"R-right, of, of course," he nodded his head, probably not believing her lie but not wanting to face the truth of it, and Maker she was not telling him the rest of it. Some mages bet on the proceedings, while the girls tended to have their own wagers and lively discussions that had little to do with the actual fighting. Everyone had their favorites for varying reasons.
Lana twisted her stick in the air absently, trying to distract from the blush burning up her skin, and a dribble of ice tumbled off the end. "Andraste's tears, these things are idiotic. Why would anyone use a wand?"
"Is there a difference?" he asked. Falling back to his defensive stance, he had his chest well protected now. Lana wasn't getting back at it. She nodded her head, and began again, meeting stick for stick.
"Staves are common sense. You want something with heft to hold a full spell, or baring that, to whack someone hard in the head. What can you do with this piddly thing? Poke an enemy in the eye?" To enunciate her point, she jabbed at thin air and he chuckled.
"But you could hide a wand better," he said, his mind whirring through the possibilities of war, "like a dagger."
"At least a dagger is sharp. The most this thing can do is give you a good jolt, like putting on a wool coat in winter and touching a metal hinge. Annoying, but it's not going to hurt much. Then you're back to the eye poking."
Lana surged forward, sensing an opening, but the templar twisted his arm around deflecting her. Unfortunately, she forgot to compensate for the weight displacement, and all of Lana tumbled towards the ground. Faster than she thought possible, the templar wrapped an arm around her waist and he rolled, pulling her body with his so both remained upright. His arm was still fully around her waist as she staggered to catch a breath from the whirlwind move. Then her heart beat even faster as those gorgeous eyes sparkled an inch from hers. She gawped to will a word, any word to her tongue.
"Lanny!"
They both sprung apart at the same second, leaping even further away as Marguerite slipped into the room. Lana's friend folded her arms up and sighed, "What are you doing in here? You're missing lunch. Come on, they're making noodles."
"Oh, noodles! With the cheese sauce?" Lana hopped up onto her toes.
"I don't know," Marguerite rolled her eyes, "do I look like the chef? What were you doing in here, anyway?" Now she glanced over from Lana at the templar trying to slide further and further away into the shadows.
"I was, uh, picking up the wands under the Dragon's orders," Lana slapped hers into the box and slammed down the lid.
"Ugh," Marguerite groaned, "we don't all have to learn to use them, do we?" Lana shrugged as she grabbed onto her friend's arm to drag her out of the room. Certain that Marguerite barely even noticed the man trying to merge into the shadows, Lana released her hold outside the door.
"Soooo, was that all my imagination or were you and Honey eyes there...?"
"Shut up!" Lana shouted, whipping her head back to see if he heard the question.
Marguerite smiled wickedly, not dropping her voice, "I take it that's a yes."
"I said shut up!" She whacked her palms against Marguerite's padded arm which only got her more laughs.
"Fine, fine. I suppose you won't care to know what Honey eyes real name is then," Marguerite grinned wickedly with her hard won prize dangling just above Lana's reach but she let it down instantly, unable to keep back her information. "I overheard it from one of the enchanters. Any guesses?"
"Margie!" Lana moaned, deathly aware how hot her cheeks burned now, her eyes whipping back to the room terrified he'd overhear it all.
"Not a bad name, very...sturdy. I suppose." Marguerite grinned wickedly into Lana's stricken eyes, "It's Cullen."
"Cullen," Lana repeated the word rolling the vowels around in her mouth. She tried it out a few more times silently.
"Yup, and the other word is he's got it bad for some mage in the tower," Marguerite knocked her eyebrows high three times and then she gave a long glance towards the senior enchanter stomping out of the library to collect her wands.
"Oh, shut up," Lana shoved her again, unable to beat back the burst of butterflies in her stomach.
Chapter Sixteen
Rivers & Bathtubs
9:44 Tevinter
If he'd jumped head first into a butcher's shop scrap pile then run straight through a dragon's gullet while waving a sword, Alistair wouldn't be anywhere near as gory as he felt after three days traveling with the wolfy elf. Fenris was good on his word of getting them west towards the Anderfells. He also felt it his duty to stop and slit the throat of any mage that looked at him funny, which was a lot considering his very pointy armor and lightning storm haircut.
