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tired-truffle · 1 month ago

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Waiting for You

An AlistairxWarden fic

Word Count: 5.6k

One-Shot

A reunion based on the concept art by Matt Rhodes of the Warden returning as a companion - made mute by decay from staving off the Blight - and Alistair left in the Fade to be rescued by Rook.

A/N: Song recs to accompany this one-shot: Lonesome & Mad by Under The Rug and Would You Fall In Love With Me Again from EPIC the Musical.

Enjoy this fic that gnawed its way into my mind and would not let go <3

Masterlist

The years had not been kind. She’d fought tirelessly, until her skin had peeled from her bones, her muscles wasted away, the Calling eroding her mind. She was no longer elvhen, but something else entirely - a shadowed reflection of her former self, a disgusting burden on humanity. Yet still, she persisted. She could no longer recall why.

Her name was long forgotten, memories shredded like fine paper and left to soak in her tainted blood. She’d been a Grey Warden, a hero, some had called her - but it mattered little in the end. The world had used her and spat her back out, a mangled, unrecognizable mess.

She’d tried to hold onto herself at first, relaying her memories aloud as if they were stories, remembering friends, speaking their names and hers. But her jaw had rotten from its socket, held on by the sinew and dirty bandages she’d wrapped around her head, a vain attempt to hide her decaying carcass from view - unable to speak, her mind expunged her identity like a rung-out sponge.

It was for the best, she told herself, she wouldn’t want the people she cared about to see her like this. Better they think she was dead. Besides, the one she would have wanted most by her side was gone. He’d promised he’d return, and when he hadn’t she’d searched endlessly for him. She should have accepted his death when she was able to remember why. Her weakened heart beat its anguish against her ribcage - a mournful drumbeat. Try as she might, she couldn’t grasp the slippery fish of his name that swam at the back of her skull.

She’d wandered Thedas, no longer entirely sure of her purpose. Ridding herself of the Calling had been her goal, but as her mind faded, her love torn from her arms, she lacked reason or motivation.

That was, until Rook had found her drifting in the Anderfells, tearing into Darkspawn with her boney fingers, her rage an unstoppable force. Those creatures had stolen her life, so she would steal theirs. She could no longer recall how the bright-eyed elf had convinced her to join her team, a kinship, perhaps. Both were treated as the lowest of the low until society had need of them, had need of their sacrifice. She was fucking sick of sacrifice. Someone had to ensure that Rook didn’t meet the same fate.

Thankfully she could still write. Though she kept mostly to herself, Rook’s companions found ways to bring her out of her broken shell. They’d even given her a name; Lady, they called her. She’d turned down all others, too mortal, too familiar. She wasn’t like them, though she wasn’t much of a Lady either. They’d outright rejected her suggestion of Ghoul.

At every meal, they made it clear that she was to join them at the table. Eating had become a challenge for her, as she struggled to keep the food in her mouth and manually move her jaw to chew. But they assured her it wasn't a problem. She couldn't decide if she felt comforted or insulted by Emmrich's declaration that he had witnessed many a skeleton attempt to eat, and at least for her, the food didn't simply fall through her ribcage. A strange reassurance.

A room had appeared for her in the Lighthouse base, off the side of the kitchen, up a set of stairs and tucked away. Private, but close enough to keep watch of the others. The four-poster bed with its thick furs covering the firm mattress, the well-worn desk tucked into a corner, and the crackling fire in the stone fireplace all felt like echoes from her past. She’d had something similar once, could almost picture it. But it was hers, not theirs, like it had been. It lacked his presence and that of their faithful dog who used to lounge by her feet while she worked at the desk.

She’d had a dog, hadn’t she?

Unable to bear the emptiness of her bed without the warm weight of another body, she instead placed the furs on the floor and curled up in front of the fireplace to chase away the chill from her bones. She had become the dog now.

Harding had come to her with some tea early on in her stay. She’d noticed Lady’s winces and rubbing of her temples as the Calling ebbed and flowed. She itched to sink her gnarled fingers into the flesh of the Old Gods who’d done this and tear them limb from limb.

