When Fate Summons (a Dragon Age fanfiction)

What's Love Got to Do with It?

Morrigan and Thora were given rooms in the castle. If Dorothea felt like objecting, she kept it to herself. She had made it clear years ago that Alistair's ex-lover wasn't welcome under her roof ... but the idea of Alistair going off on a quest with the dwarf was far more disturbing than having them together in the castle for a night. Dorothea followed Alistair to his room, where he dug a well-worn pack out of the back of his wardrobe. He began sorting through clothes and shoving things into the pack.

"Alistair," she said. He paused, looking at her. "I wish you wouldn't do this."

"What choice do I have?" he asked. "Those are my daughters, and they have been kidnapped by a very powerful ... well, maleficar, at least, if not more."

Dorothea frowned. "I don't understand any of this. Why didn't you tell me about this ... other woman? And her daughter?"

He sighed, unsure how much to tell her. "When it comes right down to it, I didn't really know. I mean, I knew there was supposed to be a child, but Morrigan left almost immediately."

"Did you ... love her, too?"

"Morrigan?!" His eyebrows flew up and he looked horrified. "Hardly. Quite the opposite."

"Then why--?"

"Have a child with her?" He studied her. "It's complicated. And involves, well, Grey Warden secrets."

"There you go again," she said wearily. "Anything you don't want to tell me, you fob off as a 'Grey Warden secret'."

"In this case, it really is." His cheeks reddened slightly. It was true, he did overuse the excuse, and it saddened him that after all these years he didn't trust her enough to tell her everything.

"Then why does this ... Morrigan know about it?"

"Morrigan always seems to know a great many things she shouldn't," Alistair growled. He shoved a few more pairs of socks into the pack. He hated having to wear wet, dirty socks.

"What about Duncan? You'll be away for who knows how long."

He stared off into the distance pensively. "I know. I hate that. He'll miss me so much, and I him. But I see him all the time—I've been with him all his life. I owe these girls." He sighed. "I have no choice."

"And if she hadn't asked you?"

"It is my duty." He faced her unblinkingly, thinking that for a change that terrible word, duty, was working for him instead of against him as it had so often before. "Besides, I think it's an excellent opportunity to reconnect with the land and truly gauge the state of the common folk. I was able to do that when we fought the Blight, and I think it has helped me greatly in ruling. A chance to get out there again amongst the people can't hurt."

"How will you be 'amongst the people' with your retinue and wagons?"

"I won't be taking them. I assume we'll need to travel far more lightly than that, and a group that is too big, too grand, or, Maker forbid, too royal, will attract entirely too much attention."

"You'll be assassinated!"

"In the company of the Commander of the Grey and a whole party of Grey Wardens? I'm not concerned," said Alistair, grinning. He reached into the wardrobe for his warmest cloak and missed the flash in Dorothea's eyes.

After a moment, Dorothea said, "You know you'll be sleeping on the ground, in a tent, again."

Alistair's love of his creature comforts was well known, and it was a good attempt. But her mention of tents caused the opposite reaction from the one she had intended. Immediately, his mind was filled with memories of the tent he had shared with Thora for so many months. The long nights of laughter, her warm body in his arms, the way she used to sigh his name ... his heart beat faster. And he was reminded of something else. He crossed to the table next to his bed, pulling out the little drawer. He reached inside, pressing on a hidden spring, and then from under the false bottom, he took something. It was an amulet—Andraste's holy symbol—with a web of cracks running across it, indicating that it had been broken and mended. It was attached to a chain made of braided red-gold hair. The same shade as the short spiky hair of the Warden Commander.