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She drew her fingers down Alistair’s arm slowly, counting freckles as her nails left a quickly-vanishing trail over the soft tan of his skin. His breath rolled over her neck as his lips grazed the top of her ear. His arms flexed, pulled her closer to his heartbeat, until her chest panged with a soft pain, her ribs squeezed towards her center almost uncomfortably. From where her head was rested, cheekbone against collarbone, she could see the sun starting to spill slowly in the window, the battered blinds shut as tight as they could be against the rising light as she prayed for this moment to last just a little bit longer.
“What if the darkspawn just left tomorrow?” he asked her suddenly, the backs of his fingers sliding slowly over the curve of her thigh. “What if we woke up tomorrow and this was all just… over?”
“Then I suppose we’d only have to fight the civil war,” she answered.
He breathed out, his head resting heavier on the top of her head.
“We could run away,” he murmured.
Her eyes raised, grazed the hair standing on his arms, his nipple puckered against the soft drafts that whispered across their bodies everywhere the rough blankets did not touch. She could not see his face without moving, disrupting the heat of his skin from flowing into hers, but she watched his throat tense as he swallowed.
“Would you?”
He was quiet for a long moment, his hand raising off her hip, and her stomach tightened. She wondered if she’d upset him. She looked down, slid her thumb over the inside of his elbow. He breathed out.
“I’m sorry,” she said.
“For what?”
“I’m not sure. Just seems like you’re sad.”
He chanced a half-laugh, a soft noise on the edge of his breath, and pressed a featherlight kiss to the top of her forehead. He shifted, and cold tickled at the places where their skin parted. He looked down at her, his honeyed eyes shining and bright, a soft smile curling the edge of his lips.
“I’m not sad,” he said. “This… I don’t know. Maybe I am sad. I miss Duncan. And I’m sad about what’s happened. About what Loghain has done to Ferelden, to all of us. But here, with you… I mean, without this… would we have ever met?”
She thought on it a moment. Thought of the noose that awaited her that afternoon, had Duncan not stepped between her and the guard. She thought of the proposal she’d been offered by a man she did not love. Even if she had not died that day, she’d have soon been caught up in a promise she could not escape.
“Probably not,” she said.
“It’s not that I want to run away,” Alistair said softly, his hand rising to slide her hair back over her shoulder, to slowly trace the back of his hand down her cheek. “But how is it fair to find something so rare and then just have to risk losing it over and over again, every day?”
“I think that might be all life is,” she told him, her eyes trailing over his lips as his soft smile flickered into a frown. “All these people. The darkspawn, the civil war. Everyone is losing everything they love every day. That’s what we’re trying to stop. That’s why we stay.”
Alistair took a deep breath, and squeezed her tighter to his chest as he let it out. She squeezed his arm in kind, and smiled up at him.
“I don’t want to lose you,” he told her. “I’ve never been so scared of anything. I didn’t think I’d ever find… I mean, I never thought I’d feel this way. About anyone. And of course, you have to be a badass, eager to stare down an Archdemon.”
It was her turn to laugh, her leg sliding between his thighs as her body shook softly.
“Don’t know that I’d say eager,” she snorted.
“I just wish I could keep you safe,” he told her. “Take you away from all this. Find a little cottage out in the middle of the forest. Make a little home for ourselves there, with a garden and some chickens and some goats. Maybe one druffalo. Just you and I, no one around. Until the kids come, that is.”
She rested her head back on his chest with a slow sigh, her eyes fluttering closed a moment as her hand moved to his chest. She felt his heartbeat pulse beneath her palm, felt the slow rise and fall of his breath.
“We will find peace together,” she said. “In this life, or at the Maker’s side.”
He squeezed her tight. His lips pressed hard against her temple, and her fingers curled over his heart as he held her hard.
“I love you,” he said.
“And I you,” she answered.
He released her just enough so that they could twist, their lips meeting clumsily at first, before finding purchase, depth, and warmth.
“We will save the world together,” she said. “And then no one will dare deny us our happiness.”
“No pressure,” he chuckled.
“And if you die, there’s always Zevran,” she snorted, and he scowled something terrible as she peppered kisses across his cheek.
“You are a wicked woman,” he harrumphed. “Rotten to the core.”
“Hey, you have Wynne,” she chortled.
“Rotten,” he repeated, and seized her roughly, rolling them over and squeezing her body beneath his as he shifted on top of her, making it hard to laugh, hard to breathe. “Terrible. Horrible. I’ve never loved anyone so much. I must be cursed.”
“Or blessed,” she squeaked, as he covered her face in kisses. “You’re blessed! I’m a blessing!”
“A blessing,” he snorted. “From—what’s that evil god? The Dalish one? Fen’Harel. You’re a blessing of Fen’Harel.”
“You do like me quite a bit from behind,” she grinned. “You know, because they turn the statues around and—”
“Wicked,” Alistair accused her again, and rested heavy atop her body.
She closed her eyes, her nails curled into his shoulders, her body enjoying the heat, the warmth of his body atop hers. She buried her face in his neck, breathed in the smell of him, holding him close.
“I will be with you forever,” she told him.
“I hope that’s true,” he answered.
They fell silent, holding each other in the quiet, and both of them wished that moment would last forever.