Quickly, Alistair knotted both hands around the rope as the tugging increased. Jerky at first, it grew into a smooth, slow motion tugging him closer to the shoreline. A lantern beat against the darkness, illuminating four or five shadows clustered beside the tree. They were saved!

  He felt a laugh growing in his belly that grew legs when his feet hit the sandbar. Standing up, Alistair kept one hand on the rope for balance and used the other to pin the boy to his back. With all the dexterity of a drunkard after last call, Alistair stumbled to the shoreline. Hands plucked the boy off his back, kisses being peppered across the kid's filthy face, as Alistair tumbled to the muddy ground. That finally knocked the laugh free, a jolly one echoing from him to the others gathered around, the ones that grabbed onto the rope and pulled them both to safety.

  Lifting his head, he caught the smiling but also worried face of Reiss. She extended a hand to him, but he groaned, uncertain if his muscles would cooperate. Instead of tugging him upward, she cupped his shoulder and leaned closer, "What did I tell you about not dying?"

  "It's all good," Alistair glanced over his shoulder to watch the boy hoisted up in his ecstatic and teary father's arms. A few other aunts and uncles or however the dalish did it flocked around, trying to inspect him for damage. "It was worth it."

  Turning back around, he watched a tender moment rise through her pretty face, Reiss following the happy family reunion. Aware that squatting in the rain wasn't going to do much for his health, Alistair staggered to his feet. She was quick to snap away from the elves to help heave him up. Even with the audience, Alistair let his hand slip behind her back to guide himself upward and whispered, "Besides, I had you to rescue me."

  "Sire," Niala shouted, rushing towards the man exhausted and beaten but also triumphant beyond measure. "What you have done for us is..."

  "Forget it, gah," Alistair reached between his vest and found a stick jammed against his skin, "Please tell me you got the dam fixed."

  "Yes, thankfully. It should hold until the rains stop and we can properly reenforce it. This could have been a greater tragedy if you weren't here," the First was a mess, a few blood vessels having popped against her cheeks leaving them looking like speckled red paint. But she wore a smile too, aware of how close it all came.

  "That's how alliances work, or so I'm told," Alistair groaned, taking stock of how many new bruises he was going to find in the morning.

  "Are you hurt?" Reiss slid closer under his arm. He hadn't thought to move it off her, at first grateful for the balance and now for her warmth. Both of them looked like drowned rats, but a heat radiated off her that drew Alistair to want to wrap both his arms around her tiny body and never let go.

  "I've been better," he answered truthfully, "been worse too, come to think of it."

  "Come, we should get you inside and dried off before you catch your death," Niala interrupted. She didn't cast a curious glance at the king and bodyguard clinging together, only gestured to the house they all ran out of what felt five hours ago.

  "Don't be silly, takes more than a little swim to kill me. I never get sick," Alistair grinned. Accepting his fate, he released his hold on Reiss and began to follow after the First and her exhausted clan. Out of the darkness, a pair of hands wrapped around his leg, sticking him in place.

  "Iohn!" a voice chastised, "let the King alone!"

  But Alistair was so used to a child suddenly latching onto him, he didn't even blink as he turned to face the boy. "Was there something you wanted?" he asked.

  Iohn rubbed his face into Alistair's knee before glancing up and beaming a pair of golden eyes upon him, "What happened to you in the river, with the mermaid?"

  "Oh that, I..." Alistair knotted up his soaking wet hair, wringing it out against the kid on accident. "It was a story I told to keep him, occupy the kid from, you know. Uh..." Bending down, Alistair tugged the boy closer to whisper in his ear. "Just between you and me, I leaped into the river, with my legs tucked up, and quickly learned it was only a foot deep. But I did learn to swim after that."

  Laughing quickly at the story, the boy released his hold on Alistair's leg to quickly wrap once around his neck and hug him tight. Before he thought to return it, Iohn dashed off to join his kin but a warmth spread up through Alistair's heart as well as an ache. He missed his children terribly. "Right," Alistair staggered up and smiled first at Reiss and then Niala, "what I need is a change of clothes, a big blanket, and all the alcohol you can warm up tonight."

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  Never-Sick

  It began as a sniffle two days travel outside of Denerim. The king shook it off as the chill of the south trailing him until waking one morning on the cold ground to a cough that wouldn't cease. While Alistair kept laughing it away with assurances that he never got sick, the Arl and a few other advisors sent to keep tabs on him shared a concerned look. People were quick to fetch the in denial King honeyed elfroot tea, which he drank but with a small glare, as well as more and more blankets when he kept complaining about the cold. It drew greater concern as the sun beat almost as warm as summer's day down upon their weary bones, but he tried to snuggle deeper into a cloak while perched upon his horse.

