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What Becomes Of The Broken Hearted	By : kruemel Category: +A through F > Dragon Age (all) > Dragon Age (all) Views: 4863 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own Dragon Age or any of the Dragon Age characters. This is a non-profit fanfiction.

Chapter List
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Blasted curses of a thousand misfortunes!
After Anora’s death, everybody ran around like headless chickens. Things were done for the sake of doing things but they didn’t lead anywhere. Eamon shouted orders. Rori was under suspicion—again—and found innocent—again. I couldn’t go anywhere without half a dozen guards in tow. Teagan intimidated and fired half of the kitchen staff, and Arlington—the embodiment of butler nonchalance—burst into tears when interrogated! The very same man who hadn’t as much as quirked an eyebrow when he had found Rori in my bed this morning was now a complete mess.
“It is my fault, your Majesty,” the butler bawled. He had a face like a sheep—long and thin, his teeth too big for his mouth—and he was obviously convinced he would be led to slaughter now. “I shouldn’t have taken my eyes off your wine but I did!” Arlington had collected the goblets when all of a sudden, in a last desperate attempt to save their lives, some recently purchased and doomed chickens had escaped from their cage and run wild in the kitchen. With chaos and feathers everywhere, it was impossible to tell who had really taken advantage of the situation.
“Jailbreaker chickens…” Rori wondered out loud. “A coincidence? Hardly.”
“There, there,” I comforted my miserable butler. Then I patted his hand and convinced him not to resign. Awkward.
Then the day got even better when an Orlesian chevalier just strode in unannounced in donning shiny, twinkling armor as if he belonged here. My guards were nowhere to be seen when only a moment ago there had been half a dozen outside my door. “Where did they run off to?”
“Pardon?” My unwelcomed visitor asked in confusion the same time Rori snorted. “I bet they are chasing chickens. Something is awfully rotten here.”
“Is it possible to find anybody competent here?” the knight asked in a thick Orlesian accent. He handed his helmet to me with an unperturbed casualness. I stared stupidly at it, wondering if it was meant to be a gift—until it dawned on me that he mistook me for a servant. The helmet was adorned with a mighty silver and blue panache formed like a griffon’s head, the ventail bent like a beak. The visitor’s hair fell onto his shoulders in soft golden waves. Blue eyes and a chiseled face of knightly handsomeness completed the picture.
„I'm sorry to report we've run out of competency,“ Rori deadpanned. „The subsequent delivery is late. I'm afraid, you'll have to deal with us.“ She offered a sweet smile. Zevran and I chuckled and chortled in her back. The knight just frowned. He reminded me of Sten. Ah, the good old days.
“And who would you be?” I groaned. I wouldn’t have been surprised to hear he had climbed out of a heroic saga.
“Gerod Caron, Commander of the Grey Wardens of Ferelden, reports for duty,” he droned.
“Now that you mention it…” I muttered. Blast it! I had totally forgotten about that appointment. Or any other important stuff on my schedule for today. See, when an assassin tries to murder you —again—you don’t just check your to-do list as if nothing happened. I sized my new Commander up and knew at once I was fucked. Language, I know. But seriously? Seriously!? Never has the saying ‘When it rains it pours’ been truer but today.
Doom!
DOOM!
The Maker had a very strange sense of humor.
Here I was, accused of being a usurper of the throne and an Orlesian puppet, and Weisshaupt sent me an Orlesian peacock to command the Grey Wardens of Ferelden—and rule the Arling of Amaranthine. Oh the nobility would be so thrilled about the new Arl! Eamon had warned me not to give the Grey Wardens too much power, not to involve them in politics. But did I listen? Nope! And now the fat was in the fire. Well done, Alistair!
“I am here for an audience with the king.” Caron looked around the room, regarded the assembled people—Arlington, Rori, Zevran, and my humble self—and added: “I was told his Majesty could be found here?”
“Yeah, well, that would be me.” I raised my hand, still holding the blasted helmet.
Caron blinked, his eyes scanning me from head to toe. Plain white shirt, sleeves rolled up, a dark blue waistcoat—good quality but simple—pants of the same color and making, and boots. Arlington called my style understated; I called it comfortable and practical. “Hahaha!” the peacock affected a laugh. “You Fereldans are so funny!”
“Yeah, that’s what I thought, too, when they made me king,” I deadpanned. “We are a jesting people.” The smirk fell off Caron’s face. He looked at Rori for help but she only pointed at me. His brow furrowed as the Orlesian cockalorum slowly put two and two together. By the look on his face he wasn’t sure if we were fooling him, or if he was in for major trouble for disrespecting the Fereldan monarch. “This is... a very shiny armor, Warden Commander Caron,” I went on before Caron could recover his voice.
