(It’s posted on Ao3, but I’m a little bit of an asshole author. I’m not entirely an asshole, though. This is Drunk!Alistair, if he met Samson at Kirkwall, in one of the darkest timelines. This is not a happy story. You have been warned.)
“Alizarin […] (also known as Mordant Red 11 and Turkey Red) is an organic compound [ …] that has been used throughout history as a prominent red dye, principally for dyeing textile fabrics. Historically it was derived from the roots of plants of the madder genus. […] Alizarin's abilities as a biological stain were first noted in 1567, when it was observed that when fed to animals, it stained their teeth and bones red.” – Alizarin, Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alizarin
Alizarin [uh-liz-er-in]:
noun, Chemistry.
a solid appearing reddish-orange as crystals and brownish-yellow as powder, C 14 H 8 O 4, one of the earliest known dyes, formerly obtained in its natural state from madder and now derived from anthraquinone: used chiefly in the synthesis of other dyes. http://www.dictionary.com/browse/alizarin
Everything is red.
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Alistair is six. He’s not allowed to play with the children in Redcliffe, and there’s only two other servant children at the castle. Isolde doesn’t seem to like children, he thinks. Garrick the cook’s boy, who is nine, says it’s Alistair. The cook pretends she doesn’t see Alistair take a piece of cheese and says Isolde is young and wants a baby. Alistair stays mostly in the stable, helping Old Cob with the horses, but the Arl’s wife sees him every time she wants to ride and she squints.
Arl Eamon comes to the stable a lot. He’s always riding somewhere, and Isolde goes with him if he’s visiting the nearby farms. He takes the time to talk to Alistair and smiles a lot. Isolde squints a lot when the Arl isn’t looking, and it makes Alistair squirm.
When Cob’s bitch whelps her puppies, the Arl watches with him and tries to answer his questions about how dogs get pregnant with a red face and stammered words. Finally he just ruffles Alistair’s hair and says he’ll tell him again when he’s older.
Isolde squints a lot more after that, and her mouth starts looking pinchy. She snaps at Cob to get rid of the puppies the day after she catches Alistair, his clothes thick in Redcliffe clay, shrieking and rolling around with them in the muddy castle courtyard when the Arl’s brother Teagan visits. Alistair spends the night huddled up with the puppies in an empty stall, his eyes and ears stinging, and wishes they didn’t have to go.
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Alistair is ten. He’s a little jumpy, because he keeps finding people whispering and they stop and stare when they see him. He’s known them all his life but they look at him, sometimes, like a stranger. Arlessa Isolde wishes he was a stranger, he knows. She ignores him around the Arl, but her mouth turns pinchy and her voice sharp when her husband is gone. She rubs her rounded belly a lot and hums, her eyes losing focus as she daydreams.
Alistair knows just enough that everyone thinks the Arl is his father. Keenly he wishes that was true, but keeps that to himself. He makes up stories about his father, instead. Some people laugh, but a few pity. But it doesn’t matter.
It doesn’t matter until the day two Templars and a Revered Mother from Bournshire come. Arl Eamon says Alistair will live at the Chantry now, and they’ll teach him to read the Chant of Light and protect mages. He doesn’t want to go. He feels like he’s being punished. He stares at the Chantry robes and knows his face is just as red as they are. He’s so upset he yanks off his mother’s amulet – the one thing the Arl has given him that means anything – and throws it at the wall, where it shatters. Arl Eamon looks a little sad, but the Arlessa comes to stand beside him, and he’s saying farewell.
Alistair thinks if Eamon is his father, then he’s just like the Maker. He turns his back on Redcliffe and vows not to let the Arlessa see him cry.
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Alistair is 15. He’s been at the Bournshire monastery for five miserable years now. The grey stone walls and the quiet contemplation around him make him feel like he’s suffocating. Spending time helping dye cloth for robes, when he can’t escape outside, is a small relief of color in his world. The reds and purples stain his arms for a while and make some of his jokes even better.
When Alistair can’t stand the quiet, the intonations of the Chant, the endless lectures on his duty, he screams. The first time he does it, he’s surprised when the Revered Mother comes running. To cover his embarrassment he laughs and says he was just testing to see how quickly the others would respond. There could have been real danger, you know. She’s not impressed with his foresight.
When Alistair does it several more times over the years, still laughing outwardly, it’s to be sure that someone might care. He’s seen less and less of Arl Eamon, and it just makes him even angrier that it’s so easy to chase the Arl away. He hates his lessons, he’s terrible at them. He hates being here. He’s lonely. Other Templars and clerics stare at him worse than the Arlessa’s servants. Redcliffe isn’t home anymore but he’d go back if the Arl would let him.
