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In good times and in bad	By : kruemel Category: +A through F > Dragon Age (all) > Dragon Age (all) Views: 14749 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 1
Disclaimer: Dragon Age and the characters of the game do not belong to me. This is a no profit fanfiction

Chapter List
- 62
- 63
- 64
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Chapter 63

Notes:

Big, big thanks to AuroraCousland for proof-reading. :)
Sending stones are mentioned in the third Dragon Age novel 'Asunder'. They are located at each circle and allow the circles to communicate with each other. It is also mentioned that the Divine possesses a sending stone. There's no description given of what they look like or how they work. I somewhat imagine them similar to the Palantir (Lord of the Rings).

Chapter Text
"There is a... uhm... huge hole in the side of the tower, Cullen," I observe.
It is one of these clear winter days with the sun shining and as we sit in the boat we have a great view across the lake... and at the hole in the side of the tower, smoke billowing from it.
"Dagna," is all Cullen has to say about that matter, glaring pointedly at Rori. She grins back at him sheepishly and shrugs, causing the templar to chuckle and shake his head at her. He's certainly far more relaxed ever since Rori recruited Solona.
Seems Dagna has already made herself at home. She's become friends with Sandal, regarding him as her younger brother. Sandal adores her, and so does Bodahn. I'm glad she has found a new family that way since she has lost the one she left back in Orzammar.
"Don't touch that! Don't even think about it!"
Both Rori and I freeze with hands outstretched towards some funny looking crystal shards on Dagna's working table. We suddenly both recall the hole and the smoke and how Cullen had us all read handouts about what to do in case of an emergency. Greagoir developed an evacuation plan for the whole tower two hours after Dagna's arrival. Still, everybody seems in a far better mood with Dagna around. Templars keep dropping by for a chat with her, so do the mages. She's like a missing link, not a mage, not a templar, someone around whom everybody can relax - unless she blows a hole in the side of the tower. But even that was easily forgiven. She successfully turns the whole tower upside down. And she makes it a better place.
"That's the remains of the Circle's sending stone," Dagna explains, carefully examining one of the bigger shards with a magnifier. For me it's just broken glass. Nothing special about that. "It got destroyed during the rebellion. The bloodmages broke it, probably didn't want anybody to be able to get help."
"And what do you want with it?" Rori wonders. She has one hand hooked to her belt, with the other she holds on to mine. We hardly dare to blink or breathe in case Dagna is handling something dangerous and explosive.
"Well... at least I cannot blow it up... that's what Irving thinks or he wouldn't let me work with it..." Rori and I both relax a bit. "Listen," Dagna holds the shard close to her mouth. "Sandal?"
"Dagna? Enchantment?" Sandal's voice sounds from the shard. It's distant and blurred, still it's the shard speaking with Sandal's voice when he is nowhere to be seen.
"He's only outside the door. The range is still a problem. And the quality of the sound. The shards only communicate with each other and some are just too small... but I think I can manage... perhaps... and make a set of mobile sending stones one could wear like an amulet," Dagna excitedly explains. "Wouldn't that be amazing?"
Okay, now I am impressed. This is... amazing indeed... and creepy. Really creepy.
"I want!" Rori exclaims. "But only if it doesn't explode..."
I'm a bit worried about Rori's decision to collect Jowan and Solona. She came up with this after our encounter with the broodmother. She now believes it's worth the risk to let Avernus push on with his researches. Especially since Solona has specialized on healing spells.
"This potion, can you mix it?"
Solona frowns at the wrinkled piece of paper Rori hands her as soon as she steps out of her cell down in the dungeons. She's in a far better condition than the last time we saw her. "What is this?"
"A protection against the darkspawn taint? At least I do hope it is. It did work in the Deep Roads. Nobody got infected."
"Morrigan's recipe? She gave it to you?" Now I have to admit, I am utterly surprised. I am about to reconsider my opinion about the witch when I notice Rori squirms and grins in that sheepishly guilty way that means nothing but trouble. I do know her too well by now. Still, I am shocked. I mean, I don't mind being nasty to Morrigan. She deserves nothing else... what really bothers me sometimes... often... is Rori's flexible morals. She has a way to bend them how it suits her best. "You... stole it from her?"