“A present from Empress Celene,” he said proudly, puffing himself up. “Forged by dwarven smiths, adorned with magical engravings and runes. And here, notice the griffon’s eyes.” He pointed at his chest plate. “Sapphires!”
Charming. The hungry peasants of Amaranthine would be in raptures about their newly minted Arl. Mental note to myself: Find a replacement as soon as possible. Preferably before Amaranthine engineered a revolt. Just where does one find a commander when it was already so hard to recruit, rank, and file Grey Wardens? Maker’s Breath! Maybe I should reconsider Rori’s willingness to become a Grey Warden.
As it was, I was short on Grey Wardens. I couldn’t be picky, especially with that darkspawn hitch in addition to all the other problems I was supposed to solve.
“Alas,” I sighed, rubbing my face tiredly. “The darkspawn haven’t returned to the Deep Roads after the archdemon was defeated. They run amok in Amaranthine—attack villages, abduct women… and we by now know that’s no good at all...”
“Broodmothers, yes. We read the reports,” Caron cut me short. “It seems a little far-fetched. Are there actually any real eye witnesses?” Zevran and I raised a hand. The horrors of the Blight had brought us together. They would haunt us forever and it didn’t sit well with either of us to be suspected of lying. “Oh... well, the Grey Wardens will do whatever has to be done,” Caron waved us off. What a jerk! “For now, I would appreciate if I could finally talk to the king...”
Finding Caron’s replacement had just moved up on my to-do list.
“Arlington, I understand Commander Caron wishes to leave,” I said frostily. With enviable effectiveness, the fully recovered butler ushered the man out. One moment he was there gawking; the next he was gone. Only then did I notice I was still holding his helmet. Too bad I didn’t get rid of him for good. I would have to deal with him again—albeit grudgingly.
“Maker, why have you forsaken me?” I groaned, banging my head against my desk. Replacement... where to find a replacement? Maker’s Breath! I took better care of the darkspawn myself... Oh! Wow! Now that was the best idea I’ve had in a long time...
Are you suffering burn-out? Visit Amaranthine! The perfect location for your next vacation! Spectacular cliff coasts, grand forests, and cozy little villages. The splendid city of Amaranthine and rampant darkspawn await you!
It sounded too good to be true.
I made my rounds again, spoke to servants, clerks, and guards. In short, I made my presence felt, as Eamon would say. He claimed it was utterly important to restore order to the palace. So I acted as if I wasn’t troubled by the rather obvious fact that there was a twice unsuccessful murderer lurking somewhere close by. I failed miserably. Things had gotten quite out of control. The palace was so crammed with soldiers and guards they made Rori nervous. She kept spinning around, eyed the armed men suspiciously, her hand flying to the hilt of her sword every so often. “They are here to protect me,” I said soothingly, taking her hands in mine.
“Are you sure?” Rori asked. For her, this had to feel like Highever-reloaded. She was damn serious; the tension she radiated infected me. I watched the men, searching for anything out of place and scolded myself for being paranoid.
“I would have them arrested if I were you, son,” a rather familiar voice croaked in my back.
“Mrs. Couldry!” I exclaimed at the sight of the tiny elven lady. “What are you doing here?”
“I am here to make sure you live to see tomorrow,” Mrs. Couldry snorted. She waved her wooden ladle at a group of quite edgy guards in a huddle at the door.
“What’s wrong with them?” I asked. Sure, they were nervous, but everybody was! Well, not Mrs. Couldry. She was as cold as a Mabari’s snout.
“You don’t think it odd that they all wear white ribbons around their left wrist?” Mrs. Couldry inquired. She sharply pointed two fingers at her eyes. “You have to watch out, son!”
“Err...” I hadn’t even noticed, but she was right. And it wasn’t only those at the door. Several other guards wore the very same ribbons to distinguish themselves from the unmarked men. I didn’t have to be a genius to put two and two together. Anora, that bitch! After her self-righteous outrage I would have never suspected she was in any way involved in this rebellion. There weren’t enough to overthrow me… unless the seemingly loyal guards would have jumped ship.
“The late Lady Anora would have never returned to Fort Drakon,” Mrs. Couldry remarked as if she had read my thoughts. “It was an escape plan to unite her with the rebel forces. Anora was informed. The white ribbons would have helped her distinguish friend from foe.”
“How do you know all that?” I inquired. “And how in the name of the Maker did you get into the palace?”
“I’ve got my eyes and ears everywhere, son,” Mrs. Couldry chuckled. Yes, right. Elven servants. Their inferiority made them invisible to most nobles. In their arrogance they didn’t realize that the elves formed a network that allowed them to exchange volatile information. “As for how I got here, your guards look at me and they see a servant—nobody to get excited about. Your security is too lax.” She smirked, her eyes twinkling with mischief.
