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He tried to let her down easy.
After the landsmeet had concluded, he approached Danylora and ended their relationship. Because of his new responsibility to Ferelden. Because of the future heir to the Theirin line that she probably wouldn’t be able to provide him.
Because she was Dalish.
He hadn’t said that last part out loud, but it hung thick in the air for everyone to see, a bitter cloud that settled over everyone in the room – and everyone in their party was in the room; the dolt hadn’t even pulled her aside to make his declaration in private. She caught Leliana shifting uncomfortably out of the corner of her eye. She wondered if Morrigan was gloating, if Wynne was having trouble containing her opinion, if any of her friends would dare speak up.
Alistair left for camp, declaring his need to be alone for a while before they began their march to Redcliff to prepare for what may very well be their final campaign against the blight.
Dany couldn’t agree more. She stalked out of the room and headed in the opposite direction as he. She remembered very little of her solo walk aside from the white-hot anger that threatened to consume her, eventually arriving at the coast and continuing south until the sounds of the city had faded into sea birds screaming at the tempestuous waves. She glowered at the rocky shore, at the wind-whipped foam on the waves, the whitecaps dashing against the boulders.
She screamed her rage into the sea. She screamed and screamed until all the rage was gone and nothing remained but heartsick despair. And she screamed more and more and finally when her throat felt beyond raw she collapsed into tears.
The mighty Grey Warden pounded her fists uselessly into the sand.
And when she was done and felt like all emotion had left her, she returned to the palace.
She spoke barely a word on the march from Denerim to Redcliff. No emotion.
When Riordan pulled her and Alistair aside and told them how an archdemon is really killed, she said nothing. No emotion.
When Morrigan told her of the dark ritual that could save the lives of the three Wardens she flatly told her that it was between her and Alistair or Riorden. She didn’t want to know either way.
No emotion. Simmering lava just beneath the bed of a calm lake.
When, on the mad dash back to Denerim to meet the archdemon’s horde, Riorden declared his intention as the senior Warden to deliver the killing blow to the dragon, she calmly but firmly corrected him – it would be she who ended it. If Morrigan’s ritual never took place or if it didn’t work as intended, someone would have to accept the archdemon’s soul and its resulting consequences.. She offered no reasoning to back up this resolution, but something in her eyes must have been enough to cause the other two Wardens to back down.
No emotion. A trickle of melt upon a glacier.
And when the final blow was struck by her hands and she yet stood atop the archdemon’s corpse alive and exhausted and sticky with poison blood and entrails, she stood silent, face blank but for her eyes which betrayed relief and exhaustion beyond measure. And behind it all just the barest hint of despair.
She was seen during King Alistair’s coronation but only for a short while, accepting sovereign lands on behalf of the Dalish people, then disappearing with her mabari soon after.
“Sire, I must respectfully ask how you intend on finding a single elf in the whole of the Brecilian Forest?”
Alistair rolled his eyes at the knight captain for what felt like the hundredth time this trip. “This isn’t my first time here. And, like I said, you’re welcome to ride back to Denerim at any time.”
That shut the man up for the time being, and Alistair was able to return his attention to the map he had propped on his horse’s neck. “If Zathrien’s camp was here and the ruins are here…” he mumbled to himself, “the entrance is right… here. Just to the north of us.” He pointed his small party in the correct direction and traveled on until he recognized the flat area between the trees where he and Dany recruited the Dalish to their cause a year and a half ago. Zathrien’s – or more correctly Lanaya’s – clan had long since moved on, but he could see the spot down the hill where they had kept their herd of halla.
Dany had insisted on helping a suffering halla there, calming the creature long enough to discern the source of its distress – a sick mate. She had helped the halla keeper nurse the sick halla and its mate back to health, taking the time even though time was of the essence in building an army against the blight. She had made it known that under no uncertain terms was she leaving before doing this, making her stand in her defiant way that even Morrigan dared not counter.
It was this fierce compassion that first drew him to her.
Alistair led them through the forest, hoping that the magic that allowed them passage before was still somehow in effect. To his relief, the paths they took all still looked the way he remembered them, each fallen tree and rickety bridge crossing sparking memories of skirmishes with intelligent werewolves and walking trees.
And then he saw the clearing he was looking for – and the Grand Oak within. He dismounted and approached the motionless tree.
“Um, hello. Are you still, er, the talking sort of tree?” If this wasn’t the right sylvan he was going to feel mighty foolish if it mindlessly attacked. Thankfully the creature simply stirred, stretching its branch-arms and looking for all the world like something that just awoke from a nap. The men in Alistair’s party started to draw their weapons but he waved them down.
