Love's Blush

by Sabrina Zbasnik

  "No, I mean don't stop..." her eyes darted away. A breath rattled through her nose, crinkling up the broken part which almost brought a smile to Alistair's pale lips. "I didn't come out here because I thought I'd get you back. No, that's not how I should. I mean."

  Reiss tipped her head back and glared at the ceiling, "Why is this so hard? Maker's sake, I love you. Okay. I've loved you for...I don't know since I first kissed you, or when you rescued an elven child, or while you were slurping up soup and drizzled a drop to the fly beside you. I don't know when because my brain keeps telling my heart that it's bad, it's dangerous, and I shouldn't, but I can't stop loving you. I wanted so badly to tell you but..."

  Her amplified words faded and she whipped her head down. Uncertainty filled those summer eyes and she bit onto her lip. "I guess I just did tell you."

  Alistair began to laugh, the absurdity of it all striking him hard on the nose like a naughty dog. She loved him, he loved her. Blighted everyone in his life was pushing him to be with her. But of course it wasn't enough. Things kept interfering, his damn crown all but stabbing him in the back.

  The idiotic laughter slowed and Alistair stirred a finger through the blanket, "I want it to work, to be with you, even if it's at a distance, or once a month, or I can only see you through a tiny hole in the wall. I don't blighted care, I want you in my life."

  "Me too," she smiled.

  "Then, what do I have to do, what do you need me to do to make it happen?" He wished he had a piece of parchment near to scrawl it all down. Every step, no matter how outlandish or seemingly impossible he'd do. Cross the invisible bridge, solve the impossible riddle, pluck a flower from the top of the mountain if it meant he could be with her.

  Reiss roughed her fingers up and down his unruly stubble -- Cullen was willing to deal with shirts and pants, but he refused to shave him. "Nothing," she whispered before leaning forward. Alistair froze, his body exhausted and his brain lost, while she placed her lips against his. Those beautiful, ornery, quick witted lips that he never thought he'd taste again, pressed and molded against him. The kiss was horribly sloppy, Alistair sliding forward and nearly head butting her with his forehead, but he didn't care. It was the impossible kiss; but would it be the last before the end of everything, or the first in a new potential?

  Sliding away, Reiss breathed, "That's the point, you do nothing and I...I live my life outside the palace. As a random citizen who's in love with a man that also happens to be King."

  "You think that'll work?" Alistair asked.

  Her fingers parted over his forehead before tugging up his oily hair. "Who knows? Who knows what anything will bring. I hope it will."

  Even with exhaustion and pain swirling through his body, Alistair reached forward. He locked both hands around Reiss' body, pulling himself into her embrace. She was slower to respond, still trying to get his hair to obey before those thin fingers, broken and callused from her mad dash across Ferelden to save his sorry hide, circled over the weary muscles in his back.

  "I love you," tumbled from Alistair's throat as he lost himself in her softening eyes. "Which I should have told you before, and not in the middle of a big fight."

  Reiss smirked a moment, "And I should have told you before as well. Letting someone in is...it'll take getting used to." As his hands locked in tighter, Reiss scooted onto the bed until Alistair could place his lips to her forehead.

  "I happen to be an excellent person to get used to. I damn near hear it every day. 'Oh, the King, yes well, you'll get used to him.'"

  She chuckled, her warm cheeks knocking against his. It was enough to draw a smile to Alistair's weary face. Hope. Maker's breath, he never thought he'd feel that one again. To think he'd never have even met her or had a reason to get to know her if Cade hadn't been trying to off him. Talk about a flower grown in a pot of dirt scenario. Granted, he'd also not have this stomach cramping knife wound in his gut either, but... As Alistair curled a finger down Reiss face, he knotted up some of her escapee hair to push back behind her ears. Maybe the occasional stabbing was worth it for this.

  "What do you want to do? With your life I mean. Though, if you have some really exciting plans for the day I'd love to live vicariously through them as I get to face sitting in bed, sleeping in bed, getting bored in bed, and the potential of another sponge bath from a man that once almost broke my jaw."

