#templar!alistair

[baejax-the-great]

Alistair x Bethany | Chapter 10 | E | 4532 words | AO3

CW: canon-typical violence, templar/mage relations, smut, lyrium, animal death, alcohol

Can't I just Stay Here

Bethany’s head dropped to his shoulder, and Alistair could scarce move for the shock. “Do you want to know how I got caught?” she asked.

“Tell me.”

“After my servitude to the smugglers was over, I spent all my time hiding in this hovel in Kirkwall. It was cold and dank and it always smelled like mold. My sister went to find her fortune, and she left me behind to take care of my mother who couldn’t bear to part with us both. We waited. And waited. A whole winter. And when our options were eat shoe leather or starve, I turned myself in for the reward.”

Alistair felt a little sick. His arm wound its way around to hold her against him. “You turned yourself in?”

“My sister came back as they were taking me away, her pockets spilling over with coin. Can you imagine? I hated her for years for that. Couldn’t she have been on time for once?”

Alistair held her a little tighter and watched the fire burn down. He couldn’t imagine. Or maybe he could a little. He could have tried harder to run from the templars when he was younger. Find something else. He even had a brother living a life that Alistair could have had if everything was different. But he didn’t know Cailan, and couldn’t rightly blame him for anything. There were no feelings there.

Would it have been easier for Bethany if she’d been betrayed by another? If all her blame and hatred could land on a cruel neighbor or rival rather than herself and her family?

Alistair knew a little of hating his own blood.

“Will you go back to her now?” he asked when Bethany shifted to take another drink.

She shook her head. “All I’ve ever been is a burden to them. First as an apostate, making my family live in hiding, then as a hostage held over my sister’s head. Going back would just be more of the same. The Amell family curse.”

“You’re not a curse,” Alistair said quickly as Bethany stared intently at the ground. She was a rare marvel that the Circle had tried to snuff out for all it was worth, and Meredith had failed at that. “You’re—” he didn’t know how to finish that sentence, so he pressed a kiss to her hair before finding himself admitting, “I’m a bastard prince of Ferelden. Heir to the throne.”

Bethany’s head popped off his shoulder. “What?”

Read the rest on AO3 | Or start from the beginning

[baejax-the-great]

Alistair x Bethany | Chapter 9 | E | 2444 words | AO3

CW: canon-typical violence, templar/mage relations, smut, lyrium, animal death

Giddyap, Cowgirl

Bethany hushed him with a hand over his mouth. “Don’t move,” she whispered. He felt a buildup of magic somewhere along his back, the press of the Veil, then Bethany gestured over his shoulder and a Maker’s Fist slammed straight into the ground with a whump. There had also been, if he wasn’t hearing things, a small and sharply cut-off squeal.

“I think I got it,” she said, sliding down his back and gingerly stepping toward her target.

Sadly, Alistair could not share in her triumph. In the center of the completely crushed underbrush was the sorriest and unluckiest rabbit Alistair had ever seen.

“You squashed it,” he accused. The poor thing was completely flattened and entirely disgusting. All the insides now on the outside and somehow also flat. Grisly.

“The spell might have been a little stronger than I needed,” she said with a shrug.

“A little?” Some of the grass was smoking. The smell was… lamentable.

“My mana is still low from the ocean, and everything feels weird after a week of smites,” she snapped.

Alistair mouthed a quick apology at the smashed little creature. If this was her with low mana, Alistair had no intention of making her angrier than she already was.

“You can still eat it,” she huffed, “Just… clean off the guts first.”

Alistair crossed his arms over his chest. “Nope, not happening. I’m not touching that. You ruined the poor thing, you can clean it.”

Her mouth dropped open. “Good luck catching your own dinner, then. Do they teach bare-handed jungle rabbit-catching at the monastery?”

“No, they don’t, but I do know the Circle teaches ice traps.” Her eyes widened and her head tilted as she considered that option. He knew she agreed with him when she bit her lip. “Or, blast, paralysis trap would be best, right? Then we could do it the old-fashioned way. Catch me one with a paralysis trap, and I’ll gut it and clean it for you.”

Bethany puffed up her chest, and for a moment Alistair thought she might start shouting, but then blew all the air out.

“Well, what do I know?” she muttered, “They don’t teach mages how to hunt in a Circle, do they? Great big walls and all meals served up. Skipped rabbit-hunting class.”

Alistair couldn’t help it. Poor, dead rabbit be damned, he started laughing. If there had once been meat on that poor creature—if there had once been bones—it was now all just a jumbled, smoking smear on the ground. Bethany started laughing, too, her hand covering her mouth, which was a damned shame because he would have liked to have seen her smile.