The Grand Oak’s hollow eyes trained on Alistair. “I knowest thou, human man. Thou wert here not long past. Thy follows foiled an agelong curse, or so the forest whispered last.”
“A talking…rhyming tree?” the knight captain muttered.
“Yes! That was us. With the werewolves and the – anyway. I was wondering if you have seen one of my fellows lately – the elf? Small, black hair, big knives?”
The sylvan seemed to consider the group of men before answering.
“In the place within where madness once dwell
Mine own offspring purloined, the perpetrator fell
Where proud magic bled and man’s hubris tamed
Now shelter to a gentle herd, its horn fierce as flame.”
“I know where that is!” Alistair said brightly. “That’s not too far from here. We’re so close!”
“‘ware the pride of man – much care must be taken. The wrath of The People is not easily forsaken.”
He didn’t know how it happened, but he found himself with his face pressed down into the dirt, a knife at his throat. He could see his knight-captain forced against a rock wall with his sword tangled and out of reach in the antlers of the halla that held him there, and the two soldiers in their party so knotted up in a net several feet off the ground it was difficult to fathom how they got into that mess in the first place.
“You hold the King of Ferelden! I demand you release us at once!” the knight-captain shouted. A low growl came from below and he felt the hot breath of a wardog at his hip.
“We mean you no harm, whoever you are,” Alistair said, trying to turn his head enough to see his assailant. There was one knee on his neck and another digging into his spine, and both were motionless for what seemed like an eternity.
“Alistair?” a familiar voice whispered his name.
“Dany?” he replied, “Please say it’s you. I’ve been looking everywh—urrgh!” His face was pushed further into the dirt and the knife at his throat dug in a bit more.
“Unhand him!” shouted the knight-captain.
In a matter of seconds the person on top of him leapt away, and with a short whistle the halla keeping the captain captive ran as well. He was only able to get the briefest glance of a person with a long black braid riding away on the beast, the captain’s sword still entangled in its antlers and mabari not far behind.
“Dany! Wait!” he shouted to no avail, for his only answer was the looming silence of the forest.
Your Royal Highness,
It feels so strange to call you that. Even after all this time you are still Alistair the Grey Warden to me.
I know why you have called on me for this task of yours, and why not? It is after all what I do. But my dear Alistair, I am a bard second and a friend first – yours and hers. If you have been unable to locate Dany then I can only presume that she does not wish to be found. She has not reached out to myself or Zevran. I am not sure about the others.
You must know that it was because of the way you left her after the landsmeet. It was not your finest moment. She changed that night – we all saw it. It is in the past and I implore you to leave well enough alone, at least for now.
I hope your new life as King of Ferelden is treating you well. For what it is worth, I am proud of you.
Warmest regards,
Leliana
With a bit of a start, she realized she hadn’t heard anything from or about the capitol in three full years. Not that she would have had much of an opportunity, roaming around Ferelden as she had been doing, always staying far away from villages and caravans both human and elf alike. She had her dog, the herd of halla, and the constant question of where her next few meals would be coming from to keep her occupied, and the march of time was too abstract a concept to worry her thoughts.
The herd was traveling northward before the harsh southern Ferelden winter fell to take refuge around Highever and Amaranthine. It was harder to avoid people there than in the Hinterlands; there were far more farms and small hamlets to weave around, but there was also a small but thick forest that provided cover and food for her and the herd.
She had not expected to come across a group of darkspawn south of Amaranthine, not that it was unheard of in her travels. The number and frequency had been dropping over time and she made sure to take care of any that crossed her path.
She had definitely not expected to find a teenage boy shaking on the ground in the middle of the darkspawn, his rusty short sword out of reach and his eyes tightly shut and waiting for the killing blow to come.
“Boy.” She stood over him, arms crossed. “Shemlen.”
He opened one eye. “Did you kill them?” he asked, lip quivering.
“Yes. Go home.” Her voice was gritty. She couldn’t remember the last time she spoke aloud.
“I don’t know where I am!” the man-child whined. “I’ve been lost for three days.”
Danylora pinched the bridge of her nose. Of course he was lost. And where there was darkspawn, there was sure to be more. She couldn’t very well walk away from the boy now; it wasn’t in her nature. This is why she stayed away from people in general – there was always someone with a sob story who needed saving and she desperately wanted to be done with the hero business.
“Where are you from?”
“Amaranthine.”
She sighed in frustration. Not only was he from the most populous city in the area, but Amaranthine was a week’s journey away.
“There is a human fort nearby. I will take you no further.”
The boy scrambled to his feet. “Thank you, mistress!”
She whistled to her halla companion, the one of the herd that shared her heart. He came running from beyond a hill where the rest of the herd had retreated. She pressed her forehead to his and whispered softly. When she was done the halla bounded away. The boy watched in rapt fascination.