“You think this is all quite entertaining, don’t you?” I pouted.
“Not for you, son,” Mrs. Couldry chortled, pinching my cheek. “But don’t worry, Mrs. Couldry watches over you.”
“Your omnipresent eyes and ears… can they provide any information about the poisoner?”
“I’m working on it, son. I don’t yet see the whole picture...”
“Don’t you claim to see everything? Or does your age make you a little short-sighted?” I grinned—and regretted it instantly when the ladle came down on my head. “Ow!”
“Don’t get fresh with me, young man!”
“Sorry, Mrs. Couldry.” Sullenly I rubbed the back of my head. “So, I take it you cannot provide any useful information about the heads of the rebellion?”
“The Maker’s mills grind slowly.”
“And that’s meant to make me feel better?” I huffed.
“Attention now!” Mrs. Couldry waved her ladle at me, then pointed it at the soldiers with the ribbons. “Here we have a group of armed men ready for forceful intervention. I wonder what they will do now their plan got thwarted... Ahh,” Mrs. Couldry chuckled when the first knight pulled the ribbon off his wrist and dropped it before inching away from the group. “The rats desert the sinking ship.”
Of course I couldn’t let that happen. I would never find out who was involved in this if they all stripped off their signs of treachery. Oh happy day! The pleasures of being king! “The men with the white ribbons—arrest them!” I called out in my best kingly voice, drawing my sword. Rori followed suit while my dear faithful guards just stared at me in puzzlement. Not Team Anora, though. For them it was a matter of life and death now. One jumped forward, running a stunned guard through before the poor sod had a chance to figure what was happening. Maker preserve me! This was my fault! My hasty unmindful outcry, my mistaken command given without a warning now killed the men I was responsible for.
Startled, the guards turned against each other. The ribboneers were outnumbered, but they knew each other. Their identification of friend or foe was completed before the fight began. My men were lost in confusion when suddenly confronted with their former comrades.
And now the five-hundred-sovereign question: Who was the ribboneers main target?
Bingo! King Alistair Theirin.
The moment I stupidly opened my mouth, they rushed for me and I found myself surrounded by half a dozen bloodthirsty patriots.
Awesome!
I was driven backwards against a wall within a few seconds, defending myself desperately but succumbing to superior numbers. And then Rori was there, engaging a ribboneer taller by a head in a clash of metal. Next to her, another ribboneer turned to Zevran. When the elf tapped his shoulder, he hesitated at his sight and paid for his indecision with his life. Mrs. Couldry whacked a man over the head with her ladle, tripped him when he swung round to stab her, and swiftly slammed her ladle at his temple. With a surprised grunt he collapsed on the floor.
What the... !? The frail old lady act—I so didn’t buy it anymore. I had traveled with Leliana for a year. I wasn’t completely oblivious to the methods and skills of a certain group... bards... spies... whatever you want to call them.
Once the fight was over, Mrs. Couldry disappeared as suddenly and silently as she had shown up. One moment she was there, the next she was gone. „Just like Leliana!“ I cursed under my breath. Well, quod erat demonstrandum. I was on alert now, though not any wiser. Mrs. Couldry left behind a whole lot of unanswered questions and a rather puzzled monarch. Mrs. Couldry and son had proven rather useful. Still... in my paranoid state of mine I was unsure whether I could trust the CIA—the Couldry Intelligence Agency. They could have very well played their games with me.
When I had awoken next to Rori this morning, I was sure nothing possibly could ruin my day. Boy, was I wrong!
Sergeant Kylon and his faithful men arrested the remainder of miserable Team Anora. Servants carried the guards away who hadn’t survived my stupidity. The bile rising to my mouth when I looked at their dead faces tasted of guilt and shame. Maker have mercy! There was no way to make this right again. They were dead. And what for?
Leaning my back against the wall, I bit my lips and pressed my eyes shut. This was only the beginning. At the end of my days I would look back at the decisions I made as king and the death and destruction they had caused. I wished I had died instead of Suri. I wished she had never made me king. I even wished Anora was here now. With her hubris she wouldn’t have wasted a second thought on a few dead knights.
I was trapped, cornered. There was no way out of this but desertion or death. I was carrying the weight of the world on my shoulders...
“You are not alone.” A whisper in the dark and a small hand slipping into mine. I opened my eyes and found Rori smiling at me sadly. I didn’t deserve her comfort, her reassurance, her support. I didn’t deserve to live when those who had trusted in me lay dead at my feet. And it was my fault! “Stop beating yourself up, Alistair,” Rori scolded me softly. Blast it! She knew me too well. I opened my mouth to point out to her I had every reason for some more castigation but she cut me short. “Help their families to make a living. The regular widow’s pensions are a complete joke.” I blinked stupidly. That I hadn’t thought of. “Some mistakes cannot be undone. In that case, your best repentance is to mitigate the consequences.”