"Well... I asked and she said no... but this is important for the Wardens... so..." Rori shrugs and her grin grows even wider. At least she does realize she did something dodgy. I didn't expect anything else from Morrigan. She wouldn't do anything altruistic - not unless she got paid for it.
"Didn't you say Morrigan was your friend?"
"Err... yes?"
"Okay, let me get this straight... the witch who claims you are her only friend won't give you a recipe that can save a lot of people - and then you, claiming you are her friend, go and steal it from her?"
"Err... yes?"
"You two have a very strange definition of friendship." This gives me a headache.
"I think Morrigan wanted me to steal it," Rori explains. "Because she couldn't give it to me without admitting she's not as tough and ruthless as she pretends to be... does that make any sense?"
"No." Nothing Rori ever says about Morrigan makes sense to me.
"She's not as mean as you believe her to be."
Like that. It makes no sense at all.
"Then what is she?"
"Vulnerable," Rori says softly. "And lonely. And scared. Her bitchiness is her shield."
Are we still talking about Morrigan? Mean, selfish, ruthless, arrogant, viperish Morrigan? Sometimes I am astonished at how naive Rori is. But I am a templar... kind of... a wannabe-templar... although I never wanted to be a templar... so I would be a not-wannabe templar, right?... anyway, I won't be fooled by some apostate witch. No way.
"You keep telling yourself that," I mutter. "I keep watching your back."
"Can't you at least try and be a bit nicer to her?" Rori suggests in a hardly audible voice. I stare at her as if she has sprouted a second head. One that looks like Morrigan's and has a forked tongue.
"She's mean! Do you ever really listen when she talks to me? She's acting as if I was something distasteful, foul, smelly... unpleasant. Really, Rori, did you hit your head somewhere? You didn't touch anything in Dagna's laboratory, did you? Maker!" I feel a bit hurt that Rori would defend Morrigan - and ask me of all people to be nice to her. What about me and my feelings? Morrigan keeps stomping around on them and Rori has not yet told her to be nice to me, has she? I cross my arms in front of my chest and sulk. Rori rolls her eyes at me and sighs. Now I am really offended. I just can't think of something witty and mean to say to her right now. So I just stick my tongue out at her and keep sulking.
"At least you got the recipe, right?" Solona comments, not caring to bite back her chuckling. "I can make this potion. How much do you need?"
"As much as you can possibly produce? And could you have a look at it... find out what it does and how it does what it does? Maybe one can improve it?"
Seems Rori has already thought about that for some time. Seems she doesn't tell me everything. Seems it's time for some serious conversation.
About Morrigan. About Avernus. About the plans she has and where she is heading, dragging me along. Hey, it was her saying I should take care of myself more often. So that's what I will do... She's not the only Grey Warden here...
And I so won't have her wrap me around her little finger. Not this time! No, I will stay strong and not let my willpower falter... no matter what she does to try to convince me... Maker! I could think of a few things she could be doing that would totally convince me of anything... Blast!... Now I am thinking of a few things... uhm...
Don't look at her, Alistair! Don't look... oh, blast!... How that blouse is stretched by her magnificently large bosom... with her nipples, hardened by the cold down here in the dungeons, pressing against the cloth... and those rosebud lips, how she wets them with the tip of her tongue... how her hips sway when she walks...
I wanted to talk to her, didn't I?
So, here I go! I clear my throat to catch her attention. I open my mouth. Rori looks at me expectantly. Smiling wickedly, she stretches like a cat would do... And I... I stare at her boobs.
Duh...
Err...
Uhm...
I close my mouth again and grin foolishly. She smiles knowingly and kisses the tip of my nose. No, no, I'm not feeling like a complete retard now! I am feeling like an utterly retarded, completely foolish, outstandingly idiotic moron.
