Dragon Age Ever Afters

Swooping is bad

Stomach acid burns my tongue as I retch into the mud.

Alistair rubs between my shoulder blades, holding back my hair with his other hand.

"What if the cure didn't fully work? What if the warden taint is coming back?" he says, his voice pitching in worry.

"Real reassuring Ali, thank you. It's probably just my bad cooking." I say, wiping my mouth with the back of my hand. I stand up too quickly and the world tilts on its axis for a moment. He grabs me before I can fall, wraps his arms around my back.

"No, I'm sure you're fine... probably. You know I worry." He murmurs.

"If you're worried we can visit a mage and get their opinion, would that ease you - your highness?" I try to crack a grin but I feel so god damn tired. He flicks my head at the title - it's been twelve years since we put Anora on her throne if I had wanted I could have put Alistair up there, but I knew he would hate it. He may be a royal bastard but he had no intention of taking the throne for himself.

"Yes," he says with a sigh, "Hopefully they can tell us that you're okay."

----------------------

"Bless the Maker!" A mage gasps as we enter.

"What? What is it? Oh, maker what?" Alistair says, frantically looking between the redhead mage and I.

"Calm down Alistair," the mage says, stepping towards me and placing a gentle hand on my stomach, "You are with child!"

"What??" I draw back from her hand, looking down at myself - I guess I am a little bloated but I thought that was from being the well-fed Hero of Ferelden. Seriously, we get so much free food despite just being retired Grey Wardens but hell - who am I to complain.

"You are with child my friend! How wonderful!" she says, resting on her enchanted staff.

Alistair gapes, his mouth opening and closing. Looking between the mage and me.

"A-at least he's not a bastard." He finally says with a small smirk. I whack his arm playfully but sit on a crate to gather my thoughts. I mean, I'm not totally against having a child but I'd never really thought about it. The world has been a mess for too long to even consider starting a family. I have my own misfit family of friends and Alistair, I never thought I needed any more.

Alistair came to find me as soon as his duties for the inquisition ended. It took a few months but we finally found eachother. I'd never been so happy to see that sarcastic ass, we spent every second together, making up for the past 12 years of expeditions apart. In that time apart, I'd finally found the cure for the taint.
There are tonics out there to prevent pregnancy, but we never bothered before because grey wardens having children? VERY unlikely. I guess we'd become so accustomed to not using tonics after the deed that we hadn't even considered it.

"Wow." I murmured.
Alistair squeezed my shoulder, "Wow indeed."
The mage taught us all about care and gave me tonics to quell my my nausea, then we were on our way home. A baby? I knew very little of those. Back when I was with my clan, long before the 5th blight, the mage uprising and the inquisition, I'd help the mothers who had just given birth, they were usually in great deals of pain and yet were happy. But the blood... the blood. I'd killed a lot in my life, darkspawn, bandits, quanari, fucking dragons - but blood accompanied with a slimy little alien, oh maker...

Alistair tucked me into bed as soon as we returned home. Pup the mabari now rests his old little head on my lap. Pup was a puppy when I saved him from Ostagar, which makes him a little old man now, his mabari blood still makes him strong.

I probably should have guessed that I was with child. Pup has been awfully protective of me lately, growling at Alistair when he got close and watching my every move. We just thought it was jealousy or the typical 'who's the man of the house?' (Pup).
The sickness has been coming and going for a month now, I assumed it was just food poisoning or something. Man, why am I so naive?

"So how will we tell the others?" Alistair says, sitting on the bed beside me, placing a cup of warm milk into my hands. Pup puffed at the sudden lack of attention, glaring at Alistair who wisely decided to pet the stroppy mabari.
"We'll write to the divine, I need to send her the nug statuette from our last expedition anyway. Oghren will be at the Gnawed Noble Tavern, I hear Zev is in town, we'll probably find him in the Pearl... we'll send message for us to meet at the tavern... we'll write to Sten but quanari are different when it comes to ...being with child. No one knows where Morrigan went after the inquisition but I have a feeling she already knows." I sip warm milk and reach out to hold Alistair's hand in mine with the other.
"Sounds like a plan."