“Blast it! You're right!”
“Every dog has its day.”
“Ha! Indeed. Even this mangy mutt here...” I pointed at myself. “... hasn’t messed up completely today. You’ll make a great Arlessa.”
“You’re not mangy. You’re cute...”
“ARGH! Say no more! I’ll stick with mangy!”
I really would have loved to spend the rest of the day in bed with Rori. It would have been the easy way out. Drop it all on Eamon while I hide beneath my blanket. Unfortunately, I could have never ever endured looking at the man in the mirror again if I had hidden like a coward. I couldn’t let that happen. How could I check if my hair was in place without a mirror?
The sun was already setting when I finally escaped my now watchful guards, including Sergeant Kylon himself—with a little help from Rori, bless her! The atmosphere in the palace was suffocating—dominated by suspicion, distrust, and paranoia. My templar training had helped me weather the situation by focusing solely on the matters at hand. During the Blight, my templar training had proven quite useful. Now it kept me going—for the moment. But at the end of the day, I needed to breathe freely to overcome the sensation of a looming breakdown. I inhaled the warm breeze of the summer evening enriched by the sweet scent of the blossoming linden trees. The tree tops were filled with the soft buzzing of a few late bees that had not yet returned to their hive for the night. Crickets chirred and clouds of midges danced above the water of the lake. The world was so peaceful without men.
Suri had a visitor. He knelt in the grass in front of her statue and replaced the faded flowers I had left there with fresh ones. Disappointed that I would be bereft of my solitude, I stayed in the background, but of course he had already detected me.
“Alas, Alistair, my royal friend, I didn’t expect you here tonight,” he cooed softly as he turned to meet my eyes. The faded flowers in his hands screamed silent accusations of neglect.
“I am a busy man...” I defended myself lamely.
“You have moved on,” Zevran corrected me.
Guilt punched me right in the face like a jack-in-the-box. For days my thoughts had circled around Rori. I enjoyed being with her, holding her, kissing her. I felt at ease around her, lighter. All my troubles and worries weighed only half as much when she was with me. Suri had faded into the background. She still occupied a part of my heart, but remembering her no longer felt like the sharp pain of a hot knife stabbing my heart. It had attenuated to a dull ache now. Memories didn’t throw me off course anymore. They made me pause for a moment in bittersweet remembrance. I had begun to look forward and hope for a better future, despite all the king business and constant threats on my life.
“She’ll always have a place in my heart,” I mumbled, the platitude sounding pathetic even to me.
“You don’t have to explain anything, my friend,” Zevran said, arranging the flowers he had brought while I stood there empty handed. “She’s gone, you’re here. You have to live your life. She would understand.” He patted my shoulder as he passed by. Whenever the elf offered comfort and understanding, I was left feeling like a complete jerk afterwards. He just had a way of rubbing salt into the wound. I never knew if he did it on purpose or if it was just Zevran being… well, Zevran.
I had come here for... oh, I don’t know... Whatever I had been looking for, it wasn’t here. Not anymore. So I just stood there stupidly, feeling like a complete idiot, while the blasted midges feasted on me. That’s how Rori found me. Wordlessly, she took my hand and we stood there together.
“I never wished to become king,” I finally broke the silence. Maker’s Breath, I couldn’t have possibly sounded any more pathetic and whiny. “I’m no leader. I’ve always preferred to follow. Being responsible for the lives of so many; it’s a burden.”
“Howe’s men followed orders.” Rori whispered hoarsely. “They slaughtered innocent men and women. They murdered Oren, my nephew. He was five years old. They slayed his mother when she tried to protect her child. They watched as Howe raped me and when he beat my mother to death.” Rori turned to face me, looking me straight in the eyes. “Do you believe they are less responsible for their actions because they followed orders?”
“I... I’ve never thought of it like that...” I stammered. Honestly, it had never even occurred to me. Maker! I was such a fool. Oh, the agony in her eyes! The hollowness of her voice! I could have slapped myself for—once again!—acting so damn inconsiderate.
“Then you were lucky with your leaders,” she observed coolly.
“I’m sorry,” I murmured, cupping her face. With my thumb, I gently wiped away her tears when they started falling. Blast it! Words weren’t enough to express how sorry I was, so I spared her all the meaningless babbling. Instead I kissed her. For real. Right there at Suri’s grave. Blast it! The elf was right. I had moved on.
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What Becomes Of The Broken Hearted