She'd Almost Ended It

Disclaimer: I do not own Dragon Age.

The sad fact of the matter was that Sereda had almost ended it before it had to come to this point. Months ago, they had rushed through saving the Circle Tower and then headed to Redcliffe and Alistair had stopped her. He said that he was the son of a King and that it didn't mean anything but he wanted her to know in case somebody mentioned it. He didn't want her to think he was hiding things from her. The fact that he had neglected to mention his father until Redcliffe Castle had come into sight made that claim rather laughable but she'd had bigger worries.

Sereda had never had a proper boyfriend back in Orzammar. She had no idea who Rica's father was except that he was some noble who had rejected her for the high crime of not having been born a boy. She suspected that Rica had always secretly felt guilty for that, for not being their family's ticket out of poverty. It was ridiculous, of course, since Rica couldn't help what gender she was and since if Rica had been the boy everyone had wanted then her casteless father never would have entered the picture and Sereda wouldn't have even been born. Rica knew this, of course, but Sereda could tell that she still felt guilty.

And then there was Sereda's own father. He left when she was still a baby and she knew better than to ask her mother about him but Rica had been a few years old at the time and she said that she remembered that the two were happy together, that they spoke longingly of marriage and that their mother wore a necklace he crafted for her out of polished slate. It was so hard to imagine that. Her mother had always been so very much in love with her moss wine that the thought that she could have been in love with another dwarf…well, frankly it was terrifying.

Her mother had loved and lost and it was clear what that loss had done to her. Maybe it was just the bit that broke the bronto's back, maybe it was that her mother wasn't strong enough, maybe her mother hadn't ever been able to get over the father whose name Sereda didn't even know…whatever the reason, love or – more specifically – losing it had destroyed her. Maybe she wasn't her mother and not all men were her father but they were all Dust Town, too. She didn't want to risk it.

Since coming to the Surface she had been thinking a lot about her father, wondering if she'd ever come across him, if either of them would recognize the other if she did. The Surface really wasn't so bad and she wished more than anything that her mother had had the courage to leave with her father. Their life would have been better up here, everyone's was. Even the elves in the Alienage that everyone always looked upon as the lowest of the low had it better than she had had growing up and they could even legally work! Her only concern was that then she wouldn't have been here to help Alistair fight to end the Blight but surely Duncan would have found someone else to take her place. Maybe they'd have been more competent and maybe less so but it wouldn't have been the end of the world. Probably.

In the end, everything always seemed to come back to Alistair. She was a stranger in a strange land on the Surface. She liked some parts of it like the fact that she was a person up here even with her brand and how clean everything smelled. The hole in the sky was something she still wasn't quite used to and the openness was dizzying at times but it wasn't so bad. Still, she had never expected to have time to find someone amidst all the running and fighting and forcing-people-to-follow-their-treaties-ing. Everywhere she went there was Alistair, though, and so time wasn't exactly something the pair lacked together.

Alistair had been so sweet. He had known little of her people's ways but then, neither had she really and if anyone had asked she'd still be hard-pressed to say who little Endrin's royal grandfather was or his uncles. Or was it his uncle and aunt? She wasn't even positive about that much. He was a human but then most people were on the Surface. His open grief had made her uncomfortable as you never admitted things like that in Dust Town but she'd managed to help him through that without putting her foot in her mouth too many times and somehow, over the past year, they'd just…clicked. Sereda Brosca and Alistair Theirin…who would have ever thought? It couldn't happen. It had. It still couldn't.

Alistair had seemed so sincere with his insistence that he wasn't royalty and that he had only kept that secret so she wouldn't look at him any differently but that made no sense. Sereda was well-aware that Rica with her noble father and casteless mother was only casteless because she was a girl. If she'd been a boy then her mother could have been a…a qunari for all anyone cared and she'd – he'd – still be a nobleman. King Maric was male and so was his son. And humans didn't even have castes anyway. How could she possibly believe he hadn't been royalty?

She had almost ended it then and looking back, she could see that she really should have. It would have been difficult because she had liked him a lot but she hadn't loved him yet. It had been too soon and she wasn't quite that easy. Still, against her better judgment she'd let him convince her that she was just running away from the happiness that they'd found with each other and so she'd stayed. After all, she'd rationalized, even if he were royalty if nobody knew about it then did it really make a difference? No one knew so he wouldn't be called upon to do anything that might tear them apart.

Then Arl Eamon had woken up and all of a sudden he'd switched from Alistair's definition of nobility to Orzammar's and Alistair was called upon to take the throne. At the sodding Landsmeet, she had been called upon to decide who would lead the county. She didn't want to choose and so she didn't. Alistair and Anora were now set to rule together. Both had the potential to be good rulers, she thought, but the one's weakness was the other's strength and so they fit together, at least it terms of ruling. She was convinced that together they could be great and they had better given what she was giving up here.

Sereda was standing in the dining room at Eamon's Denerim estate with all of her friends who weren't secretly royalty and refusing to meet anyone's eyes. Not that that was all that difficult since they all seemed set on giving her space.

Suddenly the door burst open and there stood Alistair, dressed in his dead brother's armor and looking more awkward and miserable than she had ever seen him. "We…need to talk," he said slowly, not quite able to look at her. "I hate to ask everyone to clear out like this but this really needs to be done in private."