"We could try stopping," Alistair tried again. "Maybe slipping into a little town's cozy inn that's got bunnies on the wallpaper and serving girls with bosoms the size of your head."
"Humph," Fenris grumped.
Alistair waved his tacky hand in the air from behind their hunched leader and shouted, "One day I'll get more than a solitary syllable out of you."
"Unlikely," Cullen came back with. When Isabela's letters suggested they try the ol' infiltrate a bunch of slave gangs to get through Tevinter routine, Alistair thought - hey, I can do that. The hardest part would be picking up his old templar skills from the box in the attic and then it was smooth walking into the Anderfells. But somehow no one mentioned the ambulatory stick in the mud that was their own dark wolf, or whatever he called himself. Glowy McGlowface?
Worst of all, the damn elf and templar got on like a mage on fire. They didn't say more than a grunt here and a nod there, but they already shared a mutual respect between them slowly driving Alistair mad. Killing slavers, sure, he could get behind that. Had on more than a few occasions through import reforms and tax levies as well as literally grabbing a sword and chopping off heads. His regime was one the historians were going to have trouble explaining beyond throwing up their hands and trying to change the subject. But the clear hatred off the elf of anyone with a shred of magical powers kept confusing him. The elf glowed, he could reach inside chests and play a drum solo on people's internal organs. If that wasn't magic, Alistair would eat his crown.
"I knew you'd stick up for the Grouch," Alistair whined at Cullen. "You've managed to dodge out of almost every artery splitting attack."
The templar shrugged, blood caked across his gloves but almost nowhere else. Alistair needed a miracle from the Maker to salvage anything he wore, even his smallclothes felt sticky. "Hey, Honor," he whistled to the dog. She dropped the stick she picked up a few miles back and turned to him, her tail wagging. Trying to roll up his sleeve, and ignore the crunch of dried blood sloughing off, Alistair held his gory arm out. "Go on, lick it off." The dog paused, her eyes widening in canine concern as she glanced towards her owner.
"What are you doing?" Cullen asked, his fingers drifting towards his dog's head as if he needed to pull her away from the mad king.
"I used to know a mabari that'd lick you clean right after battle. He seemed to like it, in fact."
"That's disgusting."
Alistair held both his arms up and whined, "Better or worse than being a walking hemorrhage? I could attend a masquerade as a blood clot. That'd for sure win me the best costume prize."
"What are you even...?" Cullen massaged his head with his fingers then called out through the wolf pack to the leader, "Perhaps it would be in our best interest to stop."
They'd lost half of the members Fenris and the gang started with, not to the sword but helping all the freed slaves back in the market and as they continued their bloody campaign. Only five remained of varying degrees of talkativeness. A few could almost be civil provided the shemlan stayed behind, and all obeyed the word of their leader.
"Why?" Shiny Glow Pants asked.
"Night will fall soon, and..." Cullen sighed, "unless he gets a bath I fear we shall suffer him for hours."
Fenris's piercing green eyes darted from the templar back to the human sized l
iver. "Very well."
"Oh!" Alistair cried, jumping up and down, "that was two syllables!"
Having given his two word order, the elves scattered to prepare for camp. They were far enough off the road it seemed unlikely anyone would come hunting for them. Keeping through the brambled woods while not easy on the backside did draw the average Tevinter eye away, though at the moment it was farmland stretching in the distance. Rows and rows of wheat danced in the winds, golden brown and ready for whatever one did with wheat. Cullen kept eyeing it up and grumbling, "Should have harvested it by now."
Given magisters, either winter took longer to hit here, or they had some evil plan to sacrifice their crops to raise an evil god to do evily evil things. It was hard to guess. While the party broke down into their goals, Alistair tossed his things in a heap and, with begging eyes, asked, "Would you watch my stuff?"
"I suppose I..." was as far as Cullen got before the king unbuckled his sword, threw down the borrowed shield, and streaked off in the direction of the river.
"Does he know where he's going?" the templar asked aloud.
Fenris shrugged, "Either way our problem is solved."