  She nuzzled her beautiful face into the crook of his neck, both hands careful to drift nowhere near his aching side. "I don't know. I've never given it much thought before."

  "Well, I promise I'll stay out of it, but I hope you wouldn't mind a few suggestions," Alistair whispered, his lips forming the words against her skin.

  Reiss lifted her head off him and he began to clench for fear of saying the wrong thing, but she smiled. "Not at all." Her eyes drifted away in a haze as she whispered, "not from the man I love." Alistair's thumb and forefinger cupped around her jawline and he pulled her to him for the second impossible kiss. With all his focus, he softly parted his lips, tasting as much of her as he dare. In his chest, his heart palpitated to a new rhythm of its own making. Seeming to enjoy the sweet but in no way chaste kiss, Reiss nibbled a moment upon his bottom lip before returning to nuzzling against him.

  Right. It was good that she broke that off before Alistair's little brain took control of the big one. He could explain a few injuries away, but needing Lanny to heal him because he broke something during sex would probably be his undoing. The templar's tongue clucking alone... Reiss put almost no pressure on him, her legs hooked off the bed, but he could savor in her warmth, her wind swept smell, the way her always messy hair tickled against his skin.

  Back. She came back.

  "When you were traveling all hooded black rider across Ferelden, did you happen to stay at a little tavern an hour or so past Lothering? Big white steeples with a blue trim and a horse on the sign despite it being named the Dragon's Gullet?"

  "I...I did actually."

  "Everyone I ask it of always says that. This tiny rundown inn somehow has merchants, princes, and long lost heroes searching for a quest all boarding under its one roof. There are these four lanterns I can't figure out. By the time you light the fourth one, the first's already gone out. What are they for? It's bugged me."

  "Why don't you have people light them all at the same time?"

  Alistair's jaw hung open, "I never thought to try that. No idea why, there's always a good dozen people following behind me in case I start plucking royal jewels out of the crown and tossing 'em away for fun." He paused and sighed, "I used to think there was some magical spell that pulled everyone in, but...my templar senses never kicked off."

  She nodded her head, not arguing with his nonsense or trying to stave it off. "You know what, I think it's the breakfast."

  "That they put some magical potion in it," he snapped his fingers in excitement.

  But Reiss shook her head, "No, it's just that good. Waffles and pancakes? At any hour you wish? Who wouldn't travel across country for that. I'm thinking of taking a few trips again just for them."

  "Do it at the height of blueberry season," he pressed her tighter to him, never wanting to let go. "They work it into the batter. I...I guess when I'm not knocking near death's plague wagon, we could stop there together. I mean, assuming you'll want to travel with."

  Reiss buried deeper into him, almost as if she never wanted to leave. "Of course I do. For starters, I don't have any other clothing. And if random people in Denerim see me dressed in the King's known wares, I'll probably be strung up in the street."

  He winced at the fact, but threw on a smile, "Or worse, they'll think you're me and plop you on the throne. It's all downhill from there."

  "You've done well with it so far," she said.

  There were so many reasons this wouldn't work. Alistair knew them, Reiss did too. People that'd never approve, time and commitments pulling them in two different directions, but Maker take it all, it was worth the risk. He was going to g
et it right this time. No secrets, no running away when things got sticky.

  "There are somethings I need to tell you, about being a Grey Warden..." Alistair whispered.

  "Okay," she nodded, rising off his chest, "but how about later? I don't know about you but all that waffle talk has me starving."

  "You only care for the waffles?" Alistair gasped, "I'm sorry, but pancakes are all the King allows at his breakfast table."

  "Oh, those are fighting words," Reiss sighed. She pretended to hold her hand up as if about to challenge him to a duel. Alistair gripped it, but instead of letting go for the fight to commence, he pulled her tight to him. With one hand roaming through her hair, he couldn't stop kissing her, couldn't stop touching her, and Andraste and damn near everyone else who knew, he couldn't ever stop loving her.

  They'd find a way. They had to.

  "I love you," Alistair said, his heart beating in time with every word.

  "And I love you," she smiled at him, "and also waffles."