While the tea did little to soothe her inclination towards violence, it did help with the headaches, if only marginally.

“I was wondering,” Harding began, getting to the point of her visit, perched atop Lady’s desk with her short legs dangling, “since you’re a Grey Warden, did you feel Corypheus’s Calling ten years ago? From what I heard, only the wardens in Ferelden were affected by it.”

Lady shrugged, letting the scalding hot tea burn away the last of her taste buds and dribble out the sides of her mouth to catch in the bandages. A nuisance she would never get used to.

“The Inquisitor travelled with a warden, Blackwall, or I guess he was actually Thom Rainer, but we found that out much later,” Harding continued. “Oh, and that old warden friend of Leliana’s that joined for a bit before…he didn’t make it back from a mission.”

Her teacup rattled in her hand, gripped tight in her fingers, close to breaking from the force. Leliana…that name rang a bell, a quiet tinkling that joined the ever-present vibrato of the Calling. How did she know that name? She didn’t dare ask Harding for more. And that warden they lost on a mission, Leliana’s friend, why did the thought fill her with uncontrollable grief?

“Lady,” Harding called her attention, her brows pinched as she scanned Lady’s face. “You’re looking a little pale, or rather paler than usual, given that you’re essentially, uh, blue.”

Placing her teacup on the floor beside her, she pulled her pad of paper out of her pocket and scribbled her response.

Really? I hadn’t noticed.

Harding giggled, a delightful sound that felt entirely at odds with Lady’s gloomy existence. “Okay, okay, you got me.”

But it was nice to experience it, if even for a little while. Her eyes crinkled in a smile that her mouth could no longer form.

Weeks passed and Lady settled in, joining them on missions and learning more about Rook’s companions. She couldn’t bring herself to think of them as hers; she’d lost her companions, she couldn’t replace them with others.

Rook had sent a request to her warden contacts about a cure for the Calling, but had yet to hear back. Davrin hadn’t a clue, and seemed entirely unnerved by her presence, though he refused to say it. It was polite but unnecessary, she couldn’t blame him for it. This was his future if he refused death too - decayed and decrepit, a ghost of the hero she’d once been.

The Fade had called to Rook, an unsettling whisper on the wind that begged for aid in a language only the young elf could understand. A connection to the Fade as strong as Rook’s held many mysteries, and with caution, she departed with Taash and Lucanis. Lady stayed in her room, exhaustion weighing her down until she’d burrowed into the furs she’d stolen from the bed and placed in front of the fire. She’d become housebroken, not wild and feral as she’d once been. She couldn’t bring herself to care.

Voices floated to her room, the familiar cadence of Rook’s Ferelden accent signalling her return. She couldn’t make out the words through her thick glass windows, but when they entered the kitchen, she could hear them through the cracked wood of her door.

“And this is the kitchen, where my favourite part of the day happens; dinner!” Rook exclaimed with what Lady assumed was an enthusiastic grin.

“A woman after my own heart.” The man’s words were jesting and said with the cheekiness of a young man, but his voice held the tired ache of decades of hardship. “What I wouldn’t give for some of those special Orlesian cheeses.”

No, it couldn’t be. By the Maker, it couldn’t be him.

A hot, salty wetness spilled unbidden down her hollow cheeks, soaking her bandages. That voice, warm and enticing like a soft bed after weeks of sleeping in a damp tent, pulled at her heartstrings like an out-of-tune fiddle. How she wanted to throw open the door and demand he speak again, drown her in his sweet words and gentle affection.

“Some Fereldan you are,” Rook snorted, and he chuckled. “You should meet our other Fereldan with a penchant for unpatriotic cheeses. At first, I thought we had a mouse problem until I caught her in the act.”

Embarrassing as it had been to be caught by Rook in the middle of the night with a handful of cheese - it was easy to eat with her ruined mouth, and the taste reminded Lady of someone she missed more than her own name - it did not stop her shoulders from shaking as she held back gasping sobs. She was too enraptured by the man’s voice to care about anything else.

Though she couldn’t fully grasp why.

