A/N: For Scott. I apologize ahead of time for any typos.
The night is cold, winter biting at the windows in webs of frost and turning the stone on the terrace treacherously slick. He walks cautiously, never having fully gained the balance needed to navigate things like ice with any kind of identifiable grace. Huddled in his cloak, he leans against the stone, welcoming the chill in his fingertips as he watches his breath escape in short, cloudy bursts that drift away on the midnight wind.
Breathing was good.
It meant he was still alive.
He breathes deeply this time, listening to the sound of his heart hammering in his chest, and wonders how he had taken these things granted before.
He can hear the door that shuts softly behind him, the slippered feet that carry her to his side. She doesn't have any protection from the cold, he notes, only her arms wrapped around her to ward off the bitter chill as she stands there in her bedclothes.
"Was it another nightmare?" she asks, more resignation than sorrow in her voice. He doesn't see any reason to answer to the obvious, so instead he reaches out and takes her arm, guiding her into the warmth of his cloak, concerned she'll catch cold. She doesn't resist, and he is a little surprised when she curls against him, her arms stealing about his waist and her head resting on his chest. He and Lena have never had a great deal of passion in their marriage, and though public displays like holding hands has been acceptable, it has been many years since she has shown him any affection she would not have given to a close friend.
And she has been his friend. She has been his partner and his sanity, the one person he could always turn to for honest advice and sometimes harsh criticism, who would laugh with him and keep things in perspective when he became overwhelmed with the little details that threatened to drown him. She has been a good wife and a wonderful queen, and though the first years of their marriage were rocky and uncertain, it was not long before he learned to appreciate how lucky he was to have her beside him.
She's quiet for a long time, neither of them wanting to talk about what was happening to him. "That's every night this week," she says finally, her voice very soft, and a tiny tremor skips down her spine that does not quite escape his notice.
"I know," he answers. The words seem weak and inadequate, but he doesn't know what else to offer, and he thinks wryly that words should never be all he has to give. He's just not good with them. He leans down and presses a kiss into her hair, and with a small sigh she looks up at him. Her eyes are shadowed, almost hard as they disguise whatever emotion it there she doesn't want him to see.
"Come back to bed."
He needs to tell her that he can't, knows he has to approach the glaring truth that can't be avoided any longer, but he's quite simply afraid to. She has known for years the price demanded of the Grey Wardens, and he thinks maybe that is what has kept them from becoming more than they are. She has always kept him at a distance. Still, he knows that she cares for him, as he cares for her. He doesn't want to have to tell her that he's leaving, that he's already stayed longer than he should have. He can already feel the taint change in him, like a thickening of his blood, and he is quite simply out of time.
He doesn't say any of that, only allows her to lead him back inside, and the unspoken words coat the back of his throat like poison, intent on choking him.
When he crawls into bed beside his wife he reaches out on impulse and draws her to him, and her mouth meets his hungrily while her arms slip around his neck. She holds him tightly, barely relaxing her embrace when his lips leave hers to travel down her throat, and he realizes that she knows – of course she knows – and she is giving him this chance to say goodbye.
As she quivers beneath him, her soft, breathy moans filling the silence of the room, he stares into green eyes that are still beautiful despite the fine lines beginning to appear at the corners, and he wishes he had tried harder over the years to make her love him.
Afterward he lies beside her in the dark, knowing that he's not going to find sleep, and just before she doses off in his arms she murmurs, "I never regretted being your queen."
It's the only confession she has given him in all these years, and it's very quiet.
.
.
The sword gleams in the candlelight, silky and smooth as pure silver. The enchantment on it has kept it from rusting over the years, and he has faithfully had its magic renewed to ensure it would still be serviceable when the time came. The matching blade is long gone, lost only a handful of years after the fight with the archdemon. The thief was never caught, but he has always suspected he knows where the other sword lives, and though he half wishes he could, he cannot begrudge the assassin this one thing.
He slides the sword into the sheath at his hip so that he can hide it under the worn cloak he wears. The hood is pulled low over his face and his pants and boots are of plain make, and he slips out of the castle like a thief in the night, leaving behind everything except what he needs to see him to Orzammar.
No one notices the stranger who gallops out of Denerim just as the light begins to break on the horizon.
As the miles disappear behind him and the sun begins it's journey through the sky, caressing his skin with gentle warmth, he knows his relief to be rid of the crown is as great as his sorrow to be leaving, and the wash of guilt brings tears to his eyes.
.
.
He's not sure when he decided to go to Highever before heading on to the Deeproads, but it only seems natural to be there as he makes his way up the steep and winding path to her resting place. Fergus joined her in the Fade many years ago now, and as he approaches the white marker he sees the weeds that have grown around the base since the teyrn's passing. The newest Cousland never knew the woman that lies there, and is doubtless too busy to be bothered very often with keeping up the site.