Blast!
Okay, I should take my time, collect my thoughts and put sentences together in my mind. It's pretty hard since I have these images popping up in my mind instead... I only half listen to Solona asking questions about Cullen. Seems he didn't visit her while she was stored for the Grey Wardens. His willpower certainly beats mine.
"Solona asked about you," Rori greets Cullen when we run into him on our way to the guest quarters.
"She did?" He blushes a deep crimson and nervously rubs the back of his neck. "What did she say?" he blurts out after a moment of inwardly fighting with himself.
"She was sad you never visited her," Rori says accusingly. "And she asked if you were alright."
"Tell her..."
"Why don't you tell her yourself?"
"I... I can't. Templars and mages... it's not meant to be. And she'll leave. I am just glad she... you know."
"You should talk to her, Cullen," Rori mercilessly insists. "Strong, tough templar as you, talking to a girl shouldn't be that big a challenge."
Cullen is so horrified by the mere thought of having to confront Solona and tell her how he feels about her, that all he can do is stammer incoherently. I feel sympathy for him. "It's... not as easy as you make it sound," he finally manages to say.
"Rise to challenges and seize your opportunities," Rori chimes, beaming at him brightly. Cullen glares at her as if he happily strangled her. "That's what Wynne keeps telling me and I keep looking at her just the way you look at me now," she laughs. "Come on, she'll leave with us tomorrow. This is your last chance."
"What chance?" Cullen grumbles. "There's nothing there for me... and her... She's a... mage." He spits the last word out as if it was something foul. Rori kicks his shin for this - and afterwards hobbles around on one foot, cursing herself and Cullen and me - for laughing at her - and most of all the greaves of his armour.
"All right! I'll talk to her..." Cullen finally gives in. Muttering to himself, the young templar marches off, looking anything but happy. Rori, however, is rather pleased with herself.
And I... well, I am still contemplating about the serious conversation I am going to have with her right now.
"Rori..." My voice sounds so husky. It's not supposed to sound like that. I want it to be stern and strong and unwavering. Instead I just sound like a horny fool... okay, I am a horny fool... Come on, Alistair, pull yourself together!
"Alistair?" Rori purrs, casting an upwards glance at me that makes my knees get all weak and wobbly.
Stay strong! Show that woman she cannot do whatever she pleases and not inform you about it. Show her you got your own opinion and that you won't just swallow everything she tries to feed you...
"Bedroom. Now." Whoa! Hey! Wait! That's not what I wanted to say... I wanted... oh, blast it! Who cares anyway... If the world ends I at least can say I got thoroughly laid before...
Rori seizes me by the front of my shirt and pulls me into her room. Why they still make the effort of giving us separated rooms is totally beyond me. Her lips capture mine, her nimble fingers tear at the breeches of my pants, my shirt is lost somewhere on our way... and all that before we're even through the door.
"You've hurt my manly feelings, you know. All of them!" I murmur while she sinks to her knees to pull my pants down.
"There's more than one?" she asks, grinning up at me mischievously.
"Ow! And there she's doing it again!" I clap my hands over my heart. "Ohhhh.... Maker's Breath!"
"Forgive me, my prince," Rori whispers against the tip of my erection. "Please allow me to make up for my effrontery." She lazily strokes her hand up and down my length, making it absolutely impossible for me to speak. All I can do, is groan loudly. "I take this as your Highness' permission," she purrs, running her tongue all the way up my shaft.
She's such a beast!
I have problems to keep standing when she sucks me into the hot cavern of her mouth. Thankfully the door in my back offers some support. My fingers entangle with her hair as she bobs her head to push me deeper into her mouth and all the way out again.
I have already forgotten what I actually wanted to talk to her about. Or why I was mad at her first place. Was I mad at all? Blast, I cannot remember...
All I know, is how wonderful it feels to have her suck me off...
... that does remind me of something I was wanting to try...
