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She flinched when it thundered.
It was… different there, in the barn for the night. The sky had turned wickedly dark before it was time for the sun to sink, and by chance they’d found this weathered old barn just off the road. She sat in a pile of hay, watching out a window cut-out in the wooden boards of the walls as the storm howled outside. She twitched when lightning flickered, and jumped when the thunder came. Eyes wide, she watched the sky as though perhaps she could temper the terror if she saw it coming. But over and over, it did not seem as though that were possible.
She seemed sad. He wanted to… comfort her. Was that strange?
No. She was his companion. She… was his friend. He should want to make her feel better. He should want to—
Heart in his throat, he took a chance. He moved to sit next to her in the hay, his shoulder bumping against hers as he sank down. She glanced over, her eyebrows raising slightly as her face flashed with surprise that turned to interest. She didn’t scrunch up her face, or tell him to go away. That was a good sign.
“You don’t like storms, I take it,” he said.
“No,” she said, her head bowing slightly as she hugged the blanket around her shoulders, before looking up at him with eyes widened by fear. “That obvious, huh? Sorry. I… never have liked them. Ever since I was young.”
“I used to like the big storms,” Alistair told her, looking past her out the little window in the barn as the sky raged. “They used to let me come in the castle and sleep down by the common kitchen when the weather got nasty. They didn’t want me to catch cold in the rain, you know.”
“Everything you tell me about your childhood makes me a little sad,” Inara said with a breath of an awkward laugh. “I’m sorry. It’s not—funny. I just—”
“Me too,” Alistair assured her with a chuckle of his own. Mid-smile, however, she flinched again at the next deep and rolling roar of thunder. The storm was getting closer. “But… my childhood makes you sad? Weren’t you an orphan?”
“Later on,” she said. “Well. Right away, I guess. But I was a baby, and I didn’t remember that. I remembered that my adoptive father loved me very much. He never thought I wasn’t his own, nor did I. It wasn’t until I was a teenager that…” Her eyes flickered and darkened like the sky outside. “…things changed.”
“You mentioned,” he breathed. “Your… brother killed your father, right?”
Her head bowed in a low nod, and her eyes stayed low. For a moment, he thought perhaps the conversation was over. Real good, Alistair. Talking about her dead family will definitely help her feel comforted. But then she shifted, glanced at him again.
“Yep. Hungry for power,” she heaved after a deep breath. “I guess that sounds kind of familiar now, doesn’t it?”
Alistair blinked. Inara must have seen his confusion without him speaking to it. She always seemed to read him well. She… paid attention to him. Noticed things.
“Loghain,” she said.
Anger flushed red hot across his cheeks. Alistair had to swallow hard.
“Ah. Yeah.”
“It… doesn’t really make sense, does it?” Inara asked him then. “I mean… maybe… I don’t know. Everything I ever heard—Loghain was supposed to be some big damn hero. And Maric’s best friend. I just don’t—”
“Well, the stories were wrong, obviously,” Alistair growled as rage rolled sick in his stomach, clawed low at his spine. “Or maybe he’s just gone mad somehow, like everyone else seems to be doing. Either way. He’s a monster. He killed Cailan. He killed Duncan. And framed the Grey Wardens for it. All to get at the throne.”
“I know,” Inara said softly, her gaze flickering over Alistair. “I just… I don’t know. I’m… confused. I wanted to be just like him, once. I wanted to make something of myself when no one thought I could. Just like him.”
“Well, safe to say you don’t want that anymore.”
Inara looked away. Alistair felt his stomach twist and pinch. What little they had eaten for supper surely didn’t help the sour churning that the mention of Loghain poured in, but he felt angry nonetheless that the man continued to plague him, even here and now. Inara watched the sky for a bit, quiet as Alistair fumed. His fellow Warden was still twitching at the thunder, jumping at the lightning.
“My father used to say that Lightning was a warrior, brave and strong. He said Thunder was her loyal herald, announcing with boisterous pride every time her blade struck true,” she told him softly. “He said that they’re deeply in love, and will be for all eternity. That’s why they’re always together in the sky.”
“I don’t know what the Chantry says it is,” Alistair grumbled. “I think just the Maker striking people down, or something.”
She tilted her head slightly.
“Mine’s a little bit more… romantic.”
“Yeah,” Alistair huffed, flopping back into the hay as anger ate at his stomach. “I guess.”
Inara took a heavy breath, and reclined back next to him. When he looked at her, she was looking at him. But then the lightning flashed, and her head swiveled quickly to the other side.
“We’ll be okay, you know,” Alistair said. “I’m sure this old barn’s seen worse.”
“You’re probably right,” she said. “You don’t have to stay here with me. If you’re tired.”
“Mm,” Alistair mumbled. “Yeah. Guess you’re right. Sleep might be good.”
“Good night,” she bid after a moment of hesitation.
“Good night,” he returned. “Get some sleep. You’ll need it.”
She watched him push himself up, watched him leave.
It wasn’t until he was lying on his own bedroll in a mostly-dry corner of the barn that he thought perhaps he’d missed an opportunity, somewhere in that. And he himself did not get very much sleep at all.