He kneels down and begins to pull them himself, muttering apologies for not coming more often. There was once a time when he made this pilgrimage annually, but eventually it seemed disrespectful to Lena, to dwell on someone who was long lost, even though she would never have told him so.
He sits back and closes his eyes, trying to remember the face that had once shaped his entire world. The memory is faded and dulled, but he can remember the brightness of her eyes and the exact shape of her smile; the way the sun played over her hair and the tenor of her voice. His memories have slipped further and further away over the years, fading into obscurity until, at times, they seem more like a dream than the past. Certain details are lost to him no matter how he struggles to retrieve them.
One thing he has never forgotten is how it felt to love her.
He is still in Highever when he beds down for the night, and as he falls asleep with the sound of the sea crashing against the cliffs in his ears, he knows the dream will come. As his consciousness spirals into the shifting mists of the Fade he finds himself sitting on a grassy hill, overlooking the fields as they stretch out before him, reaching into the eternity of the horizon. He can sense her approach, and when gentle hands rest on his shoulders he lets out a long breath, wondering how much time has passed since she last met him here. He can't remember, but he knows it has been a long, long time.
"You're grieving," she says softly from somewhere behind him, but he doesn't turn to look, knowing from bitter past experience that if he does she'll slip away from him, and he'll be awake.
"I don't know what I'm feeling," he answers honestly, lowering his eyes to watch the way the grass sways in the imaginary winds. Her hands feel warm and solid on his shoulders, a change from previous dreams, when she seemed to hover like a gauzy spirit barely clinging to its form, surrounding and filling him. He tries to remember if every dream of her has been this vivid, but attempting to think clearly makes the vision waver precariously and he pushes everything but her from his mind.
He can feel her press into his back, the scent of lilacs clinging to her as her arms slip around his neck, and it's so real for a moment that the old pain of loss awakens within him. How could he have forgotten how much he missed her? He wants to touch her, but he is afraid doing so will cause her to disappear.
"What's out there, anyway?" he asks, gesturing towards the open fields. Something calls to him from the horizon, the quiet sense of a looming journey.
It's with honest delight that she laughs, the sound humming through him like a forgotten tune.
"I'm not really sure," she admits, and all of a sudden she's leaning over his shoulder, and he can almost see her, catching the gleam of ebony hair shining in the sun out of the corner of his eye. She kisses his cheek, light and soft as the brush of a butterfly's wing. "I've been waiting for you."
He's back then, jerking to an upright position before he's even aware that he's awake. The stars are shining cold and distant above him, the dream slipping out of his grasp like so much sand, and he has never felt more alone.
.
.
The passage to Orzammar is difficult in winter, and it is several weeks before he finally sees the gates of the city looming in the distance. He hesitates only for a moment, but there is nothing more that he wants here. He suddenly feels incredibly, impossibly weary, and he doesn't so much as flinch when the gates boom shut behind him.
.
.
The darkspawn are swarming, thick and stinking around him. They fall before him in terrifying numbers, their blood staining the metal of his sword until the blade shines black. His own tainted blood is screaming through his limbs this deep in the underground, twisting and burning in his veins and all he can think is kill. His hatred for them blooms from a long suppressed place within him, a fire that has been doused under the blanket of duty and left to smolder for thirty years. But now he is finally free - free to vent all the anger and pain of his loss on these creatures that took away everything he could have been, had ever hoped to be.
For three days he pushes further into their midst, long past the need for things like food and sleep as the call claims him. He had thought he would be frightened, utterly alone during this final march, but he can barely feel anything anymore, transformed and driven until he is more hunter then man. When he comes to a dark cavern where the numbers are hopelessly stacked against him he doesn't hesitate, letting instinct dominate his senses. The anger flares up, guiding and sustaining him, and when the last creature falls it takes him a moment to realize that the sword thrust has gone clean through his side. He clutches at the wound he knows without looking that it is bad. Blood wells up warm and sticky between his fingers and he staggers back against the wall. The distant stinging blossoms into real, tearing pain, sapping away his anger and leaving him cold. He slides down the surface, weak and shaking, until he is sitting, surrounded by the corpses of his enemies. He closes his eyes, wanting only to rest...
...it is more like an awakening when the dream comes again, the return of a sense of self. All the weight he has carried for so long seems to slip away, leaving him free and suddenly remembering what it was like to be young. He can feel her approach like he always does, and he chuckles to himself when he thinks that of all places, the underground is the very last place he had ever expected her to come to him.
Didn't she hate spiders?
The fields have changed. They are covered in splays of roses that perfume the air and all of a sudden she is sitting beside him, her feet bare and her toes wiggling in the grass. Every other time he had dreamed of this place there was a pall of melancholy, a whisper of things lost. That's suddenly gone, replaced with a peace he has never known, the sun warm and bright above him, and he feels her light touch on his arm. Her throaty laughter startles him into glancing in her direction before he can stop himself.
And he finds himself staring into the smiling blue eyes he had thought lost to him forever.
.
~The End~