"Get. Into. Bed," I manage to gasp. It takes me a little longer to figure that I have to stop pushing her head down on me and let go of her so that she actually can do as she's told. A whole lot of kissing and fumbling later we both tumble into bed together - and I turn her around at once, so that she's facing my manhood and her legs are planted on both sides of my head, so I am...
"If you sat on my face...," I offer as an explanation when Rori frowns at me over her shoulder.
"You want me to... what?... sit on your face?" Rori laughs. "Oh well, your desire is my command, my prince." And then she just flops down on my face. Well... I guess, I asked for it...
"HMPH!" I find my rather prominent nose buried in her folds completely... That's not how I meant it to be! I really should reconsider my choice of words...
"Have you been talking to Zevran again, Alistair?" Rori giggles, when I shove her off my face.
"You know I never talk to the elf. If anybody talks then it's him," I pout, gasping for air. "And I only want you to kind of sit on my face... like almost... just hover above it... with your..."
"Hihihi." Rori has one of her infamous gigglefits. She's as red in the face as I am - just for a different reason. The cot is so narrow, she topples over and with a thud hits the floor. The giggling still doesn't stop.
"Stop giggling, silly woman. This is serious." I should have just let her suck me off and leave it that way... But no! I had to have one of my brilliant ideas.
"Oh? And there I always thought, sex was for fun. My mistake," she laughs as she crawls back into bed. Seeing my face she kisses the tip of my nose teasingly. She's really on a mission today. The stomp-Alistair-into-the-ground type of mission. My manly feelings by now are all shrivelled and shrunken and... HEY! No! I am NOT talking about THAT! Why does everybody always believe manly feelings are all about a man's most private parts...
"Fun, huh?" Alright, I am going to give her fun. Next I tackle her, pin her to the bed with my weight and thoroughly tickle her until she can hardly breathe anymore. She kicks and screams and giggles and begs for mercy. HA! She can beg all she wants, I do not know no mercy! I flip her around and pull her to lie across my knees with her pretty little ass raised high. She's still laughing when the first smack hits her.
"HELP!" Rori cries in between her shrill shrieks and violent gigglefit.
Blast experimental exertions! I am done with that for tonight. Instead I fling Rori around once more - she has just the right size to be manhandled - and thrust into her tight entrance from behind. She cries out in surprise, lust and pain. I slow down at her immediately but before I can even say sorry, she hisses at me: "Shut up and keep fucking me!"
"Huh?" I am so stunned, shocked, completely flabbergasted that I stop moving altogether.
"Alistair!" Rori wails in utter exasperation, rocking against me to push me deeper into her.
"You... you sure? I mean... I... I didn't hurt you, did I?"
"You don't want to discuss this now, do you?" she snaps, glowering at me over her shoulder. I grin stupidly and shrug, she hisses...
I keep her waiting until she loses her patience with me and tries to push me off her. That's when I slam back into her. She gasps and grabs the bedframe for support. It's not exactly a very stable bedframe. Actually it's no more than a quite flawy cot. With every strong thrust, the bed rocks against the wall, protesting noisily against the maltreatment. Rori doesn't protest at all. She cries out her pleasure loud enough for the whole tower to hear. I lose myself in the mind shattering sensation of our rough lovemaking, giving in to my body's desire. The bed gives in, too. It simply collapses with a loud crash.
"Ow!" Rori groans when she is buried beneath my weight. Then she begins to laugh uncontrollably.
There's a heavy knock at the door. We both freeze, the only sounds are Rori's muffled giggles and her hiccup.
"Is anybody dying in there?" Cullen's voice sounds through the closed door. "Just in case, there's two templars standing in front of that door, ready to break it down."
"NO!" I shout. "Everything's just fine. We're only... we're... uhm...err... "
"Sparring," Rori chimes in.
"Sparring?" Carroll's sullen voice sounds from just outside the room. "Why is our sparring nothing like theirs?"
"Because you got the wrong sparring partner, Carroll," Cullen growls. "Could you two in there turn the noise of your... sparring... down, please?"