The last time the Arl visits Bournshire, he looks much older than Alistair remembers. He’s heavy with despair and it worries Alistair enough he’s less prickly and sullen. It only lasts until Eamon gives him two terrible pieces of news: King Maric is Alistair’s father, and the King is lost at sea. Everyone thinks the King may be dead.
Alistair’s grief over the loss of his real father merges with the now certain knowledge that Eamon never was. He’s angry this has been kept from him. He lashes out and says he never wants to see Eamon again. He doesn’t. Arl Eamon stops coming and Alistair begins Templar training in earnest. Only the meditation meant for honing mental discipline and mana draining abilities keeps him from screaming again in earnest.
The meditation is especially useful three years later at Alistair’s first and last Harrowing when the mage rises up, the red glow of Rage inside, and he kills her. He feels a stain on his arms that will outlast the mordant and madder.
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Alistair is 19. He’s a Templar initiate on the cusp of taking his vows. He’s had a sip of lyrium before, as a demonstration of what can be done with Templar abilities, but he’s not had a proper dose yet and it scares him. He’s seen old Templars, their minds addled at the end of their days. If he takes the lyrium – and it’s tempting, just from the trickle of power he tasted, but not enough to really want it – then there is no escaping. He will be a Templar until he’s used up and drooling into his porridge.
Curiously, Alistair has been asked to come with the other Templars and initiates to Redcliffe. He hears something about a tourney and wonders why the Arl is holding one now. But it’s not the Arl, it’s the Chantry and it’s for the Grey Wardens who are looking for recruits. Suddenly he would very much like to compete, but Knight-Commander Glavin pulls him aside and sets him to caring for the tourney weapons. Glavin has made it clear to Alistair over the last few years that he doesn’t care for Alistair’s glibness nor for his bastardy, and he reinforces it now by threatening pot scrubbing if Alistair mouths off.
Alistair would do anything to get out of Bournshire. He would even hug the Arlessa. So he does as he’s told, frantically hoping something will happen to set him free of the trap he can see closing around him.
Duncan happens.
One moment Alistair is enjoying a temporary reprieve, his eyes closed so the sunlight is red-orange through his lids, and the next he’s being invited to compete. The Grey Warden wants to see him fight, though there are three obvious champions. Alistair is so thoroughly put off his guard he feels better than he has in years, and is determined to spread his cheer to every opponent. Not all of them appreciate it, but he doesn’t care. He’s making the most of this for as long as he can.
His joy is unmatched when Duncan takes him instead of the tourney champion. Even the shock of being selected and the glee of the lemon-sour Grand Cleric being forced to let him go don’t compare. Grey Wardens are heroes. He’s immensely honored this quiet, stern, but kind Rivaini man wanted him of all the better-qualified candidates.
Him. Someone wanted him.
Alistair trades Chantry red to earn Warden blue, gladly donning rusty but serviceable splintmail, and vows to do everything he can for Duncan. He saved Alistair from a fate worse than death.
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Nothing good comes without a price.
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Alistair is 20. He is traveling with Duncan, training and learning about the Grey Wardens, and does so for nearly seven months. He feels gloriously alive despite the sickening swoon of the Joining ritual about a month in. None of the Wardens give him weighty, disappointed looks. There’s no purse-faced staring. He is completely, embarrassingly himself and awash in the wonder of it.
It is spring in Ostagar, and this close to the fetid Korcari Wilds it feels more like winter. With King Cailan – Alistair tries desperately not to think of him as my brother – taking the news of an impending Blight seriously, Duncan and the Ferelden Grey Wardens amass with the rest of the armies under his banner. Alistair remains at Ostagar with them while Duncan searches for as many additional recruits as he possibly can. The arrival of Ser Jory is not a surprise, coming from a tourney in Highever, but Daveth the Denerim cutpurse is.
The biggest surprise comes in the smallest package: Duncan’s last recruit is a woman. Natia Brosca is a dwarf with a brand on her smiling, dimpled cheek and a big shield strapped to her back. Alistair has never seen someone like her before. She sets him at ease and jokes with him. She walks like she knows what she wants and she’s about to go get it. He and the other recruits follow her into the Korcari Wilds for blood and for treaties, and Alistair finds himself agape when Natia also finds the witches and a cure for a Blight-sickened mabari. Nothing seems to faze her.
Daveth does not survive his Joining. Ser Jory’s Redcliffe shield is paper thin and his cowardice runs along the edges of Duncan’s blade buried in his gut. Only apple-cheeked Natia survives, big blue eyes rolling back in her head as she collapses in the spatters of others’ failure. She wipes it off without a flinch when she regains consciousness.
