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What Becomes Of The Broken Hearted	By : kruemel Category: +A through F > Dragon Age (all) > Dragon Age (all) Views: 4866 -:- 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
- 7
- 8
- 9
First sorry for the long wait. I had problems with my login.that are obviously solved now.

@Anon: Thank you. As for her escape. It's a reference to DA:O and the escape of the Warden, so sorry to disappoint you but there won't be some cool action there. But maybe I can make up with this chapter. ;)
Plan B
“The weather is fine today, isn’t it? All that sunshine makes me miss the good old Fereldan rain.”
“Yes, your Majesty,” the guard said, entering the typical king/subject conversation. No matter what I say, the answer is always ‘Yes, your Majesty’ or ‘No, your Majesty.’ It drives me crazy! But at that moment, it came in rather handy.
“So, you’re standing guard, eh?” I chuckled jovially upon passing through the doors the guards opened for me. I was so jittery I had to fight the urge to take Rori’s hand for comfort. She was right behind me in disguise, hiccupping nervously. “Keep up the good work.”
My plan was to walk us both out of there by my kingly and her guardly demeanor. It was simple but effective—as long as we didn’t raise suspicion. With the guards of Fort Drakon, everything worked out fine. They didn’t question the actions of their king no matter how strange he behaved, babbling a whole lot of nonsense and presenting a strained smile as if the corners of his mouth were stapled to his ears. For them, it was essential for survival to ignore a superior’s weirdness. Not too long ago I had been one of them and thus, I was pretty sure my plan would work out. Although I definitely didn’t want to run into Teagan or Eamon; then the jig would be up for sure.
The worst case scenario occurred when we were passing through the vast hall. I heard Teagan urgently call my name. Rori and I both flinched.
“Blast it!” I cursed under my breath. I walked faster, hurried past the guards at the next door, and towards the gates that led into the court. Rori had to jog to keep up with me. Her hiccup took on a hysterical tone.
“Your Majesty!” Teagan cried frantically when I kept ignoring him. “Stop! Stop them! Don’t let them pass!” His words were accompanied by many heavy footsteps approaching quickly. Without slowing down I stormed forward.
“Make way!” I snapped at the utterly confused guards at the gates. The poor sods were of two minds about what to do. “Hurry up!”
“Watch out, your Majesty! The escapee!” Teagan shouted. “Catch her! She’s in disguise of a guard! Protect the king!”
That unfortunately had the guards jump into action. Weapons drawn they approached Rori, trying to get in between her and me. She reached for her sword to defend herself.
“Blast it!” I couldn’t let her kill the guards. They were just doing their jobs. Neither could I allow them to hurt Rori. As if I didn’t already have enough problems, Teagan was about to enter the fight.
Doom!
DOOM!
And then I had an afflatus just like that—the perfect solution!
“Take me hostage!”
“WHAT!?” Rori squeaked, gaping at me in mere disbelief.
“We’re running out of time!” With the Guerrins and my royal escort at our backs and the guards in front of us, we had to act quickly. Rori, however, was frozen to the spot. She opened and closed her mouth like a stranded carp.
“Put the sword down!” Teagan bellowed, charging her when she didn’t react. Startled she dropped her sword, grabbed for her dagger and finally feign-dragooned me into enabling her escape.
“About time,” I grunted, trying hard not to appear relieved as my part was that of the damsel in distress.
“This is your brilliant plan!?” Rori hissed. She was so tense her hand was shaking.
“Whoa! Easy now! You’re pressing a dagger to my throat, remember?”
“That was your idea!”
“I never claimed it was a good one,” I admitted, hardly daring to speak as the blade scraped against my Adam’s apple.
When the cries of alarm and horror calmed down, Rori beckoned the guards to open the gates for her, slowly dragging me outside with our pursuers following at a distance.
“We’re almost there,” I muttered under my breath. We had almost reached my carriage in the court of Fort Drakon. Only a few more steps, each seeming as endless as the Hissing Wastes, separated us from the safety of the coach.
“Lady Cousland, I know you are desperate but this is not the way. Let go of the king and I promise—I swear—we will find a solution.” Teagan called out to the girl as he closed in with my guards circling us. On the battlements, several archers were waiting for a clear shot. Rori, however, pressed her body so close to mine they couldn’t shoot her without the risk of hitting me. Clever girl.
“Yeah, sure. A final solution,” Rori snorted. “Your king is dead meat if you make a wrong move!”
“Stay away, Teagan!” I croaked upon opening the door of the carriage. “She means it! She’ll kill me.”
“Without hesitation!” Rori confirmed, climbing inside first without lowering her dagger.
“Taking the king hostage is madness, Rori!” Teagen cried desperately.
“My sentiments exactly,” Rori muttered.
