Denerim was bustling and alive, a strange contrast to the dark forest and what not that had followed us for the past...how long has it been?

Time is nothing but a blur, really. My only real way of telling time is my hair length. I started out here, after my Harrowing with my hair brushing my chin. Instinctively, as we walk through the market, I finger through my yellow strands. I trace from my chin down, and are surprised to feel that my hair was halfway at my shoulders now. Holy Maker! Has it really been that long?

I started out with short hair, and now my hair is extremely long! Well, long for me anyway. At the Tower, they required that all female apprentices and mages had their hair short or out of their face. Some sort of fire warning, or something.

"Alistair!" I said suddenly. He looked frightened and turned around. "We've known each other for this long!" I gesture to my hair by yanking it. Alistair stares, blinking. I hear laughter from Leliana, who is rushing by us and finding herself a stall to browse. Instantly I flushed, feeling extremely dumb.

"Your hair is a measurement of time?" He asks, one eyebrow raising. I sigh, shaking my head and stepping a bit closer to him so he can look at my hair.

"Do you remember how short it was? At my chin! Now look, it's halfway to my shoulders! That's how long we've known each other!" I grin up at him. Alistair tries to be seriously confused, but just ends up laughing at me. I slap him on the arm and he audibly shouts. "Don't make fun of me!" I laughed regardless.

"It's not that, it's just...why don't you use actual time? I dunno, months, weeks...days? It's actually been a month and a half since you arrived in Ostagar."

I gasped out loud, feeling my legs wobble a bit. A month and a half? "No way!"

He nodded, laughing as he took my hand and led me away. "Yes way! Think about it!" He said as we walked. "Ostagar happened, and we were out at Flemeth's hut for what, a week and a half? Most of the time was healing, but we were there for a while. Then we traveled to Lothering, about a day...found Elayna and camped out for a bit...made it to Lothering...stayed for a bit...hiked to the Brecilian Forest...bothered with all of THAT...and here we are. Hey, maybe it's been two months!" He smiled and released my hand. I found we were standing by running children who were making fart noises. Why here?

"Indeed. I guess we have been gone for almost two months. Maker, time does fly when you're the only hope for Thedas." I laughed and Alistair joined in. "Wait, why are we here?"

Alistair took a deep breath and fumbled with a slip of parchment I didn't notice was in his hand earlier. He handed it to me and started pacing. "This is my sister's place, I'm pretty sure. Goldanna. Yes, we're at the right place, right?" It was amazing how quickly he could go from silly to serious to worried. This guy...This guy...

I re-read the paper a few times. "House in Markets. Lots of children. Some fart noises. Goldanna's house." I read out loud and giggled a little bit at the fart noises. They were accurate.

Alistair continued to pace and just rambled on about having a sister, and eyeing the children suspiciously. Then he went off about having nieces and nephews. I was worried his head was going to pop off, nevermind him having a legion of children beneath his sister's army.

"Alistair!" I said suddenly, grabbing his shoulders and holding him still. He jumped slightly and rounded to me, eyes wide and alive. "Calm down, yeah? You can do this. You're just going to walk in there, find Goldanna, say hello to Goldanna, and become best friends with your estranged sister. Simple."

"Simple...simple," He muttered, shaking his head slowly. "You make it sound so easy." He sighed.

"Because it is that easy." I laced my fingers with his and squeezed slightly. Alistair squeezed back and nodded, breathing slowly in and out to calm himself down. Good. I wouldn't want him passing out from lack of oxygen with all these mischievous children.

He started to pull me toward the door, but I dug my heels in. "Wait? Why are you taking me?" I resisted his futile pulling. He gave up, exasperated, and rounded on me again.

"I can't do this without you, really. Well, I could. But I also want you to meet her. I don't exactly have living relatives, and if she's the only one...I'd rather you meet her than none of them." He said simply. I felt my heart squeeze into twelve pieces. How noble of him! And how kind as well. He was really taking us seriously...I would hope we lasted long enough for all of this to actually matter in the end. Oh, Maker please keep us together. Andraste please-

I gave in. "Alright. Let's go, then, and meet your sister. What's the worst that could happen?"

Alistair's iron-tight grip loosened on my hand as we exited the building. I took that as my opportunity to massage my hand, aching at how tight he had been holding it. He started pacing again, this time throwing up his hands and mumbling angrily to himself.

The visit with Goldanna didn't go as well as I had imagined. In fact, I may have even cursed it by acting so blighting blissful about it.

When we had entered, looking for Goldanna, it was fine. She was there, she didn't know Alistair...blah blah. Then she remembered him and started going off about how the people at the castle said he was dead...and that he was the son of the king's?

I remembered that so suddenly that I almost fell over, standing there. He had played it off, and avoided Goldanna's claims to his royalty by calling her crazy and dragging me out of there before she could go bananas on us for staying in her house. I looked over at Alistair to see him still pacing, wringing his hands as he turned.

"Alistair." He refused to look at me, let alone respond. "Alistair!" I could tell it hurt him to resist me. I was growing angrier too, and he must have known that because at the last minute, before I stomped over there with my aching fist, he looked up at me.

"Yessss?" He asked with a flirty grin. It was so fake.

I rolled my eyes and headed over to him. "Are you going to explain Goldanna's claims? She said you're Maric's son...and you never told me your family history. This must be why. Oh Maker, I was such a fool! Consorting with a royal! Oh Heavens!" I threw up my arms and felt my breathing increase. Oh, this was too much. I wanted to run away and think about this all. I was standing with royalty! Alistair was a royal!

"No! No! NO! Stop, please! That's not true!" He said, pulling my hands down and engulfing me in a hug. "I'm not what she says. Our mother was a serving woman in Redcliffe, but I don't even know if my father was the King. The chances are slim. You don't know much about King Maric do you?" He asked. I shook my head.

"Maric was a devoted husband to Rowan. They were happily in love and he would never do anything to hurt her, like impregnate some maiden and leave her for the road. Never! Goldanna was simply told a lie. We probably have another sibling who is actually Maric's kid. But it's not me. The timing doesn't work anyway. Something about age and whatnot. I'm just Alistair. Not a Theirin." He whispered the last bit and squeezed me tighter. My heart deflated and returned to normal. I nodded slowly, breathing in and out to the beat of my controlled heart. Trying to match mine to Alistair's would be a chore - his heart was beating wildly. Possibly more wild than mine was.

"Do you swear? You're not just lying to cover it up?" I asked. He slowly nodded, then gained in speed. I relaxed, visibly, into his grip. "Good. But you should know, people aren't ever what you make of them. You have to make your own opinions sometimes, and not let them run you over like she did."

He nodded into my hair. "I won't."

I smiled, looking up at him. "Good."

a/n: as you should all note, Alistair's claims aren't exactly true, but then again they aren't false. For the most part they are false though, so I wonder how this will play out when the team heads to Redcliffe next?

this chapter was inspired by the fact that I was typing this up and totally forgot that Warden has to know that Alistair is a royal bastard before meeting Goldanna (though I've even gone so far as going to the Circle before meeting Goldanna and then there's the weird sloth demon thing with her...and I'm like wtf). I was already like halfway done with this when I realized so I was just too lazy to type another chapter and simply added more drama to the telemundo soup of dragon age. It works, see? Just makes Alistair look like a liar like all the time. Well, I mean, isn't he? A dashing liar!