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She’s cute, he thought when he first saw Aeya. That was before he noticed the white dress caked with blood, sweat, and dirt; before he knew the story behind the ragged scar that stretched across her right cheekbone, before he heard her swear at templars and hurl curses at darkspawn.
She’s really cute, he thinks now, sitting at the campfire. She’s fast asleep, curled up, fingers and toes twitching from time to time, snoring softly. She’s cute, he thinks now that he knows that the white dress she was wearing was supposed to be her wedding dress and that Duncan didn’t want to get her proper armor until after the Joining in case she died, so she just left it on; now that he knows that when she smiles her scar ripples across her face and cuts right through what is quite possibly the most adorable dimple to ever exist; now that he knows that she doesn’t really know how to express positive feelings in words because no one ever gave her cause to do so, but oh does she try.
You’ve got it bad, Alistair, he thinks to himself, then watches as Dog gets up from where he was lounging next to Sten, who is lying on the bare grass, hops over to Aeya, and curls up next to her. He smiles as Dog immediately starts to drool. Aeya is too occupied by her dreams to notice.
If he turned his head to the right, he would see the towers of Redcliffe castle just over the treetops, and that frightens him more than anything else right now. He hasn’t been there in ages, hasn’t wanted to ever come back. For some time, he tried to leave that part of his life behind, to pretend like it never happened, before he had to face the facts that his birth and blood weren’t going to change. And now they are all going to find out: Morrigan, Sten, Leliana, Wynne, and Zevran, their newest addition. And, of course, Aeya. Even the damn Dog is going to have to hear that Alistair is a royal bastard. For a moment, he imagines how telling them will go: “I’m a bastard,” he will say, and Morrigan will laugh and say “We all knew that already, Alistair,” and Aeya will chuckle but try to hide her amusement when she sees that he’s serious.
He sighs. He’s not looking forward to it.
Should he talk to Aeya before he breaks the news to the entire group? Beg for her forgiveness? “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you right away,” he whispers, trying out how the words feel on his tongue while no one is awake to hear them.
Sten lets out a huge snore and turns around, scratching his leg without waking up.
Alistair laughs quietly to himself. Message received, he thinks. I was getting a little too melancholic right there. He gazes into the flickering flames of the campfire and tries to think of happier things.
When Morrigan finally wakes to relieve him of his watch, he even manages to give her a small smile.
Aeya wakes him by repeatedly stabbing his cheek with a spoon, then pushes a plate of scrambled eggs, dried meat, and mystery gruel cooked Ferelden style into his hands before he has even fully opened his eyes. He sits up and sees that the sun is just barely rising over the towers of Redcliffe castle.
Zevran is munching dejectedly on his piece of unidentifiable dried meat, probably missing Antivan food (or any food that doesn’t taste like shoe leather) while Leliana pours steaming hot but flavorless tea for Wynne and Morrigan. Sten seems to have already eaten as he’s stretching in preparation for his daily sword exercises.
Aeya sits cross-legged on a tree stump, wearing the padded blue underclothes of her Warden armor, and alternates between shoveling scrambled eggs into her mouth and throwing pieces of meat at Dog, who catches them out of the air with increasingly high jumps. Her eyelashes are clumped together from sleep and her cheeks still have a bit of flush to them. Alistair’s heart skips a beat.
Dog misses a piece of meat and barks at it when it hits the ground.
Like every morning since they started their journey together, Leliana quickly finishes her tea and takes out a map of Ferelden that was once pristine and new, but is now torn at the edges and covered in stains from continuous use. They all gather around the map, which Leliana spreads out on a large flat stone, clutching their plates and cups and utensils, rubbing sleep from their eyes and trying to hide their yawns. Sten stops his warm-up exercises to stand behind Leliana’s left shoulder and stare at the map.
Aeya uses her spoon to point to a fork in the road.
“That was yesterday. We stopped about two hours after we passed that fork,” she says, her mouth still half-full of eggs.
“If all goes well, we should reach Redcliffe about two hours before sunset,” Leliana concludes. One by one, their eyes all wander to Alistair.
“The castle is right there,” he says, shrugs, and points to the tower just visible over the treetops. “We might actually reach the village a bit earlier than that.”
“You don’t sound happy about it,” Aeya says. Alistair takes a second to marvel at the wrinkle that forms between her eyebrows as she frowns at him, then shrugs again.
“As you know, my childhood wasn’t the happiest,” he says, quietly enough to hear Morrigan scoff before he even finishes the last word.
“Poor Alistair, raised by dogs in their kennel,” she says. Alistair grins at her, grateful for the opportunity to mask his feelings by bickering with Morrigan, which has been one of his favorite pastimes since they met at Ostagar.
“So glad you remember!” he says, making his grin just a little bit too wide, “But you shouldn’t be dismissive of the dogs. They were very good at cuddling.”