“Is that your halla? What’s his name?”
“He is not mine any more than I belong to anyone else. The halla have no names.”
She began walking toward where she knew the fort was. It would take most of the day to reach it.
“Is he going to come with us?”
“He will stay with the herd.”
“I saw a herd of halla once. They were traveling with a group of Dalish. You’re Dalish, aren’t you? Where is your clan? Is that your mabari?”
“Dirthara-ma!” she growled. That seemed to shut him up for a while.
It wasn’t long before he began talking about himself and peppering her with questions again. He was evidently a potter’s son who was sent to deliver something to his uncle’s farm but he was separated from his older cousins when a bad storm caused a sinkhole to collapse under him and wash him miles away from where he started. He had only just emerged from underground when the group of darkspawn appeared and gave chase.
Not too many years ago she would have been kinder to the child, engaged in conversation, tried to understand his perspective through his words and actions. Nowadays she bristled at just the voices of people – human, elf, dwarf, and Qunari alike. People were bastards. She had already given all of herself and more to save them, and what had that gotten her in the end? She scowled and picked up her pace.
She led him as close to the entrance of Vigil’s Keep as she dared. There were Grey Wardens patrolling the area and she had successfully navigated the lad around them. She had no intention of presenting herself to them now.
“The Wardens will help you from here. Dareth shiral, child.”
The boy was squinting at the gates and suddenly exclaimed, “It’s my cousins! They’re here!” loud enough to alert the guards and everyone else in the area. Danylora cursed and turned to leave as quickly and quietly as she could, but something stopped her.
Out of the corner of her eye she saw him.
And he definitely saw her.
Her mabari whined and cocked his head at her. Mind your own business, she thought.
And suddenly the King of Ferelden was running full tilt towards her. Everything in her head told her to run, to get away, to hide forever.
Everything in her heart told her to stand still.
And then he was upon her and she was wrapped stiffly in his arms and he was telling her how much he missed her and everything around her seemed to go silent except for the thrum of her heartbeat in her ears and the smell of him, sound of him, feel of him – familiar after all these years – was everything and everything and everything.
She couldn’t move. She couldn’t breathe. What they were before, one mind and one heart beating together, everything she never thought she would have, threatened to tear apart the very fabric of her being.
She kneed him in the groin.
He let go with a groan. In no time at all she was at the end of many swords – Ferelden knights and Denerim guards and even a couple of templars – and Alistair was trying to call them off but was unable to find much of his voice to do so.
“No, no, stand down. I deserved that,” he wheezed.
“Your majesty…?!”
“I said stand down, man!”
The swords were lowered and Alistair, bent over with hands on his knees, took several deep breaths and motioned her to wait. “I deserved that. I know. Maker, you haven’t gotten any less strong, have you?”
Danylora crossed her arms and stared at him wordlessly.
“No, of course not. Just– would you be willing to hear me out?”
“I must return to my herd.”
“One hour!” he pleaded. “I know you don’t owe me anything, but maybe you can do me a favor?”
They had been given a room to speak privately, or as private as was possible with knights just outside the door. It felt strange being indoors like this again, in a room full of shem books and shem chairs and shem paintings of prominent shems on the wall. It felt confining, unnatural, like the furniture itself was judging her.
“You look well,” Alistair started. “I hope you have been. Well, that is.” He was pacing now, hand on the back of his neck, a hint of red creeping into his cheeks.
She stood motionless, arms crossed, watching him.
“I suppose I should just get to it then. Dany, that day of the landsmeet… right after, I mean, when I… I said those things. I am… a colossal fool.”
She didn’t want to remember. She wanted to keep those memories pushed deep down inside and never think about them again. But as was its wont, her traitorous mind unleashed the words that had cut her so deeply that day.
“I have to face what this means. I can’t run away from it anymore.”
She turned away from him bitterly, hoping that if she didn’t see his face the memories would stop.
“Dany, I need you to know that not a day has gone by since that I haven’t thought about you, regretted what I said and how I said it.”
“If this is what must be, then… then I have to do it now.”
She scoffed. “It was a long time ago and anyway you made your intentions crystal clear. You need to move on. I have.”
“But that’s just it–” he closed in on her, stopping short of arm’s length away, “those weren’t my intentions. Not really. I was… confused. It happened so fast. And Eamon was talking about duty and bloodlines and responsibility and…” he groaned.
“But there are things that are more important than what I want.”
“You may have loved me, but you let your duty and responsibility and your precious shem blood– Fen'Harel ma ghilana!” she spat and moved further away from him.
“I am king of Ferelden!” he shouted as if trying to drown out her Elvish curse.