Footsteps echoed up the stairs, and she scrambled back from the door, eyes darting around for an escape. She couldn’t let him see her, not like this, not when he wouldn’t recognize her beneath sagging skin.

Opening the window, she jumped to the ground, thankful that she was only on the second floor - though her old, creaky knees protested as they absorbed the impact.

“Lady?” She heard Rook call as her door creaked open. “You in here?”

Lady was around the corner before Rook could notice the open window. Slinking along the opposite side of the courtyard, she escaped into the main building, her hood drawn, avoiding eye contact with Neve as she passed by. Assan squawked, but she couldn’t bring herself to look at him either.

She was in the Crossroads before she realized where she was headed, panic guiding her feet to flee.

How was he here? He couldn’t be here. She didn’t know why, but she knew it was true. He’d left, she’d sent him to his death and still, he walked this earth. Her fuzzy, hole-ridden mind couldn’t comprehend, couldn’t piece together the edges of her heart’s jagged puzzle.

The man she loved, her best friend, her confidant, the one she trusted more than any other. She couldn’t remember his name or what he looked like or anything they had shared but by the Andraste’s sword did the sound of his voice bring back all the longing and grief she had to suffer through when she’d received the letter of his passing. She’d been unable to get out of bed for weeks.

She wished she hadn’t remembered, let it stay buried and forgotten with everything else she’d lost. A stubborn flicker of hope in her chest disagreed. He’d loved her once, why couldn’t he do it again?

Because I’m a monstrosity, a deformed creature masquerading as the woman he loved.

She had to leave, put distance between them before he realized who she was - who she had been to him - if he could recognize her at all. She didn’t care where the Caretaker took her, as long as it was far away from him.

But her legs refused to budge, her yearning for him rooting her to the spot.

“There you are!” Rook’s call jolted her from her thoughts, but she kept her back to them. “We have a new addition I’d like you to meet.”

Praying to the Calling to end her right then and there did nothing. Typical.

“Lady?” Rook placed a hand on her shoulder, concern written across her face as she ducked down to peer beneath Lady’s hood. “Did you hear me?”

She nodded once, a barely perceptible movement, her body tense as she sensed his presence behind her.

“I’m sure we can do introductions another time when you’re not, ah, busy,” he said hesitantly, and she could hear his feet shift side to side in the short grass. “No urgent need, I’m nothing special.”

If she could still speak, she would have snapped at him. Nothing special? How dare he say such a thing when he was her everything. His death had destroyed her, weakened her until the Calling took hold, and at first, she’d welcomed it. To live without him had been torture.

She wanted the memories to stop. It was too painful.

“Rook!” Harding yelled from the entrance to the Crossroads. “Davrin and Lucanis are bickering again and I can’t get them to quit it!”

With a heavy sigh, Rook straightened. “One minute!” she yelled back, wiping a hand down her face. At a regular volume, she said, “You two hold on, I’ll be right back.”

Wasting no time, Rook strode off, grumbling under her breath about the childishness of grown men.

Silence filled her empty space, leaving the two of them to wither in it.

“So,” he drawled, dragging out the vowel and she thought she might vomit at how familiar it sounded, “nice place you have here. Much better than my corner of the Fade, a lot less giant spider demons lurking around. If you haven’t encountered them I’d highly recommend you avoid it. Way too many large, hairy legs if you ask me. Although they’re surprisingly nutritious if you’re desperate enough.”

He was…in the Fade. All this time and he was just in the Fade. She pressed the back of her hand to her bandaged lips, holding back the sobs and roiling of her gut that choked her.

“Sorry, I’ve been told my rambling puts people off, just seems so strange to actually talk to real people again and not my shadow puppets. Though they did tell some rather lively stories.” He chuckled awkwardly. “I’ve forgotten how to hold my tongue, if I ever learned in the first place. Please forgive me.”

Turning to the side, she kept her gaze firmly on the ground and away from him, but she nodded. She’d always enjoyed his ramblings, adorable as they were.

He breathed a sigh of relief. “Wonderful! The last thing I want is to irritate one of Rook’s companions when she’s so graciously let me stay while I…figure everything out.”