“I’ll have you know my sister never once complained about having flat-rabbit supper,” she got out between laughs.

Read the rest here | Start from the beginning on AO3

[baejax-the-great]

Bethany x Alistair | Chapter 8 | 3185 words | E | AO3

CW: canon-typical violence, templar/mage relations, smut, lyrium

Smash that ship like a piñata

“Take off your armor,” Bethany ordered.

Or not.

Alistair found himself complying before he considered the request. “Wait, what? Now? Here?” She couldn’t possibly think they were going to—“What?”

Bethany already had her fingers working on his buckles, and metal clanged on the deck. “Do you see those sails?” she asked with a nod of her head across to the other side of the boat, “Raiders. Pirates.”

“What?”

Now that he was listening, there did seem to be an awful lot of shouting on the deck. And the boat Bethany had pointed out seemed much closer than strictly necessary and none too friendly what with the black flag up top.

“What does this have to do with my armor?”

“If you go overboard in that skirt, you’ll drown in it.” His hands continued to hesitate while he considered that she might not want him to drown after this morning. “Have you ever seen a pirate in plate armor?” she hissed.

How many pirates had she seen locked up in the Circle as she was? She had a point, though. And very little patience, because while he continued to gawp at her, she had already gotten his gauntlets and vambraces off and began unbuckling his pauldrons.

“How am I meant to fight like this?” he asked, hopping to get the sabatons off. The approaching ship was looming unnervingly large, and the Bann’s Maid, a ship Alistair had chosen because of its rather lackadaisical itinerary, shockingly was not able to out maneuver the raiders.

“They’ll board us,” Bethany asserted, ignoring the question. At least her pirate knowledge was an odd blessing. “And either take all the cargo and leave us, or take all the cargo and the boat and leave food for the fishes.”

Read the rest on AO3 | or start from the beginning

[baejax-the-great]

Alistair x Bethany | Chapter 5 | 3222 words | E | AO3

CW: canon-typical violence, templar/mage relations, smut, lyrium

Chapter 5

“How did you end up becoming a templar?”

“Reluctantly.” Bethany scrunched her lips together at his evasion. Alistair sighed. “You don’t care about all of this, do you? I don’t need to bore you with my life story.”

“I asked, didn’t I?”

She wasn’t going to back down now, he knew that much. Might change her mind about letting him sleep on the mattress instead of the floor. “The orphan part’s right, but I was… lucky enough to have family to care for me. Until… well, until they gave me to the monastery, anyway. There wasn’t anywhere else for me to go after that.”

“You never tried running?”

“Have you?”

A stupid question, and her mouth snapped shut. She didn’t answer. You could, you know, he should have said, Disappear at the next port and we’ll never find you. I’ll make sure of it.

Instead, he told her the truth. “I ran away after my first Harrowing. We aren’t technically prisoners, but we also aren’t meant to just leave. And I did.”

“What happens when a templar runs away?”

“They found me in a tavern about three days later.”

Bethany looked unimpressed. “You went on a bender?”

Alistair shrugged. Wasn’t his proudest moment. “It was—the girl survived, but it was… awful. I guess she wasn’t much younger than I was, but pulled out of bed in the middle of the night, she looked—” Alistair swallowed. All those grown men and women standing there, armed to the teeth, staring at a frightened, shivering child, pillow marks still pressed into her cheek, saying, “do or die.” He’d spent those three days wondering how he could do that for the rest of his life, over and over again. Gregoir never tasked him with the killing blow after that. Couldn’t hack it. “They tried to bring me into the fold again, make me a believer. The Maker’s work and all that. It wasn’t very effective, except…”

Alistair trailed off. He wouldn’t have been the first templar to turn to the drink. Seemed just as many ‘retired’ because of the alcohol as—

“The lyrium,” Bethany said. Whether it was with judgment, pity, or disgust, he couldn’t be sure.

Alistair knew what it did to templars as time went on. Not long after his vows, grey-haired, dead-eyed men approached him in the barracks, mentioned that as a young man, a new recruit, he didn’t need as much. Better not to take the whole dose, not yet, not until he had to. And, of course, if he took their advice, he might as well give the leftovers to someone who needed it more. Someone who could benefit. He saw the way their hands shook when they accepted half-mouthfuls of lyrium. How their eyes flitted to figures only they could see while their expressions remained vacant.

Not the best welcome into the Order he could have imagined.

These days, Alistair didn’t have any leftovers to donate to poor wretches.

“Is it so bad? The thirst?”

