Adult-FanFiction.org : Games

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
- 2
- 3
- 4
Tossing and turning in my bed, my limbs entangled in the sheets as if caught in a net, I spent another sleepless night wrapped up in loneliness and despair. Arlington had found all my hiding places again so no booze to numb the pain. The wind blowing in through the open windows whispered Suri’s name. She was in the shadows cast on the walls, her scent still lingered in the air and when I closed my eyes, her face was there, etched into my mind. My loneliness and grief weighed me down. At the same time, I hated myself for my pathetic weakness. I couldn’t stand listening to myself anymore.
At the break of dawn, I gave up. Sleep was overrated anyway. I needed to be with Suri. I put on a dressing gown and stumbled out of the bedroom. I still couldn’t call it my room. I was an alien here. I felt like the usurper I was, according to some of the nobles.
Suri’s grave was located in the palace park, beneath an old oak beside a pretty lake. A statue of her, lithe and lissome as she had been in life, adorned her final resting place. Holding her head up high, her face wore an expression of calm determination. The sculptor had done her best to get Suri’s frizzy hair right but honestly, it looked like she had wiggling worms on her head instead of hair.
The rose I had given her was stuck behind one of Suri’s pointy ears. It was still as beautiful as the day I had plucked it. That’s what you get when you store a blossom in lyrium. On her ebony cheeks, dewdrops sparkled like tiny gems. It made her look as if she were crying.
Ironically, a swarm of midges danced around her head.
I knelt down in front of the statue and started my usual lament. I’ll spare you the details. In short it was: I love you. I miss you. I’m sorry. Please forgive me. I’m worthless. I should have died. Life sucks. etc. etc.
I bent over, covered my face with my hands and wept bitterly. For months the tears had not come. I had felt them behind my eyes, a throbbing ache, a pressure that filled my whole head and spread through my very being until I consisted of nothing but agony. Once I could cry for her I found it was hard to stop. I bawled about almost anything that reminded me of Suri. Like a flood my tears streamed down my face and my shoulders shook as I was sobbing her name. I wallowed in my grief—and admittedly in self-pity—when a sound behind me made me jump.
I spun round to see a small figure in a dark blue ball gown dangling from a branch of the old oak tree. A shock of red curls framed a pale, heart-shaped face with blue eyes a little too large and still rather sleepy.
“Sorry!” Rori squeaked. “I... I didn’t mean to disturb you... I... suddenly you were there and I... didn’t know what to do... I didn’t mean to... Maker… I should go... yes, go.” She dropped out of the tree, stumbling in her hurry and tearing her dress. She turned left, then right, in a circle, trying to figure out the right way and bouncing into me when she lost her shoe. “Sorry!... Palace, which way?” she asked, straightening herself when I put her back to her feet. I couldn’t help but notice she was about Suri’s height. That was about all she had in common with my lost love, though.
“Did you sleep in the tree?” I asked once I had recovered from the shock. Briefly I wondered if she had stalked me.
“Err... yes? I wanted to be alone...” She shrugged and offered a sheepish grin. “I am sorry I invaded a private moment... I... well, sorry.”
“Just don’t tell anybody I wept like a little girl. It’s not very manly, you see.” I blushed. Maker! This was awkward. And again in capital letters. AWKWARD!
“My lips are sealed.” Rori moved her hand as if turning a key to lock her mouth. “Err... I should go...” She looked around for her shoe and I, being the gentleman I am, retrieved it for her.
“Thank you...” She turned to leave hesitantly, then spun round and blurted out: “Sorry... I mean, you have my deepest sympathy. She... must have been an extraordinary woman...”
“She was.” I agreed.
“You loved her...”
“I still do,” I whispered, gently caressing the statue’s face, wiping the dewdrops away like I would have done with her tears. The words spilled from my mouth before I could stop myself. I never looked at Rori but at Surana’s cold face etched into the black stone. “I didn’t deserve her love and still she gave it to me. After the Landsmeet I broke up with her. She was an elven mage and a king needs an heir... obviously... I didn’t want to raise her hopes about our future. I didn’t want her to suffer. A quick ending. And then she died. All the days before the final battle she was miserable and heartbroken. It was my fault. She could have spent her last days in happiness if only I had loved her like she deserved.” I pressed my lips together to stop myself from sobbing—and from dropping my emotional waste on Rori. But, Maker, I so needed to talk. The pressure inside was killing me.
“She was the love of my life,” I croaked. “Maker! She was my life. I died with her but she is gone and I am stuck here. She gave me happiness,” I whispered sadly as if I had never known happiness at all before she came into my life. “Now she is gone there’s a hole inside of me, an emptiness that consumes me. I just want to lie down and never get up again. I want this life to end... I would end it like a coward if not for the responsibility I have.”