She tilted her head to the side, what did that mean?

He read her like a book and her gut clenched - he understood her without words and the barest of gestures. “You know how it is, you get trapped in the Fade for somewhere around a decade and lose contact with everyone you’ve ever cared about, only to be found and roped into stopping another Blight. A superpowered one this time, so that’s…different.” He was quiet for a beat. “But I really need to find…well, someone very important to me. I can’t imagine what she’s been through, and I…just hope she’s still around. Maker knows it’s taken me much too long to get back to her.”

Too long and now she was a husk, an entirely different creature. He would not find what he was looking for.

“I should apologize again, I’m unloading my tale of woe onto a complete stranger.” She could perfectly picture him rubbing the back of his neck, a pink tinge to his cheeks. She used to press her lips against his heated skin, giggling as he wrapped his arms around her waist and held her close.

She waved him off, vision blurry as she held her breath against her cries of despair. Her aching bones were nothing compared to the searing flame of need that burned through her, reaching for something she couldn’t have.

So consumed by her grief, she didn’t notice his sharp inhale or his step closer.

“Where did you get that?” he demanded breathlessly, and she frowned at his boots that had moved into the corner of her sight. She needed him to step back, but couldn’t bring herself to put distance between them.

“That ring,” he prompted, “where did you get it?”

He pointed to her left hand and she had to resist the urge to capture his gloved hand in hers and never let go. Her heart raced, pounding against her ribcage, aching with longing for him. She could almost feel his gloved hand resting over her heart, as if it belonged there.

In her haste to escape her room, she’d forgotten her gloves. Lifting her arm, she stared at her hand, at the ring that caused the skin beneath it to slough off. She had refused to remove it. At the time, she couldn’t explain why she held onto the simple gold band so tightly - she would rather have taken a sword to the gut than gotten rid of it. It had become a part of her, and she had so few pretty parts left. Yet it too had been broken at some point in her long-forgotten past, judging by the seam and poorly done metalwork to seal it.

The ring, she realized as he gestured towards her hand again, it rested on her ring finger.

Oh.

Snatching her hand close to her chest, she took a step back and felt like she’d torn her bones from her body. Maker’s breath, she longed for him, but he was no longer hers to have.

“Wait.” He reached for her, attempting to grab her wrist. She sidestepped him and he stumbled in front of her.

She kept her head ducked, but she gobbled down the sight of his chest - thinner beneath his wrecked and patched Grey Warden’s armour - and his long legs.

Silence flickered between them for several beats before he found his voice - she would never again find hers. “I know that ring. I mended that break.”

If she ran now, would he follow? Grab her wrist as she fled and pull her back to the safety of his embrace. It didn’t matter how long it had been, to her, it felt like lifetimes that she’d been without him. How was the moon supposed to exist without her sun? Dulled and hidden. Alone and wandering the vast expanse of a starless sky, darkened without his light.

He pitched his voice lower and she shivered. “Did you get it from someone or is it…is it yours?”

Did she dare believe the faint hint of hope she detected in his tone? With shaking hands, she pointed to herself. It was hers, she would never part with it, not in life or death or wherever she was between them. Surely he knew this.

His body tensed. Had she made him angry? Disgusted, perhaps, that a walking corpse wore his wife’s ring. She was his wife and he was her husband. She loved him and it had broken her. Needlework had never been a skill he possessed, but if he stitched her back together, she didn’t care if she came out looking mishappen.

He took a deliberate step forward. She didn’t back away. His boots halted inches from hers, the warmth emanating off of him making her want to curl up in his arms as she’d done in front of her fireplace. He had been what she was missing from her bed.

“Please, look at me.” A desperate plea from a man who hadn’t seen his wife in…a decade? How long had it been? She couldn’t recall. He would never see her again, she was not that woman, she was Lady now. The echoes of him calling her ‘my lady’ reverberated in her skull. She would always be his, but would he be hers?

His hand, callused and yet tender, cupped her sharp chin, gently insisting. The first time he’d touched her in years and her knees shook like a baby deer trying to walk for the first time. She was powerless to resist, always had been when it came to him.