  Feeling lighter than he ever thought possible, Alistair tugged this brave, beautiful, smart, irreverent, funny woman into his arms. She was already safe in his heart.

  EPILOGUE

  Eighteen Months Later...

  Wiping the sweat off the brow under her hat, Reiss closed the file that'd been sitting in her case box for the past month. Raising her voice to be heard in the small but packed room, she spoke, "I'm pleased to announce that the City Watch has just accepted the confession of one Mr. Derick Larner and we have officially solved another one."

  A smattering of applause broke out as Reiss jammed the closed case file onto the sword she was gifted for preserving the King's life and foiling Cade's dastardly deeds. He actually had "dastardly deeds" engraved onto the hilt, the alliteration striking him as hilarious. Over a dozen other case files were already wedged onto the blade, each one was plucked from the streets and once declared unsolvable, but Reiss and her company proved them wrong. It was growing so heavy, the brackets that held the sword on the wall were beginning to bow. Either it was going to fall off, or they'd run out of space to store them. That was a dragon they'd slay when they came to it.

  "All right, everyone get back to work. We've still got a good three open ones to put to the sword," Reiss called to her crew. It took awhile for Denerim to warm to this ragtag group of outsiders, no one certain what to make of the elf skimming in and out of places where dead bodies landed while another jotted down everything Reiss told her to. But when they began to get results, the City Watch and other organizations with questions no one could answer turned to them.

  They didn't have a name to begin with, Reiss too busy scrounging to bother with something so trivial, leading Denerim to name them the Solvers. It was silly and not really accurate, but who was Reiss to argue. The Solvers rested in the back of a small building just outside the alienage sharing the corner with what used to be a tanners turned avant garde painter's saloon, and a bakery that kept them all well stocked after the great croissant caper. Three desks crowded around a barely working stove for warmth, which used to be more than enough for the tiny group until their ranks began to swell. Now they were often working in shifts just to give everyone a chance to sit down. Reiss rented her own little room above the shop. It wasn't much and she'd often wake to find rats cuddling up on her pillow but it was hers.

  Knocking her hat back in place, Reiss swung around the desk, her new coat flapping in the always leaking breeze. She moved to sit upon discovering that that would be impossible.

  "Where's my chair?"

  Lunet cranked around from her own desk and jabbed a thumb towards the dwarf twins, "Jorel's got it."

  "I have not!" he shouted before running his fingers under the seat. "Ah, shit, I think I do. Where's my blighted chair then?"

  Reiss collapsed an elbow to her desk and began to massage her forehead, "Let's not have a repeat of this summer's 'chair war' please."

  "Some of us still limp when it snows," Lunet shouted as if she hadn't been one of the driving forces behind it.

  Rather than get into a long fight of trading chairs, Reiss grabbed some of the boxes that were always stacked four or five high around the place and dragged them over to sit on. She had work to do, they all did.

  The sound of the bell jangling above the door drew all the eyes but Reiss' to it. Hidden in the back and behind one of the weight bearing posts, she couldn't see anything but the back of her friend's head and the gold polished horns of their newest Qunari investigator and lunch fetcher.

  Lunet spun in her chair, about to rise to her feet to greet the customer, when she cracked a grin and rolled back to eye up her boss, "Oh, it's just Reiss' sidepiece."

  "Hello to you too, Lunet," Alistair's voice chuckled as he navigated around the maze of work. "Maker's breath, it's cold out there."

  "Aye, there's this new thing they're trying called winter. Think it'll catch on?" Lunet razzed him. She shifted the lolly in her mouth around before jabbing it at the King. It was a strange habit she picked up while they were on cases, needing something to do with her hands while Reiss was being noticey as she put it.

  Alistair shook his head, scattering snow out of his hair, "Never. Give it a few months and then it'll be back to blazing heat. Mark my words." Scooting around their lead investigator/secretary/filer/whatever else they needed's desk, he stood framed beside the open doorway into Reiss' alcove. It could hardly be called an office as there was only one wall.