After a moment’s hesitation, he nodded. “I knew I couldn’t really run away. So did they. They just had to wait me out. Docked my pay, too. Kept me out of the tavern a while. And if you do a bad enough job at something, they rarely make you do more than stand around looking pretty.”

Read the rest on Ao3 | Or start from the beginning

[baejax-the-great]

WIP Wednesday

I know I've shared bits of this passage before, but I retooled the whole thing this morning. From Overboard.

cw for talk of lyrium

~

“How did you end up becoming a templar?”

“Reluctantly.” Bethany scrunched her lips together at his evasion. Alistair sighed. “You don’t care about all of this, do you? I don’t need to bore you with my life story.”

“I asked, didn’t I?”

She wasn’t going to back down now, he knew that much. “The orphan part’s right, but I was… lucky enough to have family to care for me. Until… well, until they gave me to the monastery, anyway. There wasn’t anywhere else for me to go after that.”

“You never tried running?”

“Have you?”

A stupid question, and her mouth snapped shut. She didn’t answer. You could, you know, he should have said, Disappear at the next port and we’ll never find you. I’ll make sure of it.

Instead, he told her the truth. “I ran away after my first Harrowing. We aren’t technically prisoners, but we also aren’t meant to just leave. And I did.”

“What happens when a templar runs away?”

“They found me in a tavern about three days later.”

Bethany looked unimpressed. “You went on a bender?”

Alistair shrugged. Wasn’t his proudest moment. “It was—the girl survived, but it was… awful. I guess she wasn’t much younger than I was, but pulled out of bed in the middle of the night, she looked—” Alistair swallowed. All those grown men and women standing there, armed to the teeth, staring at a frightened, shivering child, pillow marks still pressed into her cheek, saying, “do or die.” He’d spent those three days wondering how he could do that for the rest of his life, over and over again. Gregoir never tasked him with the killing blow after that. Couldn’t hack it. “They tried to bring me into the fold again, make me a believer. The Maker’s work and all that. It wasn’t very effective, except…”

Alistair trailed off. He wouldn’t have been the first templar to turn to the drink. Seemed just as many ‘retired’ because of the alcohol as—

“The lyrium,” Bethany said. Whether it was with judgment, pity or disgust, he couldn’t be sure.

Alistair knew what it did to templars as time went on. Not long after his vows, grey-haired, dead-eyed men approached him in the barracks, mentioned that as a young man, a new recruit, he didn’t need as much. Better not to take the whole dose, not yet, not until he had to. And, of course, if he took their advice, he might as well give the leftovers to someone who needed it more. Someone who could benefit. He saw the way their hands shook when they accepted half-mouthfuls of it. How their eyes flitted to figures only they could see while their expressions remained vacant.

Not the best welcome into the Order he could have imagined.

These days, Alistair didn’t have any leftovers to donate to poor wretches. At least he wasn't begging for his own.

“Is it so bad? The thirst?”

After a moment’s hesitation, he nodded. “I knew I couldn’t really run away. So did they. They just had to wait me out. Docked my pay, too. Kept me out of the tavern a while. And if you do a bad enough job at something, they rarely make you do more than stand around looking pretty.”

[baejax-the-great]

Alistair x Bethany | Chapter 4 | 5k words | E | AO3

CW: canon-typical violence, templar/mage relations, smut, lyrium\

~

I have confidence in Sunshine

Bethany felt she would never tire of the wind in her face. It whipped her hair around until it ended in a hopeless tangle that she fought with every night, but no matter. The air was rare and strange and wonderful, and she imagined it blowing her away to somewhere new, somewhere she could just be—not a fugitive, or a refugee, or a prisoner. Just Bethany.

During her first crossing from Ferelden to the Marches, even if they’d been allowed to see the outside world, Bethany doubted she’d have been much in a state to look. Now she couldn’t stop. Every day she vacated the bed for Alistair to sleep the morning away while she found a quiet place to sit and watch a scenery that was always changing.

Pictures in a book couldn’t prepare her for all the shades of blue and green in the sea. How they shifted with the sun and the shoreline, brighter or deeper. Gulls overhead swooped to take the food right out of the sailors’ hands, pelicans skimmed the water, and the successful hunts of diving birds led to fights with scavengers in the sky over some hapless fish. All of them squawking all the time, including the sailors.

It felt good to be surrounded by the squabbles of people and animals that had nothing to do with her or magic or freedom or anything. Money and fish were at the core of all problems out here, and Bethany had none of either.