For a brief moment I felt the weight of a small hand comfortingly on my back. Then Rori sat down next to me at the shore of the lake, her arms wrapped around her legs, her chin resting on her knees. “When Howe betrayed my father, my parents beseeched me to flee,” she began hesitantly. “Papa was fatally wounded. Mama didn’t want to leave him alone, but I could have escaped through a secret passage. Instead I stayed. I couldn’t abandon them. That moment it felt like the right thing to do and yet it was so wrong. I couldn’t save them. They would have died with or without me staying. But if I had left like they begged me to... They would have died knowing I was safe... But I stayed and...” Her voice cracked. Silent tears streamed down her face. “Howe made them watch... Papa begged him to stop... Mama offered herself... He just laughed in their faces... It was my fault. I increased their suffering needlessly...”
I stretched out my hand to offer her the silent comfort she had granted me but she flinched and I pulled my hand back. I felt like a complete wimp. This girl had endured so much. Next to her suffering mine seemed insignificant. Now I was ashamed of my whining. How could I dump my emotional waste on this girl? She even made it worse when she turned to me, her eyes puffed, cheeks smeared with tears, her nose snotty and went: “Sometimes what seems right turns out wrong. A wrong decision doesn’t make us bad or worthless people... At least that’s what I keep telling myself.”
“Howe didn’t kill you. I’m sure your parents knew you would survive,” I muttered lamely.
“Like Surana knew you still loved her,” Rori replied.
Blast! That had me burst into tears again. We sat there at the shore of the lake and both bawled into my handkerchiefs. I had to give one to Rori when she again proved she was without when she took off her long silken gloves to wipe her nose.
“Enough platitudes for today,” I sniffed once I managed to regain my composure.
“My sentiments exactly.”
Now we sat at the shore of the lake in silence, both caught in the nightmares that would haunt us forever. The sun rose in all her pink and golden glory, the world kept turning when, to us, it had long ago come crumbling down. After Suri’s death I had expected the world to stop, but it didn’t. It kept going without her and dragged me along.
“I hid some booze between the rocks over there,” I confessed when feeling sorry for myself was getting old. The forest was too big even for Arlington.
“Now you tell me!” Rori snorted. “What are you waiting for? Go and get it!”
“You have a serious drinking problem.”
"You’re one to talk.”
We sipped whiskey and skimmed stones. Well, I skimmed them. Rori just dropped hers into the water. “What is wrong with you women?” Suri never managed to skip one either, no matter how often I tried to teach her. “Here, like that.” I showed her how to send them hopping across the surface instead of having them sink right away. I even took her hand to guide her toss. And that was when I noticed the dryness of her skin, like old paper and covered with a web of nasty scars. Her knuckles were swollen, the fingers crooked. I had held her hand before but with my nervousness during the ball and her wearing gloves I hadn’t noticed something was odd about her hands.
My shocked hesitation caused her to pull away and tuck her hands under her arms. Her face she hid behind a curtain of red curls. Agitatedly she reached for the bottle and found it empty. “Blast!”
“One moment...” I half waded into the water between the reeds and pulled at a string I had fastened to the branch of a fallen tree. At the other end of the string there was a bottle, safely hidden in the deep water. I fished it out and handed it to Rori. “Voilà!”
Drinking more whiskey, I watched her while I waited for my socks to dry. She plucked a blade of grass and picked it apart.
“Did you get in trouble for dancing with me last night?” Rori asked while plucking another blade of grass.
“Eamon almost bit my head off,” I growled. “I don’t get why he would invite you when everything about you is so scandalous.” The way Rori was treated by the nobles, by her own brother... It made me hopping mad. Eamon had made very clear that she was only here because of her brother’s influence. Offending him was unwise, so we all pretended his sister wasn’t completely out of the question when it came to finding a wife. Eamon expected she would end up with some lower bann like Loren. He had lost his wife and heir and thus needed a woman to breed with. I still didn’t want to marry, neither Rori nor anybody else. But the way people talked about her as if she were scum... I felt an irresistible urge to protect her. “All those rumors about what you’ve done. How can people be so inconsiderate and cruel? After what Howe did how can anybody really believe you married him?”
“Well, I did.”
“WHAT!?” I shrieked. “You have got to be kidding!”
“Nope. I’m Mrs. Rendon Howe.” She spat the name out as if it were a foul and rotten thing.
“But... why?” Something must have been wrong with my hearing. Why would she marry that monster after what he had done?
“I’d have done anything to escape the torture.” she whispered hoarsely, uneasily rubbing her crippled hands.
“Oh...”
“Yeah, I’m afraid I’m not meant to be a heroine.” She bit her lips and squeezed her eyes shut but couldn’t stop the tears from falling. “First you think ‘Ha! You can break my body but never will you break my will!’ But really, that’s a whole lot of bullshit.”
“I’m so sorry...” I stammered, feeling like a complete idiot. Rori shrugged and emptied the bottle. She was already rather tipsy. Couldn’t blame her. I wanted to comfort her but everything I could have said sounded stupid.