“She wants Zevran to drive the coach. Maker’s Breath! Just do what she says!” I informed Teagan, my voice shaking from the effort not to laugh out loud. Teagan’s and Eamon’s faces were priceless. Sure I felt sorry for them; they were really worried about me. Still... it was like my pranks back at the monastery. I just didn’t react well to being forced to act on a duty I so didn’t want to be loaded with in the first place. I didn’t have the guts to break free and neglect my duty, but I couldn’t endure silently without little outbursts of rebellion. Alright, faking my own abduction probably wasn’t that little a rebellion anymore...
I waited until Zevran had taken his place before I backwards climbed into the coach as well. Immediately I drew the curtains. Rori was as white as a sheet, her lips quivering, her eyes wide and dark with fear.
I comfortingly squeezed her hand. “Hey, you did well. If I didn’t know better, I’d say you took me hostage for real.”
“They won’t allow us to leave,” she whispered hoarsely when time passed and nothing happened. “I don’t want you to get hurt, Alistair. We should end this now.”
“They won’t let you get away alive!” I protested. “And it would be my fault!” I certainly wouldn’t let her down. I was convinced saving Rori was essential for my salvation, a redemption for my failing Suri. Somehow I desperately hoped Rori’s rescue would rescue me in return.
Determined to constrain our departure, I peeped out of the window, finding myself almost eye to eye with a guard.
Blast!
Oh well, desperate times called for desperate measures.
“ARGH!” I shrieked, making Rori jump. I was lucky she slumped on the seats with her dagger far away from my throat or my method acting would have gotten an unpleasantly realistic touch. “For the love of Andraste! Open the gates! NOW!” I wailed in feigned pain, my own cries answered by those of the guards outside. Above them, Teagan’s order to open the gates was followed by the rumbling of the portcullis. The racing start of the coach had me tumble right onto Rori’s lap. Fortune favors fools! She had only sheathed her dagger a moment ago or I would have accidentally impaled myself.
Zevran drove at a breakneck speed with a whole lot of sharp turns. Rori and I were thoroughly shaken about and thrown against the wall of the coach when our wild ride ended with a hard stop. Needless to say, this did nothing for my headache. For the moment, adrenaline luckily held it at bay. Zevran opened the door while we were still busy picking ourselves up. “Alistair, my crazy friend, I have shaken them off for now. We shouldn’t dawdle, though.” He offered Rori his hand to help her climb out of the carriage and led the way down a narrow alley away from the main road. I hurried to catch up with them.
“What next?” I asked excitedly. This was like the good old days when adventure had awaited us around every corner. I could almost hear Suri snarling bossy commands with her unpleasant habit of whacking everybody over the head with her staff when they didn’t react quickly enough. Most of the time I had been the recipient of her encouragement. Admittedly, I had gotten lost in the admiration of her swaying hips at inopportune moments every now and then.
“You, my royal friend, will return to the palace...”
“Whoa! Wait! No way! I will not stand idly by while you get all the action! I will come with you. There’s an assassin out there trying to kill me and I will hunt him down. I have no intention of waiting for them to come for me first.” I was clutching at straws when it came to distracting myself from the grief and sorrow that dominated my life.
“We’ll draw more attention than a three-headed Mabari!” Rori exclaimed. “You cannot come with us. Eamon will move heaven and Fade to find you. He for sure will put a bounty on my head. There’s no way we can find out anything with you in tow.”
“Alas, the little imp does have a point,” Zevran agreed.
I opened my mouth to protest but already citizens were gathering around and pointing at the dark-skinned elf with his blonde hair and prominent tatoos, the young woman with her bright red curly hair and striking blue eyes, and the walking talking King Maric memorial.
“So you want me to return to the palace where I play target for the assassin?” I sulked. “Eamon is convinced Rori is the culprit. He undoubtedly will concentrate on chasing her instead of finding the real threat. I am not safe in the palace.”
“Alas, that is also true,” Zevran confirmed, leading us through a passage into the court of a half burnt down house. It was too dangerous to stay in one place for too long. I quickly turned my coat with the Theirin crest inside out. Rori used the ashes of the soot-blackened ruins to cover the Mabaris on my shield before we moved on.
“I’m coming with you,” I declared in my best kingly voice. “We’ll hunt down the conspirators and prove Rori’s innocence. It’s ridiculous to believe she’s involved in this intrigue...”
“Umm... err... that’s not entirely correct...” Rori muttered compunctiously. The sound of her voice had me stop dead.
“WHAT!? You tried to murder me?”
“NO!” she cried forcefully, her fists clenched. “But,” she added meekly. “I believe I got hired to kill you... accidentally.”
“Accidentally!?” I was completely flabbergasted. Once I regained my composure I grabbed her chin and forced her to look me straight in the eyes. I had been so damn sure she would never...
“I thought it was a joke,” Rori explained ruefully, her eyes filling with tears.
