fadewalk | RP: Alistair (wardenalistair)

Everything was darkness.

The feeling of the cold stone against her skin was the last thing she could remember before the darkness. So much noise, so much destruction, so much pain...

A refreshing feeling ran through her body, different from any kind of healing spell she have ever known. She could hear steps, metal against the stone floor. Was the fight over? She couldn't say for sure, her limbs were heavy, she felt terribly weak and tired. But maybe a little nap could make her feel better... just a little nap.

Neria didn't know how much time had passed when she started regaining her consciousness, slowly drifting out of her dreamless sleep. There was people talking and then there was silence again. Only a familiar warmth grounding her mind to the real world.

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Alistair had followed Leliana to the door and bolted it behind her. Not that he thought they were in too much danger, here, but anyone with good intentions could knock easily enough, and he wasn't in a mood to take chances.

That done, he tended to the fire and toed off his boots, crawling in the bed next to Neria. He dropped his sword in easy reach on the floor by the bed and set his journal on the bedside table, then curled on his side beside her, taking one of her hands and clutching it in both of his to his heart.

He didn't expect to sleep, but he did doze off eventually.

Neria woke up slowly, body sore all over. Last time she had felt that well, if memory served her well, was after the Battle of Denerim, the Archdemon's death cry still echoing on her ears. Now there was just the fire cracking in the fireplace and Alistair's breathing by her side.

Her mouth was dry, her head still a little numb. She untangled her hand from his and propped herself up, grunting with pain.

Alistair roused immediately at the feeling of the hand in his being tugged away. He had become accustomed to sleeping in snatches, senses still on alert, when he was alone and hiding out from his fellow Wardens in Crestwood, a skill he'd used before and was fairly certain he would use again.

"Neria?" he asked before his eyes were even fully open.

He reached for her shoulders when he saw her sitting up, getting a tiny frown and a furrow to his brow. "Hey - don't - you're still going to be a little weak, okay? Just lay back for me."

He sat up, one hand trailing up to cup her cheek. "How do you feel?" he asked anxiously.

Neria flinched at his touch, more due surprise than pain. She did as he asked, laying on her back again with a deep sigh.

"I'm feeling like crap, but I'm inclined to consider this the understatement of the age." she leaned at his touch "Can you please fetch me some water?"

Alistair dropped the hand still on her shoulder at her flinch, the concern in his hazel eyes only increasing.

"Of course," he said quickly at the request, though he lingered a moment to brush his thumb over the line of her cheekbone before he stood. Crossing to the table where Leliana had left Certainty not long ago, he poured a glass of water from a pitcher they'd left there after their meal the night before.

"It's not the freshest water, exactly." He held the glass out and balanced on the edge of the bed beside her. "But I can go and draw more from the well if you wish?"

"There is no need for it." she reached out for the glass, fingers trembling. Instead of grabbing the glass, she approached it and tilted Alistair's hand with her own to take a sip, before motioning back to the bed. Neria rested her hand over his thigh and squeezed, as a thank you.

"So... how exactly I got here?"

Alistair set the glass on the side table when Neria was done with it and then pressed a little closer to her. He reached out and combed her hair back from her face with his fingers, tucking it behind one pointed ear.

"Um. Leliana found you. Unconscious and alone, with the signs of a fight around you? She was bringing you somewhere better to tend to you when I found her in the Great Hall." He paused, hazel eyes darkening, and explained, "When you were gone so long, I got...concerned. We brought you back here and Leliana patched you up, and then Evelea came and offered you some healing."

Neria hummed in approval at Alistair's fingers on her hair, closing her eyes "Oh, Evelea?" she smiled "How thoughtful of her. And Leliana... so, she is fine, I take it? Thank the Creators."

She tapped the mattress by her side, gesturing for Alistair lay with her. When he was on her reach, she planted a soft kiss to his cheek, nuzzling his face "Sorry to worry you vhenan. I found Leliana unconscious on the floor just after her meeting with Meredith, and there was this woman fighting the Knight-Commander. I got dragged into the fight and... I'm so sorry."

Alistair slid in beside her and slipped his arm beneath her shoulders to cuddle her to him. He leaned in to the kiss, turning to catch her lips with his when she pulled away. It was gentle, not particularly pressing or demanding, but he poured all his fear and concern and love into it, closing his eyes as he brushed their lips together slowly.

He didn't move back much, just leaned into her.

"So it was Meredith," he muttered. "I thought it might be - Leliana found her sword, that red lyrium monstrosity, near where she found you. Which is - weird. But." A low growl rumbled deep in his chest. "That woman really needs to stop fucking with people I care about."

Neria melted on his arms, feeling safe and better despite the soreness lingering her body. She rested one hand just above his heart and wrapped the other around his waist.

"Good thing we are already past it, in our time. I just hope the other woman haven't killed her... I don't want to think about all damage this could do to the flow of time, how this could alter our own reality."

Alistair grunted, curling the fingers of his free hand around the hand she rested on his chest.

"Assuming this Meredith is from our reality, and not one of the others, or her own. But - yes - that could be...bad, now you mention it." He frowned. "Who was this other woman in the fight? She must be the one responsible for separating Meredith from her sword."