She wheeled around and stared coldly into his eyes. “I am no subject of–”
“Maker, please, just listen to me!” he pleaded. “I am king, and what I’ve learned over the last almost five years is that I make the rules. Mostly.”
“What a boon for your kingdom,” she sneered.
“I’m trying to tell you that I still love you, and that I fully plan on marrying whomever I please.”
“Then I wish you and your future wife all the best. May you have a fine litter of children to sit upon your throne.”
He groaned again. “You’re still not listening to me. You’re just as stubborn as the day I…” His arms dropped to his side and he looked down. “As the day I fell in love with you.”
She stiffened. There it was, the chink in her armor. The memories washed over her once more, softer this time.
“Being near you makes me crazy. But I can’t imagine being without you. Not ever.”
“I love you. More than I ever thought possible.”
“I love you. I’ll always love you.”
She turned away again. “Stop,” she said, barely above a whisper. She wasn’t sure if she was talking to herself or to Alistair.
He took a deep breath. “I still love you and I still want to be with you, politics be damned. And if you never want to see me again… like I suppose you… anyway, I won’t go looking for you anymore. But if you do, I swear to holy Andraste that I will never leave your side again as long as I live. I know I don’t deserve your forgiveness. But I had to try. I had to tell you… that leaving you is and will forever be my biggest regret.”
She was shaking. She hoped he couldn’t see. Foolish tears ran down her face despite her trying to blink them away, to don the mantle of stone that protected her and everyone around her from her treacherous emotions.
“You don’t need to say anything now,” Alistair said softly. “I’m headed back to Denerim. I will wait for you there. If I don’t see you within the next year, I will have your answer.”
When he left the room Danylora’s shivering intensified, maybe from the lack of his presence, or maybe from the feelings that threatened to drown her in the cold abyss of her heart.
She wiped the tears away, collected her dog, and disappeared into the rolling hills of the arling.
The death of winter brought with it an early heat, skipping over the delicate and fleeting spring warmth that was just enough to quicken seed and bud and careening directly into audacious fecundity. King Alistair was enjoying his reverie in the garden as he did most mornings after his routine training. Though he no longer had the time to tend to the bushes he had planted with his own hands when first the Royal Palace became his home, he made sure the royal gardener was taking proper care all season long.
It wouldn’t be long now before his seneschal burst through the door to assault him with whatever mundane business he had to attend that day – a visit from some noble or another, plans for placating displaced farmers in the Hinterlands, possibly even a judgment that needed passing. He’d hang it all to be traveling with friends again. Maybe not at the cost of another blight, but to be free to travel the lands, righting wrongs and helping people directly – that was something he missed dearly. Not that he wasn’t doing his best to right wrongs and help people from the throne, it was just so much less personal now.
He closed his eyes and inclined his face toward the sun streaming in through the garden pillars. The smell of roses in bloom washed over him and brought his mind back to her.
Like a miracle sent by the Maker, when he opened his eyes again she was there.
She was standing amongst the rose bushes, delicate fingers caressing blood red petals.
He choked up, brought his hand to his mouth, and dared not blink lest she disappear again.
She looked at him then; big, expressive eyes taking in the man sitting on the bench, no longer the larger than life figure in kingly golden armor, not even the cocksure Warden recruit in splintmail, but just a man in simple breeches and shirt. The man whose heart and mind and body she knew so fiercely once. The man whose eyes were shining with tears for her.
“How could something so beautiful exist in a place with so much despair and ugliness?”
His words echoed on her lips caused the tears to spill freely. He rushed to her, not daring to touch her yet burning for the feel of her, fingers trembling just a hair's breadth away from her body.
“Are you back?” he whispered.
Her expression was inscrutable. She was thinking hard about her answer, like it never occurred to her that he would ask.
Only she did know that he would ask, but she didn’t want to face her own answer.
She turned toward the rose beneath her hand, the better to not have to look at him as she spoke. “I have been in a prison of my mind since the day you ended things,” she said softly. “I stayed away from everyone and everything. I prayed for the Creators to take me. To open the earth and swallow all of Ferelden. I raged alone. Cried alone. I fully intended to die alone.”
“Maker’s breath, Dany, no.”
“If I didn’t live this way, then every day and every night I would see your face. Hear your voice. It felt like I was trapped under ice.
“Alistair, I’m not over you. I don’t think I ever could be. And if that makes me a sad or pathetic person, so be it.”
“We’ll just have to be sad and pathetic together, then, I suppose.”
Alistair took her into his arms. She fit there as perfectly as she ever did, and he finally relaxed into the embrace when he felt the caress of her arms and hands on his back.
“What a rare and wonderful thing you are amidst all this darkness.”
“How did you get in here, anyway?”
“Your palace’s security is lacking.”