Their eyes met, and she wondered how her lungs had kept her breathing without him.

Time had aged him, though not as it had her. Streaks of grey started at his temples and entwined with his sandy blond hair that fell to his shoulders - haphazardly cut at unequal lengths like he’d taken a dull blade to it. The lines on his face had deepened, his bronzed skin paled from lack of sun. But his eyes, those beautiful, loving eyes - wide with shock and disbelief - remained the same.

Alistair.

His name seeped through the cracks of her broken mind and she cursed herself for having forgotten - an impossible thing. Had she been able to speak, she would have sobbed his name until her lips no longer knew how to form any other word.

The fog over her memory cleared, and with each blink, she saw him as he had been. When they first met, boyish and kind, when they’d married, teary even as she giggled, and when they’d parted for that last time, a promise on his lips that he hadn’t kept. ‘I’ll see you soon, my love.’

But it was him, he‘d returned to her. Longer than expected, her body twisted beyond recognition, but he’d come back.

He blinked back the dampness that had gathered in his tired eyes, the bags beneath purpled, new scars littering his skin.

“Kal,” he breathed her name, his hand releasing her chin to cup her cheek. Not Lady, but Kal, Kallian Tabris, Hero of Ferelden, Warden-Commander, daughter, friend, wife. “Maker’s breath, but I missed you.”

Not what happened to you, what have you become, is that really you? I missed you. Simple and honest and the destruction of her last restraints.

Her arms were around his shoulders before she could stop her body from all but flinging herself at him. He caught her like a leaf floating on a slow breeze, her body too light, muscle mass and fat eaten away by the Blight, leaving her a grotesque imitation of skin and bones. Yet he clung to her like she was the only thing keeping him buoyant in a stormy sea, like she was the air in his lungs and the heart beating rapidly in his chest.

She trembled as his strong arms encircled her waist, careful not to break her but unable to hold himself back from crushing her against him - both gentle and possessive. Her feet left the ground as he lifted her, his hand coming up to cradle the back of her skull through her hood. Her tears spilled down her cheeks, dampening the skin on his neck as she sobbed uncontrollably, muffled by the tight bindings keeping her jaw shut.

After years of emptiness, of existing as little more than a shell, feeling anything at all was almost too much to bear. Yet she clung to Alistair desperately, afraid that if she loosened her grip for even a moment, he would fade away - a hallucination of her Blight-addled brain.

How could this be real? She had mourned him, grieved for him until her soul had withered. The Calling had eaten away at her mind, leaving only fragments of memories behind. But now, with his arms around her, his familiar scent enveloping her, those pieces were slowly knitting back together.

She wanted to speak, to tell him how much she loved him, how she had never stopped loving him even when she could no longer remember his name. But her ruined jaw and decayed vocal cords betrayed her, leaving her mute. All she could do was hold him tighter, hoping to convey what her voice could not.

His knees buckled and they collapsed to the ground, the impact sending a sharp jolt through her shins as they hit the moss-covered stone. Ignoring the pain, she wrapped her legs around his waist, pulling him closer as he curled himself protectively around her. Shaking, he mumbled her name over and over again into her hood.

He held her together, better than her bandages ever could, and she wept until she couldn’t anymore. As her tears dried, sticking her bandages to her cheeks, she could not stop her trembling. What happened next? So much had changed since she’d last seen him, could he truly still love her even when she was closer to darkspawn than elvhen?

He had to practically pry her off of him, chuckling as he pulled back just far enough to meet her glare. The crow's feet around his eyes deepened as he gave her a watery smile that wiped the scowl off her face. Gods, he was gorgeous, the years may have changed him but they hadn’t been able to steal the lopsided tilt to his grin that set her heart aflame.

“Is it truly such a crime to catch a glimpse of my beloved wife?” His hand returned to her cheek, his thumb brushing over her sharp cheekbone, the bandage wet with her tears. His wife, she was still his wife, and he was the sun to her moon and finally, he shone his light back on her after years of nothing but darkness.

