#alistairxm!warden

[saltlordofold]

“don’t talk. save your strength”? :)

[CW Blood, Injury, Violence]

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“Would you do something for me?”

Alistair wouldn’t remember any of this later on, Aedan would come to find. Probably his mind had gone with the first arrow across his chest. Or the second.

Or maybe Aedan himself had only dreamed the whole scene. He’d lost enough blood by then to warrant it, if Morrigan’s account of the puddle they’d found him in wasn’t at all exaggerated. That Alistair still had strength enough to speak by then, body torn and pierced, with only support from the stone wall keeping him up, and Aedan strength enough to hear him over Ishal’s roaring fire and the clamor of the battle below, was enough already to warrant a doubt. Still…

Something in the way those brown pleading eyes had stayed seared into Aedan’s mind for years down the line told him that perhaps this had been more than the blurry vision of a dying man.

“After all of this is done,” Alistair had muttered, “When you make it down. Would you tell Duncan…”

His gaze wandered off as blood ran down his face from a cut on his scalp. He wiped at it, clumsily, as a child would rub sleep from their eyes.

“Would you tell him…”

He swayed on that last word. Aedan meant to lift his arms to catch him, but found he couldn’t raise them high enough - probably on account of the two black arrows of his own, sunk deep between his shoulders. So instead he let Alistair crash into him, awkwardly easing him down best he could, and damn near slumping to the ground with him on the way down.

“Don’t talk,” he groaned, tugging and pushing to sit the much taller man with his back to the wall.

Alistair, pliant, made no move to resist. Already Aedan could hear another wave of Spawn make their way up the tower’s stairs, their steps booming with echo, or maybe just within his faltering mind.

“Save your strength,” he quietly told Alistair, as if there were any point to it, as if they weren’t both already all but dead.

Alistair didn’t show any sign he had heard him, just blinking up with those blurry eyes of his, instead.

“Would you tell him that?” he asked again, with an urgency that made Aedan’s chest cave.

He didn’t have the heart to tell him he hadn’t even told him what to say to Duncan yet. The Spawn were getting closer. What would have been the point?

And why did Aedan care so much in the first place? As soon as the first black arrow had hissed through the air, moments earlier, he should have just relished the chance for the fight to finally stop. He’d tried to, really. Just drop his shield and let a Spawn blade return him to where he was meant to be, far away from this tower and at the Maker’s side, with his family.

But the way Alistair fought… It had held him back. The ferocity of if, maybe. And there Aedan still was, much to his own confusion, gathering the strength to stand back up and, he too, fight for a lost cause.

Alistair wasn’t ready to let him go yet, though. No without his answer. He grabbed weakly at Aedan’s wrist, holding him there. 

“Would you?” he said, one more time.

Feverish. Two big tears rolled down those freckled cheeks.

Unable to raise his hand to soothe them, in his fogged up mind Aedan settled for pressing his lips to that burning forehead instead.

“I will,” he lied, “Now rest.”

[saltlordofold]

9 on kiss meme

9. “War’s End” Kiss 

Alistair was crying. Alistair was laughing. He was doing both those things so hard and at the same time that his chest ached and his nose was running. He stank of sweat, blood and Archdemon guts by the gallon, and his breath probably wasn’t the sweetest thing out there, but did Alistair care? Not one bit. Not that day.

He kissed Aedan and Zevran both, their mouths, their cheeks, their eyes, their foreheads, everywhere and anywhere he could reach. In between sobs of overwhelmed relief, it was kind of a blind affair, but it didn’t matter. They kissed back, in very much the same state. Kneeling on the ground, cry-laughing and kissing, huddled together in the midst of Spawn corpses and a giant slain dragon, they must have looked like fools. That didn’t matter either. Not much did, in that moment, outside of the messy tangle of limbs and weapons the three of them formed.

“We did it,” Alistair repeated, for what was probably the hundredth time, “It’s over.”

“No,” Zevran whispered.

He pulled up with his nose. His eyes were already so golden, Alistair had no idea they could look even more blazing, but through tears, their did. Sun-bright, like his smile. Aedan was praying, now, amulet in hand, face buried in Alistair’s neck. Somewhere at the edge of his mind, Alistair could hear the others approaching, Leliana first in line, shouting victorious glee. That too faded away when Zevran’s hand cupped his cheek, and Alistair leaned into the touch, new tears streaming down his face.

“It begins.”

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Thank you so much for asking 🥰! All i could think of was this piece i made recently i’m so!! emotional!! [List here]