  His fingers scritched along Sylaise's head, the office cat purring in rapture from the attention before Alistair slid across her desk. Reiss looked up from the work just as his lips met with hers. Every damn problem she had on her docket faded away at his touch. Folding tight to him, Reiss stumbled to her feet to get a better grip around his shoulders, losing herself in those arms she craved with every waking moment. Alistair seemed to feel the same, his fingers frozen from the cold curling up through the underside of her hat to rifle apart her hair.

  "Oi, you two," Lunet shouted. "You're making Kurt feel awkward."

  "Are not," the quieter of the dwarf twins glanced over, his cheeks burning as hot as the crackling wood on the fire.

  Reiss didn't apologize for the kiss but she did break from it, her eyes staring deep into Alistair's sweet ones. He wore the same smile she saw every time he'd wander into her neck of Denerim, the kind that looked at is he shook off every worry in his life and slipped into bliss.

  "You're late," Reiss said, unable to turn her smile off. Sliding back off her desk, she began to gather up her mounds of work to its designated piles.

  "Yeah," Alistair dug at his hair, causing another tuft of snow to plop free, "sorry about that. Got caught into one of those 'Your Majesty, I have to get into a long, drawn out argument about unimportant matters because I wasn't hugged enough as a child.' Took an hour to get away and it only worked because I hid inside the kitchen until he vanished."

  Reiss chuckled at the image, well aware of some of Alistair's current issues. She may not be in the palace but he'd write to her damn near every day and replay his days for her, often with funny voices and sometimes shadow puppets. "Ineria won't hold the door for anyone."

  He shrugged, "Not even her favorite dumpling maker?"

  Reiss rolled her eyes. She wanted to say no, but in truth, Ineria probably would make an exception for that shemlan she kept nudging Reiss about and telling her was cute. Ineria still bullied him around when in the kitchen, but she practically purred when he sat down to eat. While Reiss struggled to get all her open files back in order for tomorrow, Alistair glanced around.

  "Hey, where's your vase?"

  She looked up, blinking a moment in the sea of chaos. "Oh, it's over there."

  Twirling a bouquet of four flowers and a strip of greenery in his fingers, he unearthed her vase always overflowing in colors. After placing the ritual offering in, Alistair carried every reminder of him and his visits back to her. Reiss tried to act unattached to it while working for productivity's sa
ke, but when the fire dipped low, she'd said her goodbyes for the day, and had locked up shop, she'd run her fingers over every petal and reminisce about his last visit.

  "I see how well loved my foolish token of affection is," Alistair mocked.

  Rolling her eyes, she glanced up to the ceiling, "It was only temporary. I ran out of room while I was working on this." She gestured to the three boxes that'd been taking up her space because they ran out of storage a month or so back.

  Alistair twisted his head at the first box and asked the question she knew was coming, "Just so we're clear, you do know they're dollhouses?"

  "No, they're crime scenes."

  He scrunched his adorable face up while spinning the first box back and forth. "Let me guess, it was Talky Tina, in the cornfield, with a knife!"

  Reiss pointed at the furthest diorama, a near perfect replica of one of her first cases with the door and windows all locked on the inside where a traveling merchant trained a pack of nugs to scurry down the fireplace and murder two brothers. A tiny butcher's cleaver covered in nug prints was just visible under the little dresser. "I use them for training purposes. It helps new people get used to how we do things." It'd been easier when it was just her and Lunet, but as they brought more on they had to learn beyond rounding up anyone in the area and picking someone at random as guilty. Looking beyond the superficial was key, as well as notes. Everyone working for her had to be literate, and if they didn't start that way they were learning fast.

  Alistair scrunched down so he was eye to eye with the second and stared through the window bearing a tiny bloody handprint, "I like the little wallpaper. It's even got a small tear."

  "Yes, that's where they stashed their murder victim's clothing."

  "This is why you don't babysit Spud. She's already prone to running around the castle waving her wooden sword, ten minutes with Aunt Reiss and she'd be the new Princess of Death." He tried to look horrified at the idea, but Reiss knew better. While lots of voices were trying to get the headstrong princess to behave like a proper lady, her loving and doting father was encouraging her to be herself.