The battle joins. Then comes the terrible swarming at the Tower of Ishal, flight after flight of ragged and ruined faces leering madly as darkspawn die under his sword. Natia barrels into the ogre in the beacon room. She makes an astounding leap to deliver its killing blow. She lights the beacon fire and it flares, a bright signal of hope: come, come into the steady pour of rain and crimson and find the kind of glory that awaits the righteous.
But Loghain turns his back. Alistair watches in horror as Duncan, his own beacon, is swallowed in the general’s traitorous wake. The darkness spreads and Alistair’s consciousness shatters.
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Alistair is heartbroken. While he is grateful that Flemeth somehow saved him and Natia, a part of him feels as if it died with Duncan. Everything he could have been and wanted to be had fallen under the horde, and the blame for that lies entirely with Loghain. How can two raw Wardens possibly make any of it right? Even with the Grey Warden treaties he isn’t sure what to do. All of it is too overwhelming. Natia has always seemed to know what to do, so he puts it all in her hands. His own hands have failed.
Alistair does not like the speculative and scornful looks Morrigan sends his way. Her tattered red blouse leaves nothing to the imagination, and it makes his face turn the same color. He has never been attracted to someone before on a purely sexual level, and he certainly doesn’t want this witch to be his first. He would rather it be someone like Natia, but that thought too isn’t welcome. There are much more important things to do, and all he can offer is his sword arm. He has nothing else.
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Alistair is at Lothering. While Natia is recruiting crazy red-haired Chantry sisters and Qunari murderers to their cause, she is also gathering supplies. She helps the people of Lothering when she doesn’t need to, and he can’t help but smile. He knows she’s brutally practical in a way he’s never encountered before, but he can see she also has a big heart underneath. The seeming contradictions are like the rose he finds blooming on an ugly, dead, thorny bush. He takes the rose on impulse, and licks away the bloody scratch he gets for his trouble.
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Alistair is lost. Piece by piece Natia puts him back together. She does the impossible. She breaks the undead siege at Redcliffe. She wades with surety through the visceral halls of Kinloch Hold. She braves the strange realms of the Fade and turns away from blood magic – for him, to save the child Arlessa Isolde wanted so desperately with Eamon. (Duncan helped Alistair to forgive them both, helped him see the good Eamon did, and Alistair mourns his mentor’s loss afresh.)
Wynne, the red-robed mage old enough to be his mother (and on some level wishes could have been, she is kind), is all gentle smiles as she watches him begin fumbling around Natia. She is a relentless flirt and he blushes so often he thinks even his clothes will be dyed in his embarrassment.
Natia doesn’t care he’s Maric’s bastard. In Orzammar he would have been raised with Maric’s family, but on the surface it brought him nothing. She says he may as well have been a duster. Alistair does not understand what that means, but he does understand what it means when Natia finds and gives him his mother’s repaired locket. The last piece falls into place and he falls in love.
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Alistair does not tell Natia that the Antivan Crow actually succeeded in killing him. He just quietly falls to pieces when he gives her the rose from Lothering, and she uncomfortably and gently tells him she doesn’t think of him that way. Alistair has seen her flirting with Zevran and assumed it was like her flirting with Leliana - who he finds out later is also heartbroken, and he doesn’t have it in himself to console the bard because he’s now doubly shattered. Natia is like the assassin, leaving a trail of hearts in her wake. Unlike the dead bodies and other horrors she shrugs off, however, she seems to care about that.
It is his only consolation the night Natia goes to Zevran’s tent and the sounds of their desire bloom and silken the air. A shard of jealousy pierces him, an ugly seed of doubt and resentment that he cannot banish.
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Alistair is almost 21 by the time their motley crew reach Orzammar, and so many things about Natia begin to make a lot of uncomfortable sense. Before she became a Warden, she was literally nothing to these people. Nothing she had said ever mattered, only what she could do for the Carta – she had been invisible and detested otherwise. Only her new status gives her some amount of recognition or respect, and he can see her mounting frustration and disappointment. He doesn’t like her support of Bhelen at all, but her sister’s own noblehunter status and the plight of the casteless brings the whole situation into shocking clarity for him: this monster will actually make things better for them and for Orzammar. It makes him a little sick, but he swallows it down.
Just one more thing he has to accept for the good of all.
It comes back up later, after the broodmother, after Branka, when he makes the mistake of drinking Oghren’s swill. The red-haired berserker is unimpressed and keeps drinking the homebrewed poison. The sight of his own sickness just reminds him of the Deep Roads, of the people broken on the Anvil of the Void, and his nightmares incorporate Hespith’s dark poetry.
Second day, they beat us and eat some for meat…
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Alistair believes he has made his peace with Natia and Zevran right until she kills Zevran’s old partner and the assassin gives her an earring. He is not dense, he knows what this means. She is long past his reach. There is no closeness when she finds and gives him Duncan’s shield. The ruins of Ostagar and Cailan on a funeral pyre give him no peace. Only a closure he is now not certain he wants.