  Reiss tried to voice her thoughts, doubt nibbling in her brain, but Alistair would shake it away before stuffing a kerchief up his nose in an attempt to quell the tide of mucus. When they stood far enough outside of Denerim they could spy the city's gates in the distance, Alistair paused his horse, said "I think you may be right," and plummeted to the ground.

  Pandemonium struck, every able hand racing to their fallen King's side. Mercifully, no hooves trampled him,
but hands passed over his forehead and mouthes kept insisting that he was burning up with fever. Out of her depth, Reiss stood dumbstruck while Teagen took charge. Emptying out the caravan loaded down with gifts and traveling goods, he set up a small bed for the King to rest in.

  "Get this to the castle as fast as possible," he ordered the driver.

  "Yes, Sir," the woman nodded and began to scoot over to let him up onto the seat.

  "No, I..." those piercing blue eyes caught Reiss as she waited uselessly in the sea of junk. A moan rattled out of the back of the wagon, people at first trying to pile blankets onto the unconscious man before abandoning ship and yanking them all off to douse his enflamed skin in a wet rag.

  "Travel with him to the castle," Teagan spoke softly beside her.

  Reiss startled from the sight to find her fingers flexing against each other. "My Lord?" she asked.

  "I have to send a message to someone, and pray she responds quickly," he glared out through the city waiting in the distance, "You, sit beside the King. Everyone else out!" he lifted a hand to his mouth and shouted. A few servant heads popped out, full of questions, "It needs to be as light as possible."

  "There isn't anything I know about medicine," Reiss admitted, a terror lodging in her throat even as she scrambled up the back step and slid in beside him.

  "All you have to do is keep him safe," Teagan ordered before raising his voice to a shout, "Get going!"

  The wagon jerked below Reiss' feet and she shifted while watching the Arl leap up into his saddle and urge his horse into a full gallop. Both of them streaked past the wagon that was amping up in speed to try and get their king comfortable as fast as possible. Turning to the man that'd braved a frozen river to save an elven child, a pain jabbed behind her eyes from the sight. His skin was ashen, dark circles forming under his eyes while red spots burst upon the cheeks and forehead. Dropping to a knee, Reiss scooped up one of his hands and almost started at how his skin burned against hers.

  A moan broke from the king's throat, his eyes screwed up tight as if he couldn't face the pain of being alive. Scurrying forward on her knees, Reiss tenderly brushed her fingers against his forehead. It burned twice as bad as his hand, almost causing her to yank her cold hands back in pain but a soft sigh punctuated the moan as Alistair faded back. "Shh," she whispered, beyond useless. A sword couldn't fight an illness, and all she could do was stop bleeding. Bleating whimpers dribbled out of Alistair's mouth and despair nested in her gut.

  "It'll be okay," she lied to him, trying to dab at his sweaty forehead with the wet cloth. How did she know? She was no healer. A dark thought twisted her tongue and Reiss breathed it aloud, "You'll do anything to get out of having to talk about my kissing you." She meant it as a laugh while the ground trembled below the ailing man but the joviality didn't reach her heart. What if they weren't fast enough? What if the king died right here next to her?

  "Please go faster!" Reiss screamed in the politest commanding tone she had. Whether the driver heard her or was already planning it, the carriage sped up, skittering around corners. Through the back she watched Denerim's gates come into view and vanish as quickly, shops whipping past, houses, as they began to give way to the proper palace district. By the time the royal carriage careened through the gates, they barely had time to blow any horns as it pulled up to the front door.

  She heard the driver screaming that, "The King is ill!" and a dozen heads all rushed from the front of the carriage to reach fingers in, each one attempting to gather up Alistair's limp body. Reiss didn't realize that she wrapped her fingers tight through his until they tried to take him away.

  He didn't die, for which she said the prayer to Andraste Atisha taught her. Healers scurried in and out of the royal bedroom, often bearing bottles of various stenches and colors. Towels and bedding were constantly changing, while the King's condition remained obstinately static. His breath rattled in his lungs like he was trying to breathe through soup, and the fever across his body refused to break after two, three, and finally four days. The only constant was the distraught bodyguard standing outside the bedroom door making a vague attempt at checking everyone being ushered in and out, and Arl Teagan.

  Whatever his secret mission was, he ran back into the castle and never left the King's side except for once. Reiss assumed he'd taken a leave to get cleaned up, the snowy whiskers on his cheeks prodding out at a rapid pace, but when pressing a servant they claimed the Arl of Redcliffe excused himself to the memorial in the center square. While a strange choice, Reiss shook it off, her own heart struggling to make sense of this pain.

  He looked bad, so bad. Even Atisha having to sleep beside the ocean waves in rocky sand while falling to a pox never looked so near death as the King did. Swaddled in the finest garments, his head propped up on a pillow, everyone worked to make him as comfortable as possible but there was nothing to be done about the grey skin, ghastly hacking, or the red pooling at the sides of his eyes and upon his forehead. Sometimes, when he'd been still and no one else was in the room, Reiss would pad over to his bed and hold her fingers near his nose. She held her own breath until she felt his brush against her skin.