Ha, showed what they knew. Alistair may have sat on the throne for, shit, had it really been 13 years? Whatever, he still knew how to find water and there was a river lopping over Imperium rocks just beyond the trees. It was a strange skill almost unexplainable in someone who wasn't a mage, but it'd served them well during the blight. Before anyone wondered where a water source was, they'd all turn to watch Alistair wander off in a random direction and fall ankle deep into a pond, lake, river, creek, or any other wet area of land.
Bursting out of the tree coverage, he spotted the glistening ribbon rolling below a small drop off. He could take it easy and try to find a deer trail down to the promising bath, or... Alistair jumped off the rocky ledge without a care for broken bones or potential blunt force trauma below. Giving a very kingly whoop, he curled his legs up to his chest and splashed ass first into the river. Freezing cold would have been preferable to the depthless heart of ice crawling up his skin, wetting his clothes, and dragging him deeper into the water. With both hands, Alistair rubbed up and down his arms at first to get a bit of warmth in and then to try and break up the caked on blood. He rolled up his sleeves to find the gore had crawled up his arms and dripped down his back.
"By all the, how did that happen?" Alistair complained while ripping off his shirt. Dropping it into the freezing water, he whipped it at the rocks a few times because that's how he'd seen other people clean their clothes. It probably did something.
"You do not do anything in half measures," Cullen spoke above him, gesturing to the river leap below. He must have watched him in what had to look like a fall to his death.
"Come to watch me bathe?" Alistair cooed. With his shirt, he scooped up water and dumped it over his head. "Oh that was dumb. That was really, really dumb."
"I thought I should keep you from killing yourself. I'm realizing this is more than a one man job."
Alistair snorted. His shirt mostly clear of blood, he wadded up to chuck onto a branch above the waterline. "Feel for my poor bodyguards."
"Believe me, I already do." The templar could have returned to his tight lipped elven friend but he sat down upon a boulder overlooking the river and watched. "That must be cold."
"No, no, no," he shook his head, his lips trembling, "it's as warm as a summer's creek. Really, you s-s-should try it."
"Don't kings prefer hot baths brought by servants?"
"I'd guess anyone with nerves in their body would prefer that to a frozen river." Alistair dug his fingers forward through his hair, giving himself a terrible case of bangs.
Cullen nodded his head to acquiesce Alistair's point, "Yet you don't demand it."
"This is far from my first time bathing in a river," Alistair shouted. He'd either grown used to the cold or the first few layers of his skin died. Either way, it didn't pain him now so he took to splashing palms against the calm surface splattering water against himself. "During the blight it was jumping into creeks real quick while hoping the elf didn't see everything, sponging off in water basins, or...No, there was nothing in the deeproads aside from keeping downwind of everyone until you got out. If anyone ever asks if you ever want to head into the deeproads, you say no."
"Actually, I've already been there before," Cullen said and the way his voice skipped down to a whisper drew Alistair's full attention. In the silence, the templar continued to elaborate, "Lana required my assistance on a matter."
"Lanny took you into the deeproads?" the king whistled, "That must have been before you two, uh, you know." He banged his hands together to try and dredge a euphemism up from his brain then froze at the one he'd created.
Cullen almost jumped up from his perch in shock, "That's...how did you know?"
"She'd never take anyone she cared about into the path of the blight. If she even let you near it, near darkspawn, she must not have been that invested."
"There was little choice," the templar thundered.
"Okay, okay, not judging here. It's just that, in Amaranthine the blight became more virulent because of talking darkspawn something something, I forget exactly. It was bad, people were going ghoul faster than normal. And Lanny, she was the only healing mage for most of it," Alistair picked up a rock smoothed by the river's current and weighed it in his hand. "There's no way to cure it, but people'd cling to hope - think they were the one exception. Too bad even the way out isn't a way out." He chucked the rock further down the stream eyeing it splash, the water rippling against his legs. "I'd bet you ten sovereigns she was watching you for a good week after."
"What?"
