Warden Elissa “Sparrow” Cousland, Chapter 3: Alistair
Elissa has had two experiences with mages at this point in her life: the time that they healed her, and the time the templars told her not to talk with the mages maybe an hour before this moment. She likes mages and is curious about magic – the fear she had driven into her as a child has been questioned since she lost her faith in the Chantry when she lived on the streets of Denerim, and she's distrustful of Templars in general.
So Alistair making fun of mages but treating them like people while also making it clear that he likes them over the Templars or the Chantry? This was a good, if complicated, first impression.
Alistair came across as funny and a little hurt. Both of them were shy trying to figure one another out, but they were also quickly cracking jokes with one another about a wide variety of topics. The two were fast friends, which makes what happened later all the more tragic.
There are some that speculate that Alistair kept using lyrium to use the skills he used in his Templar training, which flies in the face of a simple truth: Alistair was taken from the Templar order before they could give him his first dose of lyrium. Nonetheless, he can use Templar skills as if he were on the dust, leading to speculation that he was obtaining lyrium illegally from somewhere.
The truth is much stranger.
Sparrow and Alistair would eventually reclaim a place called Soldier's Peak, a largely abandoned Warden fortress, and would plan much of her campaign against Logain and the Blight from there. Among the wreckage was found a mage named Avernus, an old Warden who had been researching ways to distill and expand the benefits granted by the Joining.
Carefully (very carefully) collected research secretly obtained from Avernus revealed that the taint was able to take the place of lyrium when it came to powering Alistair's anti-magic capabilities. Further research revealed that Alistair's bloodline had been further altered in the distant past by some unknown process, granting him powers beyond mere humans or even other Wardens.
Alistair and Elissa famously had something of an affair that started and Lothering and ended sometime after events in Redcliffe. Elissa went off to Orzammar and left Alistair to handle things at Soldier's Peak, with the given reason at the time being that they did not want to keep both surviving Wardens in one location; the truth, however, appears to be that the two needed time away from one another.
Alistair spent this time rebuilding a lot of his noble ties. His heroic actions at Redcliffe and Haven percolated through the Redcliffe knights, and the secret of his birthright began to move through the men – the story of a secret prince galvanized the forces of Redcliffe, and the Arl of Recliffe was more than comfortable to take advantage of Alistair's heritage.
The question that neither Elissa or Alistair have ever answered is what caused the break-up between the two. They remained and remain friends, and were still joking with one another as early as their return to Denerim. Alistair was furious when Elissa effectively forced him to become king, and paid her back by giving her Vigil's Keep – but this was the sort of fury that comes up between close friends poking at one another, and it is well documented that both have come close to dying for one another and that both are in frequent friendly contact with the other.
This becomes more complex when taking into account Alistair's relationship with his half-sister, Goldana. To say that their tie is strained would be an understatement. She took money from him during the Blight but wanted nothing to do with him after that, but his ascent to the throne forced her to accept a royal title and lands in order to keep her safe. The two of them do not speak to one another, though Alistair is known to dote on her children as much as he is able and she allows. She was given a respectable stipend near Highever under Fergus, who recognized her five children and had them properly educated. She married into the knighthood following the Blight, but she and Alistair never reconciled and their relationship was never more than strained.
(It is believed that Leliana and Anora once went to have a private chat with Goldana, which led to her not insulting Alistair nearly so much and being kinder to him whenever he was forced to visit Highever. The truth of this meeting may never be known, but it is known that someone matching Leliana's description once visited Goldana's laundry in the dead of night, and that Anora once demanded Goldana's presence in her private chambers. Whatever was discussed remains between the three of them.)
Anora and Alistair's relationship was and is complicated. Alistair had many traits in common with his brother, Cailin, though his good nature and sense of humor were tempered by his treatment as a child. Alistair was more grounded and realistic than his brother, and much more aware of his faults. Anora loved Cailin, and Alistair's similarities to her dead husband were initially a stumbling block between her and the new king. Over the early months of their relationship, however, Anora came to appreciate the maturity that Alistair had over his older sibling, and the two went from mutual respect to friendly and finally did fall in love. Alistair's sense of humor softened Anora somewhat, and Anora's grasp of politics proved a good bar for Alistair to reach to.
They had three children together: eldest daughter Maris, middle child Logain, and youngest son Cailin. Alistair was a doting father who arranged blind fosterages at Highever, Vigil's Keep, and Redcliffe for his kids.
Secretly, Alistair did have one child out of wedlock: before the battle with the Archdemon, it is rumored that he and Elissa spent the evening with Morrigan at the Witch of the Wild's insistence. Morrigan was later with child, and it is believed that child was Alistair's but that Alistair had nothing to do with the boy's upbringing.
Much later, Alistair and Morrigan met up again at Skyhold during the height of the new Inquisition. Alistair had a chance to meet the boy but did not reveal his identity at Morrigan's request. While their antagonism was well known during the Fifth Blight, Morrigan came as close as she ever could to apologizing to Alistair, telling him that she had told their child that his father was “a good man.” Morrigan also promised that their child would never take the throne, and that she was trying to be a better parent than her mother. Alistair is known to have commented that this did not set the bar especially high.
Of note, Elissa and Alistair met the pirate Isabella in Denerim during the Fifth Blight. It is known that Alistair spent some small amount of private time with them both. The details of what they are doing are mostly private, though Leliana has let slip that it was during this time that Elissa markedly improved in swordplay. Aside from this, Alistair accompanied Elissa to Soldier's Peak, the Lake Calahad Tower, Redcliffe, Denerim, Haven, Oste.gar, and into the final battle with the Archdemon.
It was at Ostegar that Elissa, Alistair, Morrigan, and Leliana gave King Cailan a proper cremation and reclaimed the weapons and armor of the fallen king and the Warden, Duncan. They also retrieved the goblet allowing for the creation of more Wardens, though they did not make any more Wardens during the Fifth Blight (it is believed that neither knew how to alter the darkspawn blood properly at that time, though they would both learn the rites later).
When Alistair staked his claim to the throne of Fereldan, he started using Cailan's armor (modified by the smith, Wade), and using Duncan's sword and Cailin's shield. It's rumored that some believed that he was Cailan returned from the dead upon first seeing him, a thing that made Alistair distinctly uncomfortable but that the Arl of Redcliffe was happy to play upon. The armor was set aside after the Fifth Blight and is kept in a private collection that owned solely by Anora.