The boat followed the curves of the Marches at a distance. Sometimes she caught glimpses of animals in the water splashing by the shore, some chattering and hooting making its way toward her, but she had no idea what they were. More often she watched the fishing boats—people she’d never meet living out their own personal triumphs and tragedies that she would never know about. Or, probably, mostly just dropping and pulling up nets so that their families could eat another day. Beyond them and past the gray, steep cliffs were forests, lusher than the Wounded Coast, greener than her memories. She looked for curls of smoke rising over the foliage—individual huts maybe, sometimes enough smoke for a settlement—and daydreamed about the people living their lives in ways Bethany would never see.

She supposed they felt happy and safe knowing someone like her would never see them.

Maybe that was why when she walked in on Alistair with a threaded needle between his teeth and his shirt in his hand, she pushed away his sewing and climbed into his lap herself.

Read the rest on AO3 | Or start from the beginning

[baejax-the-great]

Overboard

Alistair x Bethany | Chapter 2 | 2491 words | E | AO3

CW: canon-typical violence, templar/mage relations, smut

~

In for a penny, in for a pound

“Are you alright?” he asked.

She couldn’t even fathom coming up with a response. Was she? She’d never heard a templar ask the question before.

“About yesterday—” he said. “I wanted to apologize. It never should have happened. I shouldn’t have abused my position. It was unworthy of me.”

Bethany recovered, her breathing approximating something like normal. “What happened yesterday?” she asked with a roll of her eyes.

“When we—” he cut himself off, his brows furrowing stupidly before it dawned on him she was teasing. “Oh.”

Bethany pressed on, acid on her tongue. “How worthy is the position of a templar?” Her blood thumped in her ears as she got to her feet. “Do you consider me beneath you, Knight-Lieutenant?”

Alistair swallowed. His cheeks went a little pink.

Good.

“No. I…” He trailed off, then shrugged. Gave up. Let his gaze fall to somewhere around her knees.

Not good. She wanted him to fight her. She wanted him to react. She wanted to push him until he snapped and she wanted to see what was on the other side. But instead he shook his head and reached for his other sabaton.

Bethany slid it away with her foot. A great sigh shuddered over his shoulders before he reached for it again. This time she kicked it hard enough to send it skittering toward the door.

Alistair straightened, his jaw tense as Bethany glared at him defiantly. Softly he asked, “What do you want from me?”

She hardly knew the answer herself. She was furious with want, furious about what she wanted, and unable to just say it. Her gaze fell to the dark purple blemishes on his neck—her teeth’s work, by the look of it. She hadn’t realized she’d left marks. She also hadn’t realized she’d stretched her hand toward him until her fingertips brushed over them.

Alistair closed his eyes.

Maybe he’d come to the same conclusion; the first transgression was the worst. They’d already plunged the depths of their worst impulses, and each time after was just a ripple, a reflection of what was already done. No use worrying about the turbulence of the water when the shattered fragments of her promise to herself had already sank to the bottom.

Maybe that was why he fell into bed with her again.

Read the rest here | Or start from the beginning

[baejax-the-great]

Bethany x Alistair | Chapter 7 | E | 2497 words | AO3

CW: canon-typical violence, templar/mage relations, smut, lyrium

~

Rock and Roll

When Bethany’s arms loosed themselves from around her legs, sliding toward the deck, and when she brought her face up from her knees, puffy and squinting in the light, the sun had already traveled halfway across the sky and hidden itself behind gray clouds. She’d wasted an entire morning crying. Time enough for that in Kinloch, when her only view of the sky would be through windows. Barred windows. This was the only time left in her life to enjoy what few pleasures of the world were granted her, even as a headache from the crying set in.

Alistair was standing only five paces away, his arms resting on the railing. He moved quietly without the armor. She had no idea how long he’d been there.

He didn’t look at her, which she was glad for. She didn’t want to be looked at. She felt like a wrung-out dish towel. Exhausted. Empty.

He did give her some food, which she chewed on in silence, unable to taste much more than salt. The sun pierced through the clouds to light up splotches of the sea. Like freckles, she thought absently. It was beautiful, she knew it was beautiful and that she should enjoy it before she couldn’t, but she felt a great nothing toward it. Each moment brought her closer to the end of beautiful things, and what was beauty to a prisoner, anyway? What was the warm embrace of a beautiful man when settled in his bones were the words ‘you can never leave?’

Alistair broke the silence between them, his head still turned toward the shore, his voice loud to carry over the wind. “At Kinloch they don’t… the instructors don’t… mages aren’t taught normal things like cooking or farming or… how to manage a household or animal husbandry.”

Bethany blinked. “What?”

Read the rest on AO3 | Or start from the beginning