"The blight can take a few days, sometimes a week to appear. After that, your only hope is joining the wardens and all the benefits that come with it: nightmares, darkspawn hunting, early death. Oodles of fun." He stirred up the silt with his toe enjoying the way it clouded over his pale/burned legs. "It'd have killed her to sentence someone she cared about to that life, even if it was the only way to save their life. So," Alistair glanced up, a smile back on his face, "good thing you didn't get the blight. It's a pain all around."
He watched the templar massage his thighs while staring through the forest. A grit twitched along the man's jaw even evident from all the way down in Alistair's watery gulch. Great. Alistair was trying to be nice this time.
"What was Lana like...?" Cullen spoke up.
"During the blight? Exhausted, scary, tired, jittery, and really ticklish."
"No," Cullen groaned massaging his cheeks, "as an Arlessa? Or, further into it over the years. Was she, did she find happiness in it?"
Swatting at the water instead of bathing, Alistair tried to think.Why'd he suddenly care about that? It's not as if Lanny'd be heading back to... Oh. "It's hard to tell with her. I mean, you ask that woman to carry ten bricks up a hill then back down for the good of the people and she'll do it. She'll curse up a storm the whole time and probably set your knickers on fire, but she'll do it. There weren't a lot of good options when it came to Amaranthine. Giving it to the wardens, that seemed easy. Someone had to move in to air out the old furniture and get rid of the traitor smell. But..."
He rolled his fist against his palm, losing himself in the rhythmic tug of knuckles against his calluses. Kings weren't supposed to have calluses, but somehow he kept growing them, which annoyed a few of the softer skinned nobles to no end. "I didn't want Lanny to go there but she wanted to get as far from-- As far from Denerim as she could. Needed a clean break, to reinvent herself. For a time she built a not bad life. I'd hear about friends, the typical adventures and the less typical ones. She once sent me a ten page letter about her attempt at purchasing a cake for one of her warden's birthdays. Needless to say, it ended with demons."
"Doesn't it always?" Cullen responded. His voice almost startled Alistair, who'd nearly forgotten the man was there and lost himself in his memories.
"Lann
y had settled in what she thought was possible, tried to find a few lovers - though it never seemed to work. Not my fault, by the way. I always heard after the fact. But..." Alistair stirred his arm through the water like he was afraid the soup would burn.
"She hated it," Cullen filled in.
"I don't think it was ever her. For the ol' sake of duty she wanted it to be, tried to make it be, whittled herself down to fit into the hole." And you knew she hated it. Knew she was tired of being an Arlessa the same way you were tired of being king. So, what did you do? Instead of helping her, giving her the right out, he took advantage of her. Tried to cling to her as leverage for his own freedom. Look how well that bit you in the ass, Alistair."Whatever you're trying to ask without asking, Lanny's never going back to being an Arlessa. Not that it should matter much to you."
Cullen rose up, his voice dropping low enough to rival the glowing elf, "Why?"
"She wouldn't give two golden shits if you were the commonest commoner to ever walk out of the commons. If she loves you, she'd be with you, unless you do something stupid. So, try to avoid that stupid thing, if you can."
"I...that wasn't what I was attempting to ask, but," he patted his thighs now, the sound echoing off the cold trees, "thank you for whatever that was. Advice, I suppose."
"Now that I've made myself feel like warmed over bronto patties, I think I'll finish washing up in this freezing river if it's all the same," Alistair called. The templar said something but Alistar bent over, dragging his hair through the frigid river to try and revive his cold brain.
Regrets weren't just white birds with long legs. He used to tell himself that if he did it over again he'd never have broken Lanny's heart. His young age and inexperience made him put the crown and his duty before his wants, before her. It was a nice lie to help Alistair sleep better at night, right up until he did the same damn thing again. He could have done anything else after they found Maric, asked her to be by his side in Denerim, to share moments when he visited Amaranthine, even sent a letter back to Eamon saying he drowned on a ship and then run away with her, whatever she wanted. But no, all he kept thinking was how he'd failed. Alistair put his own wants ahead of Ferelden's needs and it got him a dead father, also the information that there might be some dragon blood inside of him which sounded far grosser than the awesome it should have. He needed to chastise himself, to feel the proverbial switch, and who was around to do it but Lanny?
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