We can. For the next ten minutes after the templars left, we lie perfectly still - except for Rori's hiccup. Okay, maybe it's not ten minutes before we pounce each other again... but it certainly is five... three? Two? One?
The next morning we leave the Circle again with Jowan and Solona in tow. Greagoir is both worried and glad to see us take the mages with us. Cullen offers a ton of advice for me how to handle so many mages at one place together. One can break it down to: Kill them as soon as they as much as appear somewhat weird. Very helpful indeed.
Solona is beaming like she got the sun shining out of her ass - Oghren's words, not mine. She even squeals from time to time. Her large brown deer eyes gleam, her cheeks are flushed.
"What?" I laugh when she grins at me. I have never seen Solona this happy. No surprise there. First time I ever saw her she was being dragged to be put through the Rite of Tranquillity by the man she loved. And afterwards she sat in a cell... alright, the cosy version of a cell... and had to digest the news that she would become a Grey Warden.
"Cullen," she squeaks. "Cullen! Kissed! Me!"
"No!" Rori, Leliana and I gasp unison.
"Yes!" Solona exclaims giddily. "Okay, not on the mouth. Just a peck on the cheek... but... ohhhhh!" Then the smile is wiped off her face. "But I will never see him again. Not ever." She sighs heavily. "Life is a bitch... but... he kissed me! Now I do know he cared. That's somewhat comforting... Although he said he would have killed me if I had failed my Harrowing... and if I hadn't submitted after Jowan fled..." She sounds sad now, confused. "All this templar and mages shit is so... fucked up."
"Nobody could give me news about Lily," Jowan sadly remarks. It's as if he had emptied a bucket of ice cold water over Solona's head. "You are so lucky, Sol."
"Lucky? Jowan, you stupid fucker, you and your lover almost got me killed. I trusted you when you said you didn't use bloodmagic. And then it turns out, you do... did. I... I..."
Jowan doesn't see it coming. I do. Rori does. But none of us gives him a warning when Solona punches him in the face. She almost falls off her horse doing so, but she is thoroughly pleased with herself when blood comes spurting from his nose.
"I am not going to heal that," Wynne calls from behind.
Shortly after leaving Kinloch Hold, we run into a group of refugees heading south.
"Someone should tell them that's totally the wrong direction," I mutter as they pass by in a hurry. "Heading south towards the horde, when they should go as far north as they possibly can."
"Yeah, they make me look bad in front of Sten," Rori laughs but she doesn't sound amused. Neither her mood nor mine get any better when the by now too familiar tingle in our heads alarms us of approaching darkspawn. We make short work of them.
One would think the refugees would be somewhat grateful for being rescued. Well, they aren't.
"Grey Wardens, aren't you?" a tired looking man spits into our faces when Rori and I approach the refugees. "Where have you been when the darkspawn drove us out of our homes? Where have you been when those monsters flooded Crestwood Village? Do you realize how many drowned there?"
Crestwood is almost at the coast. Darkspawn so far north? Rori and I exchange a worried look. Have we dawdled for too long? Wasted too much time in the Deep Roads?
"Do you see that?" The furious man grabs Rori by the front of her leather vest and yanks her towards the cart pulled by two exhausted oxen. Several people lie on the cart, men and women and children. Their skin is pale and blotchy, their eyes hazy and feverish. It's the darkspawn taint. "Look what you've done!" the man snaps. "Aren't you Grey Wardens supposed to protect us?"
I free Rori from the man's grasp when he begins to shake her furiously. She's so stunned by his accusation; she just stares and blinks at him.
"I'm sorry... but... there's only the two of us," I try to calm the man down. "We cannot be everywhere!" It's impossible and still I feel guilty. I wish I could have helped these people. I wish I could save them all. The man won't listen. He needs someone to blame so he blames the Grey Wardens... Rori looks as if she's about to burst into tears.
"Leave them alone!" Morrigan hisses, appearing right next to Rori as the ginger still tries to calm the man down. "Your misery is not their fault. Pull yourself together, you whining fool!"
Well... one could have broken this news to the man in a much gentler, much nicer manner... at least if one wasn't Morrigan.