“Howe got Highever and with the marriage, a legitimation that would outlast Loghain,” Rori went on with a voice so hollow I wished I could kill Howe again. Slowly this time. “I don’t know if he would have kept me after he got his precious heir. But he died before I could find out, thank the Maker. And that’s the whole story. That’s where the rumors come from. And why Fergus can’t stand being around me.”
Maker have mercy! I would never once again complain about my fate! Listening to her I suddenly felt blessed. And stupid. Uneasily I shifted my weight, yearning for some more booze. “I wish... I want to do something for you. Whatever you want, you just have to say...”
“Oh please! Keep your pity!” Rori snapped, fury flaring in her eyes. “I may take you up on that later,” she added in a softer tone after a moment of contemplation. Then she switched on a smile, a brave attempt, really, but that was about everything that could be said about that smile. The one I returned didn’t turn out any better. At least it made Rori laugh. “Maker! Look at these faces as long as fiddles!” She pointed at our reflections in the water and pulled a face. I squinted my eyes and stuck my tongue out and we entered a grimace competition that had us rolling around in hysterics soon.
“I know a mage who could take care of your hands,” I said when I finally could breathe again. We lay in the grass, watching the clouds.
Rori waved her stiff fingers in front of my face. “This is the magically healed version.”
“Wynne is the best healer I have ever met. It can’t hurt to give it a try, can it?” I insisted.
“Well... the last time a mage healed my hands he had to break all the bones again before putting them together properly...”
“Okay, maybe it can hurt...”
“To get a second opinion won’t,” Rori pointed out. I was glad she accepted. “So, do you already have a favorite future Mrs. Alistair picked out?" she asked curiously.
“Maker! It’s like the choice between the devil and the deep blue sea!” I groaned. “I’d rather not marry at all but that’s not an option. The heir hitch, you see. And if I really had to pick... I suppose I’d choose you,” I admitted after a moment’s hesitation. Not because I loved her. I doubted I could ever love again. There was no room in my heart for anybody but Suri. Still, Rori... she more and more became like a sister to me... Oh... wait! Now, that sounds somewhat deviant... Marrying someone because they remind you of your sister... That’s not... um... let’s pretend I didn’t say anything at all. And... well, I liked her, okay?
“Forget it. One, you cannot have a queen with my past. It’s absolutely impossible,” Rori reasoned. “Two, I do not want to marry. Marriage means I would have to... well, you know, the heir hitch, and that would mean there would have to be a whole lot of...” Her voice cracked and she rubbed her hands nervously, unable to look me in the eyes.
“Lamppost licking?” I offered.
“What?” she exclaimed, then it dawned on her. “Oh, yeah... and you see, licking a lamppost, especially in winter... it’s rather... unpleasant... for me... I... I doubt I would want to do it again... ever.” Her cheeks burned with embarrassment.
“Have you ever licked a lamppost before...?”
She shook her head. “Not willingly…” she whispered and I wished once more I had picked Howe apart slowly instead of just killing him.
“Then... what will you do?” She didn’t have many options if her brother didn’t want to take her in. He certainly wouldn’t kick her out but that didn’t mean he couldn’t make her life miserable if she didn’t do as he wanted.
“I’ve thought about joining the Grey Wardens,” Rori said thoughtfully. “Do something useful for a change.”
“Don’t.” Maker’s Breath! She had suffered enough for sure. The last place I wanted her to be was anywhere in the Deep Roads.
Surprised, she looked at me. “But... you are a Grey Warden.”
“Exactly. Just don’t. Trust me.”
“Aren’t you proud of being a Grey Warden? Didn’t you say it’s an honor? And don’t you always go on about how great the order is?”
“All of that. But... not for you.”
“Because I’m a woman?” she huffed.
“No... yes... I...” How could I tell her of the horrors she would meet in the Deep Roads? How could I explain to her what it meant to be a Grey Warden? I would’ve rather kept her blissfully oblivious. And safe from harm. “Please, just promise me you won’t become a Grey Warden.” I was damn serious about it.
“Okay. If it makes you happy. Fine, I promise...” she agreed although she clearly didn’t understand why. “I guess that means I should go and seek out Captain Isabela. I hear she’s looking for new members for her crew. My mother taught me how to sail.”
“Isabela?” I laughed nervously.
“You know her?”
Well... I had licked lampposts with her and Suri... “Kinda.” Pause. “Can you really burp the chorus of The Soldier and the Seawolf?”
Rori cocked her head to one side and grinned impishly, then she inhaled deeply and... burped the chorus of The Soldier and the Seawolf. Kinda. After the first three notes she burst into a gigglefit and breathlessly giggled-burped-hiccupped the rest of the chorus.
“You have a natural talent,” I laughed. “You’re sure you don’t want to marry me? You are the wife of my dreams!”
- 2
- 3
- 4
You need to be logged in to leave a review for this story.You need to be logged in to leave a review for this story.
Report Story

What Becomes Of The Broken Hearted