"She is the Meredith from our reality. She spoke to me through the journal, and to Hawke too." she sighed and was in silence for a few moments "The other woman, well... didn't have a chance to get her name, but I would bet my staff she is friends with the crew of that odd ship in the courtyard."

Alistair hummed, thinking.

"Leliana seemed pretty keen on just imprisoning her, with that procedure Cullen worked out, I think. If I know her at all, she'll take care of it."

He nodded slightly, reassured by the thought.

"I do hope so. You know how Leliana changed and I don't think being shoved downstairs worked to favor her reasoning. What about the sword? She can't destroy it, either."

Neria frowned "Which is very agonizing. Having a chance to stop so many deaths and not being allowed to."

Alistair wrinkled his nose. "I agree."

He moved to press his lips to her temple. "Oh, Leliana said she was going to take it to Dagna. Apparently she had some success with dismantling or repurposing, or something, some red lyrium armor?"

"I see. I'll look into it later."

She nuzzled his jaw, moving to press her body closer to his, seeking for his warmth, shivering with cold.

"Now I have more pressing matters, like cuddling with you and listening to the stories of your travels when we were apart. Everything."

Edited Date: 2015-08-31 04:54 am (UTC)

Alistair reached out to settle the blankets around her when she shivered, kissing the top of her head again.

"You won't hear any objections from me, my love," he said, his arm tightening around her. A muscle in his jaw twitched.

"What would you like to know?"

"Hmm... before you had to leave the Keep for objecting Clarel, how was everyone? And Amaranthine! Creators, I never thought I would say it, but I miss that bloody city."

Neria snuggled close to Alistair, sighing with contentment. She traced lazy patterns over his arm around her.

Alistair shifted his cheek against the top of her head so that there was less chance of him getting hair in his mouth, and nudged one leg over so that their legs were tangled together.

"You've trained them all well, my dear - everything was running quite smoothly when I left. Varel and Woolsey rule everything with a kind but iron fist. I left Oghren in charge, which I admit was not my...first instinct, but I think with the two of them to keep him in check, it won't be too terrible. And he does have a tendency to step up when you ask things of him, even if he still can't manage to be sober - well, ever."

He smooths the hand wrapped around her up and down her arm. "The recruits were settling in well - I'd had a few problems with the Bryland boy for a while there, but they were mostly settled by the time I left. You know how he can be, thinking he can lord it over the rest of them because his father's an arl. I dissuaded him of that notion. He did come to us, after all."

He hummed. "I wonder if they've made any recruitments while we've all been away - I expect not, but you never know. It's been long enough since the Blight that we'd mostly stopped having volunteers desperate to join our ranks. And then after this business with Corypheus, I doubt if we'll see any sort of volunteers for a decade or more." He sighed.

"Hmm, possibly. There is no glory in sacrifice in a order on the verge of internal war, after all. Specially when said order helped the enemy they swore to protect us from." she chuckled weakly, fingers intertwining with his before she held their hands against the light coming from the fireplace, looking at how the light and shadows changed their contour "Oh Oghren... I miss the old dwarven brewery, even his permanent alcoholic stench." her nose wrinkled when she smiled fondly

"His little nugget turns 10 in a few weeks, if I quite recall. I have yet to think of a gift. Haven't being exactly a good godmother for her lately." she kissed his knuckles "And how did you found out Hawke was after Corypheus? I know that boy, Carver, is her brother but... can't make the connection."

"Oh, it was a bit of both being after the same thing and a bit of the fact that I was one of few Wardens whose acquaintance made an impression on her, I guess? After we met in Kirkwall that once. She sent me a letter when she heard the rumors about what was going on with the Wardens from Carver and Anders, offering her help and her knowledge of Corypheus. We lost track of each other when I had to go on the run from Clarel's Wardens, but she sent the Inquisitor with all her resources after me, and that seemed to work."

He wrinkled his nose. "Crestwood full of undead is not a very pleasant locale, you should know."

Edited Date: 2015-09-01 01:54 am (UTC)

"Worst than Fallow Mire, plagued and full of undead?" she quirked her eyebrow "By the way, you should pay a visit to Hawke. She escaped from the Fade, somehow, and the Inquisitor found her."

She shifted to her side, burying her face on Alistair's chest for a moment, inhaling his scent "The Inquisitor gave you my message, when you were in Skyhold?"

"Not quite, but the rain was nearly as insufferable as the marsh."

His arm tightened around her at the mention of Hawke. "Oh," he breathed. "Oh, praise the Maker. I should - go and thank her. Yes."

"She did," he said, with a sound that rumbled through his chest, halfway between a laugh and a purr. He crooked a few fingers under her chin and lifted her head. "Do you have any idea what you do to me? Even a few lines in your hand. Maker's breath, love. How I wanted you that night."

Her eyes curved with the fond smile she gave him, pressing her lips against his in a slow kiss, fingers ghosting his cheek and jaw.

"I already told you why I call you 'vhenan', Alistair. You're my heart, you make me whole, even if you can't see how. When I heard you were in Skyhold, so close for the first time in years, I nearly dropped everything to deliver that message personally."

Alistair let out a small noise of frustration and want, tangling his fingers in her hair.

"I wish you would have," he mumbled. "I know this work you're doing is important, but...Maker." He closed his eyes and kissed her slowly.