  The Queen came once before being ushered out by people concerned she might contract whatever did the King in. Worst of all was the princess, she knew her father was in his room, that tons of others were allowed to go and see him, but everyone kept dragging her back. Once, Reiss caught the curious girl trying to sneak in inside a laundry basket. Gave the washerwoman a terrible fright, but all the princess could do was wail about seeing her father while the adults locked her away.

  After four days of nothing changing, Cade came into the bedroom to visit with the Arl Teagan.

  "No change?" he asked in his meaty voice.

  "None yet," Teagan admitted.

  "This wouldn't be a problem if his high and mighty hadn't sent our only college trained mage out the door a fortnight ago," Cade groaned. He never let on to any pains, but the crow's feet beside the man's eyes deepened like wagon ruts.

  Teagan turned away from the sick bed and in the whisper voice that came to fill Reiss' life said, "There's no point in dwelling on what has occurred. We are better off focusing on what will help."

  "Right," Cade shifted on his foot and rocked back and forth, "unless you got one o' the Maker's miracles stashed away in yer hose I don't see anything fixing this." For a brief moment the Commander paused, his eyebrows curling up to wait, as if he truly expected the Arl to have some magical elixir. When Teagan sighed and shook his head, Cade nodded, "What I thought. If you need me," he turned over to his King and sighed, "When you need me, I'll be down in the barracks trying to keep my men from revolting."

  "As you say," Teagan didn't bother to give him leave, his focus on Alistair before his eyes would dart to a pulsing red bottle on the shelf.

  Cade stepped at the closed bedroom door and whispered at Reiss, "Corporal." She tried to not groan at his insistence that she wasn't a true knight mostly because she feared that Cade was right. "Walk with me," the Commander instructed.

  "Very well," she staggered to her exhausted legs and trailed after the man past the flock of servants trying to mix up a dozen potions they kept funneling down the unresponsive King's throat. Cade barely gave them a glance, Reiss trailing behind and fighting to keep awake. She thought she hadn't slept while they traveled, sitting in the dim room listening to what could be the final breath of a man, her every moment was like a waking nightmare. If someone told her this was really the fade, she couldn't muster the energy to seem surprised.

  Coming to a stop at the staircase, Cade turned back to her, "Corporal, you were hired for one job, weren't you?"

  "Yes, Ser," she muttered, wondering if this wasn't some cruel test she failed by following instructions to leave the King's side.

  "Protect the King, keep his ass alive. And yet he's waffling closer to death than anything the assassins ever managed."

  Through the fog blanketing her mind, a sharp anger pierce
d Reiss to the core. "Commander?" she sneered, "are you implying that I could have protected him from an illness?" Or that she wouldn't try if it were at all possible.

  Cade rubbed a fist under his jaw in thought, "Seems to me, the King got it in his pointy head to go wading through some filthy knife-ear river. It's no wonder he's got every damn disease known to man swimming in his body after that."

  "That..." Reiss wanted to defend the Dalish from this boorish man who'd never even seen them, seen what they accomplished, but he wasn't finished.

  Taking advantage of his inches on her, Cade loomed down at the elf -- a woman quickly realizing how tiny she was to the massive meat muscle crammed into armor that was the Commander. "If he dies, people will be wanting someone to pin the blame on. They'll be distraught, panicking, braying for blood and so on." He grabbed tight to her shoulder, pinning her in place as a bitter breath washed over her face, "And I'm half a mind to give them what they want."

  "You cannot prove anything..." she began before the man continued talking over her.

  "There's nothing to prove, arguments and theories don't mean shit against the simple fact you're the royal bodyguard and if the King dies on your watch," Cade released his grip on her, pain searing in the wake of his hand, and he drew a finger across his throat. Reiss tried to not gulp at the obvious threat, but she felt her eyes watering as a voice screamed in her soul. You knew, you blighted well knew this was going to happen!

  Chuckling, Cade turned away from her to return down the stairs. A pack of servants dashed out of the King's room, carting a basket down the stairs for the launders. While the Commander was his attempt at a smile for them, he shifted over to let both past. Over his shoulder in a friendly voice he said to Reiss, "Welcome to the big leagues, newbie."

  Drawing the N out long enough, she knew what he really meant to say. Having finished what he wanted, the Commander huffed down the stairs, his imposing form fading into the darkness of the case while Reiss tried to not scream and beat her impotent fists against the wall. What was she supposed to do? Stop the King from risking his life. Then what? Either the dam wouldn't have been put in place and the entire village could have been lost or the child might have died. Both scenarios happened to be something a knob of royal shemlan wouldn't give a shit about.