"Don't worry, Alistair," Leliana said gently. "We understand." With that she exited the room, followed closely by everyone else. Leske looked back at her as if asking 'are you sure you want me to go' but when she didn't reply he left as well. He was far more loyal as a dog than he'd ever been as her partner-in-crime.

"So…" Alistair began awkwardly.

"So," Sereda agreed. She didn't want to have this conversation but standing here pointedly avoiding it was almost worse. She wanted it to just be over. They both knew how this would play out, why did they need to actually go through with it?

"You made me King," Alistair said, the words sounding wrong coming from him. He still was so very unused to the whole idea and now it was a reality…or at least it would be once he survived the Blight and had his joint coronation with Anora. "I never wanted it, not really but after everything we've been through I'm coming to the conclusion that it won't be that bad after all. Anora certainly seems to know what she's doing so I can learn from her even though I'm not about to let her walk right over me like she expects. I certainly can't be any worse at this than Loghain, right?"

"At any rate, you'll likely try to kill me less," Sereda said vaguely. She couldn't take this. "Alistair-"

"I am going to marry Loghain's daughter," Alistair interrupted. "I knew it was coming and yet I guess I didn't exactly expect you to go through with it. But now you did and here I am and here you are and we're…well, we're not exactly in the same place, are we?"

Sereda didn't say anything. What was there to say? He was right and they both knew it so maybe if she didn't say anything this would be over faster.

"I'm going to need to have an heir at some point," Alistair continued delicately when it became obvious she wasn't going to say anything. "And though Maker knows I don't want to it's going to have to be with Anora. My future wife. I don't even know if one Grey Warden can have a child, let alone two but a half-dwarf would never be accepted and it wouldn't be right – for either you or for her – so it has to be Anora."

"I had rather thought that that would be the case," Sereda told him, hoping to forestall any more rambling. He didn't want to do this any more than she did and yet…it had to be done. "Is this your way of breaking up with me?"

Alistair looked pained. He had obviously wanted her to create a miracle as she had time and time again at the Circle, with the werewolves, at Redcliffe…but there were no miracles to be had this time. There was only a breakup neither of them wanted…or she could be his mistress.

It wasn't like mistresses were unheard of to Sereda. In fact, her own sister was the mistress to the King of Orzammar. It was just…she may not have known what, exactly, Rica was expected to do until shortly before she'd first met Duncan but she'd seen others doing it. Her own mother had done it, albeit unsuccessfully. If you were a casteless you had had only two ways you could advance – well, three if you counted rising through the ranks of the carta. You could become a part of the Legion of the living dead or you or a close relative could bear a noble son. That was it. Rica wasn't a fighter so she'd become a noble hunter. She had done better for herself than any noble hunter of their generation, at the very least (had the main part of the ruling family ever made use of a noble hunter before? Honestly, she had no way of knowing). Sereda loved her sister dearly and owed her more than she could say but…royal concubine was the best Rica could ever do.

Sereda was different. Sereda had always been different. She'd had it easier than Rica had, certainly, because she'd had Rica looking out for her all these years but she'd always also had that troublesome spark of defiance about her that made her a fighter and nearly got her killed time and time again…and that had also ultimately given her an out. Duncan had seen her fight and even though everyone else had dismissed her victory, dismissed her very existence at the sight of her sodding brand Duncan had not. He had been impressed. She was Grey Warden material, according to him, and he was willing to anger Orzammar at large to save her so that she could join him.

She was a Grey Warden now and, no matter what the close-minded fools back in Orzammar or her ale-addled mother might have to say about it, she had escaped Dust Town. She was a new person now: a stronger person, a more powerful person, just an overall better person. She loved Alistair, she truly did. She loved him with a ferocity that surprised and scared her and even made her think that she could begin to see why losing her father had so destroyed her mother. Sometimes love wasn't enough though. She would melt the Stone before she settled for the best a casteless could ever achieve in Orzammar.

"You remember when I told you you shouldn't run away from the truth?" Alistair asked rhetorically, taking a deep breath. "Well…it's about time I followed my own advice. And the truth is that while I love you more than I ever thought possible, you and I…we can't…"

"So that's a yes then," Sereda said unnecessarily, her voice hollow.

"That's a yes," Alistair confirmed grimly. "I'm not the King yet and I'm certainly not married but I have to do this now because if I don't then I don't trust myself to be able to do it when the time comes and that would put all the burden on you and that's simply not fair…well, this entire situation isn't fair, really, but I don't need to add to it. Maker knows I've tried to think of another way but I just can't think of any so if you really can't think one either…"

He looked so pathetically hopeful that Sereda almost wanted to tell him. Then they could go and be happy for awhile longer but long-term it would never work out and, as Alistair had so aptly put it, that simply wasn't fair. "Nothing that I'm willing to live with."

"Then…I guess this is this it, then," Alistair said, his face crumpling. "I…I've got to go. Important Kingly things to settle with Ano-with Arl Eamon before we leave for Denerim." It was sweet of him to censor himself but there was really no need. It wasn't like she was in denial about Anora; she had been the one to initially propose their union after all.

Sereda watched him go without moving, without even breathing for fear that she would blurt out some desperate plea for him to stay that would just make the whole thing worse.

Funny. She hadn't known that it could rain indoors.

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