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Alistair is betrayed. He is furious. He had believed Natia when she said his parentage did not matter, and then she listens to Arl Eamon put him forward as king. She listens to Anora and her plea for support in the Landsmeet, and she returns to him with the idea that Alistair marry the traitor’s daughter, Cailan’s wife. The feeling of being a pawn, of being used and given like a castoff to his brother’s widow, fills him with a profound resentment. Still he tries because Natia has tried and cares and shouldn’t that be enough? He could swallow this too, couldn’t he?
But Anora lets them get caught breaking her free of Rendon Howe. Natia listens to Riordan talk of Loghain becoming a Warden and he cannot. He can’t stomach this anymore. His vision goes red and all the pent-up rage comes spilling out. Duncan died because of Loghain. The one person who let Alistair be who he always wanted without judgment cannot be allowed to have the honor so graciously bestowed on him.
Natia pleads, talks of second chances, tries to be soothing and practical and all he can see is Branka’s mad ambition and not the breathtaking snub-nosed woman who once captured his heart. He is broken, and he is not grateful to Natia when she uses her boon to save his life.
Alistair is 21, and he takes the first ship out of Denerim, somewhere to the Free Marches, and drowns himself in a rotgut alcohol that lets him forget even his own name.
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He disembarks in Ostwick. He is blinking in the sunlight after weeks of drink and darkness in a ship’s hold, and the Blight is over. A week later in a dockside tavern he hears Loghain sacrificed himself to the Archdemon. His mouth floods with bitterness and bile. It is not redemption. It’s another accolade for a man who took everything that mattered to him.
He gets blindingly drunk again, and the next day signs up with the Red Iron mercenary company under an alias.
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Alistair is several years older and the bitterness lingers on his tongue like the cheap wine at the Hanged Man. He is habitually drunk and no longer fit for fighting, although the Red Iron has been wiped out so that, too, does not matter anymore. He is frequently and unpleasantly reminded of his life before even in the dragon-daubed alleys of Kirkwall – the stabs of sensation when he feels another Warden near, the whispers of failed conspiracies against the Ferelden Warden-Commander. Even the familiar and reviled accents of Ferelden refugees who can’t afford to go home assault his ears.
The only peace is in a bottle, and this bright-eyed harpy with a blood smear on her nose won’t let him have it.
Teagan shows up and tries to take him home. But Alistair has no home. Home is where you are loved, and the only source of that love is now bones under a Highever monument.
Alistair shoves them all away and leaves the Hanged Man. He is used up. Useless. This cold certainty has solidified all his hurts into an ever-present lump in his stomach. He cradles it when he empties his guts in the harbor.
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Alistair doesn’t remember when he meets Samson, but he does know that for the first time in years he has met someone who understands him. Samson made the mistake of standing up for what was right and was discarded into the streets to scramble for the lyrium the Chantry made him take. Alistair has only escaped Samson’s fate because of Duncan, and it’s not right.
They have been discarded. They are no longer useful.
Alistair manages to get some lyrium for his red-eyed friend, and after he is drunk again he doesn’t think twice when Samson gratefully offers him a little. Why not? He can’t escape his fate, after all.
The bliss hits him. Blinding. Powerful. He feels a little less lost, but even less like himself. Both suit him just fine.
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Alistair meets Samson’s new friend, Larius. Larius promises all the lyrium Samson could want, which means some for Alistair as well. Larius is a Warden and he feels wrong. Alistair can tell by the mottling of his features that Larius should have gone to his Calling but it’s beyond that. There is a power in that voice that calls to him and he finds himself a follower once more.
The man Alistair once was might have cared, but he does not. Larius offers what he needs, offers a purpose too strong to deny. His master’s voice is a song that plants a red seed in the lump in his belly.
It finds fertile soil and blooms into delicate shards that travel well-worn paths of corruption and despair.
The music threads its way into his head and leads him to the Tellari swamps, down the winding catacombs into the ground. The Conductor whispers in his ear of the blood of Calenhad. It is Alistair’s blood. It is his right.
The god-like creatures beyond the barrier can feel him. They have been waiting for him. They will awaken.
The carnelian crystals are enthralling and powerful. Only one of these scaled sentiences need hear them and come to him. It does, binding itself to him and to the will of an ancient being that has learned all their secrets but one.
Alistair stretches out a hand to the only other creature that truly understands him, now, and his smile is red.
Arlessa Isolde hard at work into the night, painstakingly re-assembling the body of a shattered pendant back together, the sigil of Andraste becoming more recognizable with every hour-
