Freely We Serve (a Dragon Age fanfiction)

Lecture

After Anora had thrown him and Eamon out of the room, Alistair headed straight for the room where Kylon lay, knocking lightly at the door. Wynne opened it, looking weary. Alistair motioned her out into the hallway.

"Yes, Alistair?" Wynne asked impatiently.

"Do you know what happened this morning?"

"I'm afraid you'll need to be a bit more specific, my boy. I'm good at figuring things out, but not quite that good."

"Kylon. He flinched from her, compared her to a blood mage. All the things we've been through, I've never seen her so upset."

Wynne grimaced. "I was afraid of something like that. He was mostly unconscious while I was healing him, but when he was awake, he didn't want me to get too near him."

"Why didn't you warn her?"

"I tried, but I didn't want to say too much. The things he babbled about while unconscious ... I felt those things weren't mine to share."

Alistair studied her. "Personally, I'd have breached the confidence before I put her in a position to have her heart broken, but that's just me."

Sighing, Wynne said, "Young man, I hope I'm still around when you learn the world isn't black and white. The aftershocks will be felt throughout Thedas, no doubt."

"Hey!" Alistair glared at the mage. "Why don't you take a break, I'll sit with him for a little while."

"Only if you promise to be nice." Wynne raised her eyebrows, looking fiercer than the Revered Mother had when she caught him trying to steal Sister Althea's birthday cake.

"Of course," he said, all wide-eyed innocence. No one could resist that look—the Revered Mother had cut him a slice of that cake herself, he remembered smugly.

Wynne cast him a suspicious glance. "I'll be back in an hour. I expect him to be in one piece."

Alistair watched her walk down the hall, then went into Kylon's bedroom.

"Welcome to the sickroom," Kylon said, eyeing Alistair warily.

"Just a changing of the guard, as it were," Alistair said, taking the seat next to the bed. "You look as though you're doing much better."

"I feel much better." There was a pause, and then Kylon asked, his cheeks reddening slightly, "Er, last night ... were you an elf, or was that some kind of hallucination?"

"Me?" Alistair was confused for a moment. "Ah! That was Zevran. Antivan, ex-Crow, very shifty. But good when you want to sneak in somewhere."

"That's a relief. She once mentioned the team members she couldn't bring to Denerim. I take it he was one of those."

"Indeed," Alistair said, his tone a bit cooler now that Judith had been brought up. He stretched his legs out, studying the man in the bed. "Speaking of her."

"Yes?" Kylon was wary again. He knew this man had never trusted him, and hoped only that he could talk to Judith before Alistair found out about this morning. He didn't think he was prepared for the thrashing the other man was likely to give him.

"She's the closest thing to family I've ever had. I don't think it would be overstating the case for me to say that I'd kill anyone who hurt her."

Alistair's scowl spoke volumes. So much for him not finding out, Kylon thought. "I take it this is about this morning," he said. Alistair nodded. "And somehow you think this is your concern?"

"You made her cry. I've never seen her cry, and you made her all ... sobby. That makes it my concern."

"Ah." Kylon sighed, closing his eyes, cursing himself for hurting her. "I didn't mean to. It's just that ... there's that smell, you know? The lyrium? Judith has it, and the blood mage had it. And I smelled it earlier and—I just reacted without thinking. That's all."

"Do you know what she went through to find you? To reach you?"

"No. Do you know what I went through because Arl Howe wanted me to bring her to him and I refused?" Kylon's brown eyes hardened as he took in the young man in front of him.

"No," Alistair conceded. "I hadn't thought of it that way."

"Is she all right?" Kylon asked quietly, after a moment.

"I don't think so, no. She was pretty badly hurt. You know how mages are treated. Everyone holds them at arm's length, no one really trusts them, people are always talking about being turned into toads. One of the reasons she was drawn to you was that you never treated her like that. Until now."

"It's ... daunting, suddenly. All that power, at her fingertips."

"It's always been there," Alistair said quietly.

"But I'd never felt so ... intimately what could become of it if ... "

"Look, I know you've had this whole blissful walk-through-the-park tra-la-la kind of thing, the two of you, but I've seen her when it counts. I've seen her having to cut down abominations that once were her friends; I've seen her turn away from the power and money dangled before her; but most of all, I've seen her time and again going out of her way, putting herself in danger to save innocent people. She has bent under the weight of more pressure than any three men should be able to stand ... but the only thing that has ever broken her is you." Alistair stood up, looking down at the man in the bed. "If you don't think you can get past what happened to you enough to trust her, break it off. Do it cleanly. But only a fool would look into her eyes and not see the goodness there. And I don't think you're a fool." He paused at the door, looking back. "For what it's worth, I started off with similar concerns. You know I trained as a Templar. But there has never been a moment that I've stood at her side in battle and not had complete confidence in her."

The door closed quietly behind Alistair and Kylon buried his head in his hands.