“Charming.” I huffed, angrily shoving her against a wall. “Let’s murder the king! We’ll have a whale of a time!”
“Tell us every tiny detail, no matter how unimportant you believe it to be,” Zevran demanded, his tone uncharacteristically earnest.
“I’m afraid I don’t know much,” Rori apologized. She never took her eyes off me but kept her distance, watching me pace. “But what I know I will tell you.” She inhaled deeply. “Before we arrived at Denerim, we stayed overnight at a tavern. It was my last chance to run away but once again, I couldn’t sneak past my brother’s watchdogs. After some useless attempts, I went into a huff behind the barn with some whiskey to keep me company. I had reached the bottom of the bottle and I was quite boozy when I heard a voice close by. ‘Shush! Don’t turn around!’ I looked back and spotted a hooded man peeping out of the window of the barn. His face was cast in shadow and he spoke in a hoarse whisper. ‘I said don’t turn around!’ he hissed. I just sat there with my empty bottle and gawked at him stupidly. He said: ‘I have a proposition...’ And I was like, ‘I’m not that kind of woman!’ He insisted: ‘You can strike a good bargain. Money...’ I was convinced he was making an indecent proposal. I was really very drunk and slow minded but when he promised me an Arling to rule, it began to dawn on me that perhaps he was not trying to get into my pants. ‘Huh?’ I slurred. ‘What are you talking about?’ That’s when he called himself a freedom fighter and revealed that he intended to recruit me for the sake of Ferelden.”
I hung on Rori’s every word when she dropped her voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “‘You will play an important part in the liberation of Ferelden. You have the privilege of freeing our beloved nation from the usurper.’” She shrugged, implying that she hadn’t taken his chatter seriously. “He went on and on about patriotism and such. I thought he had lost his marbles so I only half listened to him. And then I dozed off until he barked into my ear: ‘Will you, for the love of your country, carry out this sacred duty?’ And I said: ‘Sure, whatever.’ Just to make him shut up.”
“Can you describe the man?” Zevran asked intently.
Rori frowned. “All I could see was his nonexistent chin... I mean, he was chinless. Clean-shaven. Oh! There was a wart at the corner of his mouth...”
“I suppose anything is better than nothing.” I sighed. Assuming she didn’t lie, that is. “Did he give you any money?” I just had to know. If she had accepted payment...
“No and I wouldn’t have accepted...” Her voice faded, she frowned, then a sheepish grin tugged at the corners of her mouth. “Okay, I would have accepted it. It’s not like I would still have a single coin to my name. I would have spent it all on booze by now.”
I coughed to suppress a laugh, hiding my smile with my hand. Her special brand of honesty was quite disarming. “What happened then?” I asked as sternly as possible. I am afraid I wasn’t very convincing.
“The next morning I awoke in front of the barn, chilled to the bone and with a nasty hangover,” Rori remembered. “The man was gone and I wondered about my strange dreams. Then I forgot about the whole thing until a week after my arrival at the palace when I received a note. It was hidden under my breakfast toast. At first I thought it was a joke... But then I recalled the man at the barn. The cabal was losing patience. They had been watching me spend time with Alistair and had assumed I was befriending him to earn his trust. They were utterly disappointed that I hadn’t yet even tried to murder him.”
“What did you do with the note?” I inquired.
“I ate it on toast with butter and orange marmalade. It was rather dry.”
“You should have seasoned it with nose-pickings,” I laughed, unable to feign infuriation any longer. A shy relieved smile was Rori’s reply. “But why didn’t you tell me?” The smile vanished.
“I... I didn’t know what to say,” she confessed unhappily. “I was afraid you wouldn’t believe me. I was afraid I would get locked up again. More than anything, I was afraid I’d lose...” She bit her lips to stop herself from blurting out a confession she wasn’t ready to make. There was something in her eyes that touched a chord deep down inside me. I was still gawking trying to make sense of that brief bittersweet sensation when she straightened up, cleared her throat, and empathetically declared: “... such a formidable king! It would have been a terrible loss for this nation and... err...” She lost trail of her thoughts when Zevran and I began to chuckle. “I thought I could make things right again by watching over you and sending Eamon several anonymous warnings...” Rori whispered miserably. “My cowardice put you at risk... I am so sorry Al—er... your Majesty.”
I was of two minds about her story; my heart, however, had come to a conclusion. “I suppose your confession leaves me no option but to...” I paused, emphasizing the severity of the moment. Rori’s eyes filled with tears. She hung her head in defeat. “... give you a hug.” And that’s what I did, briefly but comfortingly. She was so stunned, she just let it happen.
“Wh-what was that for?” Rori stammered.
I shrugged, cracking a smile. “You seemed to need a hug.”
- 7
- 8
- 9
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What Becomes Of The Broken Hearted