"And you two, why are you wasting your time arguing with that moron? His home is lost, his family is dead. He should get over it and move on. And so should we." Thus said she turns on her heels and marches off.
Don't ever tell anybody... because I'd never admit this out loud... but Morrigan has a point there. I'd never act like her. I still feel obliged to help the refugees, I still wish I could have saved those who died... But let's be realistic for once... It is impossible to save all of them. I have learnt that by now. It's a lesson I did not and will never like - but... we do have to keep going. If we don't defeat the archdemon, we all will die. That's what we are here for, to gloriously save the world. We are heroes! Kind of... wannabe heroes. Why does it feel so awful then and not heroic at all to leave those people behind?
"They will die, you know," Rori whispers to me while she watches the infected people on the cart. She has turned a whiter shade of pale. "And it won't be pretty. And they could infect those who take care of them..."
It takes me a while to figure what she's trying to tell me. "No! Rori, we can't do that! We cannot just kill them!"
"They die anyway. Look at them, to end their suffering is... an act of mercy."
Merciful Andraste! She's right - and still it is too terrible a deed to even think about it. Just sometimes one has to do things one doesn't like to do... not because you feel in your heart they are right but because they are the lesser of two evils.
It's easier than we thought to convince the refugees to leave the dying persons behind. They are almost relieved when we offer to take care of them. I wonder if they realize that we will kill them...
This is one of the hardest and toughest moments in my life.
The old man I lift from the cart weighs less than a child. He groans and writhes in pain. There's fear in his eyes when he realizes what I am about to do... and gratitude.
Rori cradles a small girl in her arms, softly singing lullabies to the frightened child. Her face is swollen and blotched, she mutters incoherently in her fever, as she snuggles closer to Rori. A small smile tugs at the corners of the child's mouth the very moment Rori slides the slim blade of her dagger past the girl's ribs and right into her heart.
I feel like a murderer. I feel like I can never look at my own reflection again without seeing the face of a man who killed the innocent.
Right now it doesn't help much that all these people died a quick and mostly painless death, saved from the agony and suffering the taint would have brought them. It doesn't help that they did not die alone. It doesn't help that they were all grateful for the comforting words, for the soft tunes hummed or sung for them in moments of pain and despair, for the hugs nobody else dared to give them...
Their faces will haunt my nightmares forever. One more horror to add, one more thing to cope with when coping seems to become more and more impossible. My eyes are stinging badly from not crying... but I'd rather pick them out than give Morrigan another reason to bash me. At least she stays silent and spares us any of her nasty remarks.
Rori rides with me when we leave the smoking pyres behind. She's sobbing and with my face buried in her hair, I allow my own tears to flow. To know she is with me is comforting. At times like this all my other companions - some of them friends - seem so distant. Rori and I wouldn't be here without them. They follow the two last Grey Wardens on their journey, they fight with us, support us, their sleep is haunted by equal nightmares - equal but not the same. At this moment, I can feel the taint inside of me, how it slowly destroys me, kills me. It's often like that when I've been in close contact with the darkspawn or their corruption. It's as if the taint inside of me grows stronger, as if the poison spreads farther, contaminating me more and more. Only Rori knows how this really feels.
But while I am willing to accept my lot, she is determined to change it. Thus the reason why she has us drag along a cart with empty wine barrels. Well, they aren't all empty at first... But Oghren and Wynne solve that problem rather quickly with a little help from their friends when we next set up camp. Guess we all need a bit of tipsiness after that day. Leliana plays sad tunes with her lute; Rori joins in with her fiddle. We don't talk much, just drink and listen to the music, so sad and yet so beautiful. It's a cold clear winter night and we are huddled together around the campfire as if we were the last survivors in a destroyed world. Later I lie in our tent with my beloved woman in my arms, marvelling at how lucky a man I am. I don't think I deserve so much luck, but I am grateful for this mistake, more grateful than words can ever express.
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In good times and in bad

Notes:

Chapter Text