When she didn’t answer, only stared at him with open yearning, he rested his forehead against hers, breathing her in.

“I feared that you…” His throat bobbed around a thick swallow. “When I was trapped in the Fade, all I thought of was you, how you must have reacted when you learned of my fate. I had to get back to you, and I couldn’t allow myself to think about the possibility that you wouldn’t be there when I returned. I was an idiot to ever consider that as a possibility. You are so much stronger than I.”

Even when she couldn’t remember him, she had waited for him. She’d clung on to life, refused to let go until it gave him back to her. Alistair, her love. He’d come back.

I love you, I need you, never leave me again.

Slipping his hand back around her neck, her hood slipped, revealing her bandaged head. Thin, coarse wisps of white hair escaped through the gaps. His touch was reverent as he trailed his fingers down the long column of her neck, pulling fire in its wake - heat suffused into her chilled body.

“Kal,” her name a soft sigh on his lips, “I’m so sorry I made you wait for me. Will you…ever be able to forgive me?”

Forgive him? She pulled back, letting her hands raise from his shoulders to trace his jawline, her thumb pressing the wrinkle between his brows to soften. Cupping his cheeks in her discoloured palms, she lifted his gaze to hers. Red-rimmed and watery, he took in everything she couldn’t say. There was nothing to forgive. She loved him and would love him for eternity.

“What did I ever do to deserve you?” he asked with a tremulous chuckle.

Lowering her hand to rest over his heart, she gave him her answer. He was Alistair, the boy with the youthful grin who had captured her love as easily as he caught her gaze, his kind heart and raucous laughter, his teasing words laced with affection. He hadn’t needed to do anything, she would have loved him regardless.

Unconsciously, his eyes dropped to her hidden lips, wanting to kiss her, and by the Maker did she wish he could. But her lips had shrivelled long ago, he’d only be kissing teeth. Glancing back up at her, she saw the unasked question lingering in the furrow of his brows. Why was she like this? He didn’t voice it, afraid that she may see it as an expression of disgust or rejection.

Reluctantly, she released his cheek with one hand, tapped her temple, then her ear, and wiggled her fingers behind her head.

His lips flattened into a thin line, understanding what he had already suspected. “The Calling.”

She nodded, the relentless drumbeat ever-present. Drawing a question mark in the air and pointing at him, she asked a question of her own.

“No,” he said and relief flooded her with the force of an avalanche. “I don’t hear it, not yet.” Pausing, he gathered his thoughts. “Are the bandages what’s stopping you from speaking?”

His finger brushed over her chin and she shook her head. Tapping her where her jaw met her upper facial bone, indicating its weakness, she watched him closely - and all he showed was his tender love. She’d been so scared that he’d hate her, be disgusted by her rotting form, but she had been a fool. She should have known better than to doubt his devotion.

“Does it hurt?”

She shrugged in lieu of admitting how deeply her joints ached, how her blood burned like molten lava in her veins. He narrowed his eyes a fraction, seeing right through her, but did not call her on it.

“I take it you were unsuccessful in finding a cure?”

She blinked once, twice. A cure…she’d been looking for one, but somewhere along the way she’d lost her purpose, lost herself. Lost him.

Alistair’s mouth pulled into a frown. “When we parted you were chasing a lead on a cure for the Wardens. Do you not…remember?”

Her silence was answered enough.

“Kal,” he said like a sacred promise. “Why do they call you Lady?”

Unable to stand his gentle scrutiny, she tucked her face into the crook of his neck, allowing his scent of sweat and musk to wash over her. Andraste’s tits did she ever miss that smell, it soothed a feral part of her that had been thrashing and gnawing at its cage since she’d lost him.

And all she’d done since finding him was let him worry over her, unable to speak the questions she wanted to ask. When did you last eat? Are you hurt? That clicking in your knee, has it gotten worse?

“Is my interrogation too much for even the great Hero of Ferelden to withstand?” His breath tickled her scalp, his lips ghosting over the shell of her ear, half exposed beneath her bandages.

She carded her fingers through his hair, making him shiver, and giving him a firm but teasing tug.