“Alright, break it up, you two,” Aeya warns before things get out of hand, but a small smile betrays her harsh tone. She unfolds her legs, puts down her plate, then gets up to put on the rest of her armor. Alistair tries not to stare as she repeatedly tries to brush her chin-length dark hair behind her pointed ears, only for it to slip out again and again.
Leliana catches him looking at Aeya, gives him a brilliant smile and a short thumbs-up, then goes back to the map. Alistair barely manages to suppress a sigh.
They start walking just after the sun has fully risen. Sten carries Leliana’s bag for her as she’s busy gossiping with Zevran and gesturing excitedly. Alistair decides to distract himself from the looming threat of having to confess his parentage to the group by finding a nice stick and throwing it for Dog, who thankfully plays along with Alistair’s effort to Not Think. Aeya chuckles as Dog almost falls over his own paws in his rush to bring the stick back. She does a little half-jog to catch up to Alistair.
“Are you okay? You seem … not okay,” she says, then winces at her own words. He smiles. He’s used to her not being the most sensitive or eloquent. By now, he knows that she really does care, even if she tries to hide and deny it to the point that if she actually wants to express concern, she doesn’t know how.
Their arms brush against each other as they continue marching, the armor plates clinking softly together.
“I’m ... “ he starts, then stops again to throw the stick once more, “I’m not really okay, yeah.” He turns his face to hers. The sun makes her brown eyes look like molten gold and his stupid little heart does a little dance. He can feel the blood rushing to his ears and hopes that it’s not too obvious they are turning red. “But don’t worry, I think I’m going to be.”
When she smiles at that, he wants to take her hand so badly. Say “I like you, Aeya.” Or “I think you’re adorable, Aeya.” But he doesn’t. Instead, he keeps his lips pressed together tightly.
“I’m glad,” she says, still smiling. She looks down at her feet, then back up at his face, squinting slightly at the sun that shines into her eyes. She raises her left hand to shield her face from it. He’s thankful for that. He probably would have taken it after all, and what would happen then? He was worried about the soft, careful friendship that had developed between them. No matter what happened today, it would definitely change that friendship, probably for the worse, and he hated the thought of it. If only this moment, this little slice of their day where they just enjoyed the fresh air, the open road, and each others’ companionship, would last forever.
“I worry about you, Alistair. A lot,” she says then.
“Why?” he asks, the blood rushing in his ears.
“The closer we get to Redcliffe, the more distant you become,” she says, and this time it’s her who throws the stick for Dog, “I know you haven’t had the best experiences there.”
He barks out a laugh at that, shakes his head, and smiles at her.
“No, I suppose I haven’t,” he says. The towers of Redcliffe Castle get taller and more ominous with each step they take. The warmth of the sun on his face contrasts starkly with the cold that threatens to overtake his heart. For a moment, he allows himself to imagine the past as it could have been: His father coming to take him to Denerim, being raised alongside Cailan, becoming the prince he wanted to be when he was a little boy. Then, he takes another second to imagine his future the way he wants it to be: In it, he’s just himself, just Alistair. Nothing else. Not a prince, not a king, not a Warden. But in this future, he holds Aeya’s small hand in his. And he smiles. The Alistair from that future is happy and content and safe.
“But …?” Aeya starts when he doesn’t continue his sentence for a while.
“But the past is the past, you know?” Dog runs towards him and spits the stick at his feet. He picks it up and throws it. It’s a bad throw, and it almost hits Wynne in the head. “There’s nothing I can do to change it …” The moment he says it, a flash of regret burns through his mind. The castle towers seem to mock him from afar. But then Aeya sweeps her hair behind her ears once more only for it to fall free again a second later, and the moment passes.
He takes a deep breath, and stops walking. When the others notice, he waves them on.
“We’ll be right there. Keep going, we’ll catch up,” he says. Zevran winks at him and takes up the responsibility of entertaining Dog. Leliana smiles, Morrigan smirks, and Wynne looks concerned. Eventually, they all continue walking, albeit slower than before.
Aeya looks at him. The small wrinkle is back between her eyebrows.
Just past where they’re standing, where the ground hasn’t been trampled by the feet of travelers to and from Redcliffe, just past the bare earth and the patches of mud, there’s a large patch of grass. On it, a smattering of daisies grow, their soft delicate petals tinged slightly pink at the tips. Alistair walks over to it, bends down, and picks the one that he thinks is prettiest. It’s missing a single petal on one side, but the underside is a brilliant pink, brighter and more vibrant than all the others. He holds it in his hands for a second, then gently, carefully places it behind Aeya’s ear.
“What are you doing?” she asks, half-whispering, as if she didn’t want anyone to hear, even though the others were already too far along the path to hear them.
He indulges in one last look at her, the petals of the flower resting against her cheek, before he shatters what fragile friendship they have built up over the last few weeks.
He sighs, and says, “I have to tell you something.”