He chuckled. “Resorting to hair pulling are you? Hardly fair when you don’t have any.”

She did it again for good measure, pulling another chuckle from his lips.

“Pardon me for inquiring into your welfare,” he drawled, pressing a soft kiss to the sensitive space right below her ear. “But I would like to know all that I missed, when you are ready.”

She nodded against his neck, she could give him that, at least. Preferably when she had her pad of paper and quill to aid in her explanation.

“Uh,” Rook’s voice jolted her out of their little bubble of reunion, having returned from corralling her companions. “I think I’m missing some key information here.”

Underneath the bandages, Kal’s cheeks heated as her tainted blood rushed to the surface. From Alistair’s awkward cough, he was similarly affected. Like two teenagers could in an illicit act, neither knew what to say or do.

She nuzzled her face against his neck, burying deeper as silent laughter shook her frame. Ridiculous. Out of all the insane situations she’d been through, this had to be somewhere at the top of the list.

Alistair cleared his throat, his arms wrapped protectively around her. "Ah, yes. Well, you see…" He trailed off, unsure how to explain.

Reluctantly, she pulled back from the safety of Alistair's embrace, though she kept her hands on his shoulders, unwilling to break contact completely. She turned to face Rook, who was staring at them with wide eyes and a bemused if not slightly befuddled grin.

"Lady?" Rook asked hesitantly, placing a fist on her cocked hip. "Do you know each other?"

Kal nodded emphatically, gesturing between herself and Alistair.

"We're, um, married actually," Alistair supplied with a hint of pride, despite the awkwardness of the situation. His hand found Kal's, intertwining their fingers.

Rook's eyebrows shot up. "Married? How? When?”

Kal tapped Alistair's chest, silently urging him to explain. He squeezed her hand gently before speaking.

"It's a bit of a long story," he began. “Perhaps it would be best suited to somewhere more comfortable? Preferably after a nap, if you don’t mind. Ten years traversing the Fade and fighting demons beyond imagination is more exhausting than you’d think.”

Rook's eyes darted between them, her forehead pinched as she processed this new information. "Right, of course. We can discuss this over dinner. I'm sure everyone will be eager to hear your story. I have a feeling Davrin most of all." She paused, a mischievous glint in her eye. "Though I suspect Lady might prefer to keep you to herself for a while."

Kal ducked her head, grateful that her bandages hid most of her blush. Alistair chuckled softly, his thumb tracing circles on the back of her hand.

"If you'll excuse us," he said, rising to his feet and gently pulling Kal up with him. "I believe my wife and I have some catching up to do."

A decade of loneliness and despair melted away, replaced by a cautious hope she scarcely dared to nurture. The man she loved had returned to her, against all odds and reason. He'd seen her broken form, touched her decaying skin, and still looked at her with nothing but adoration in his eyes. Kal's heart swelled with a bittersweet joy. She was no longer the woman he'd married, her body ravaged by the Blight and her mind splintered. Yet here he was, whole and alive and hers once more. Whatever trials lay ahead, whatever horrors the Blight had in store, she would face them with renewed strength. For Alistair had come back to her, and in doing so, had brought back a piece of herself she thought lost forever.

A/N: I maintain my stance that Alistair would love you if you were a worm.

I decided not to go the Fade spirit guide route that I believe was tossed around for the character left in the Fade. I believe his time would change him, but given that I wanted it to be a one-shot and not a multi-chapter I wouldn't have time to fully explore that in the way that I wanted to. But the angst potential for both of them not recognizing each other...maybe one day I will :)

If you want to read my other Alistair fic, you can find it on my page, though it is currently undergoing revisions. Alternatively, I am writing a CullenxLavellan fic as well that I'd love to see you at!

I hope you enjoyed the culmination of my Alistair brainrot! I would love to hear your thoughts in the comments :)

#hurt/comfort #angst with a happy ending #reunion #alistair left in the fade #warden alistair #sweet #angst with feels #the calling #alistair x warden #alistair x tabris #rook #the veilguard #concept art #lace harding #aliwarden

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