#warden ali

[fulluponcrazy]

✿ // s hru g s

Cold hug

“I’m alright,” he repeats blandly, for the fourth time, though he doesn’t quite manage to hide his discomfort when a Warden approaches, haltingly asking for orders. Alistair turns away to speak with her, but she goes scurrying back into the city of tends around Adamant’s walls and his attention is back on the Inquisitor again soon enough.

“Honestly, I’m fine,” he assures her.

He stiffens slightly when he’s pulled into a hug. One hand stays tense at his side, the other lifting to clap her on the shoulder before he pried himself away.

“There, you see? I’m perfectly fine now.”

[fulluponcrazy]

@grcywardcn

Now and then, a few denizens of Skyhold glance in their directions, eyes curious as the Wardens circle each other like wolves waiting for an opening. They were silent at first, focused and intent. And then the universe remembered that this was Alistair.

“Come on, old man,” he taunts, his grin turning impish at the corners.

Duncan scowls back at him, eyes rolling in exasperation. “Watch yourself, pup,” he cautions, but there’s little heat behind the words.

Alistair’s grin turns positively gleeful. “I’m the same rank as you now~” he offers in a sing-song. “You can’t tell me what to do.”

Finally, Duncan makes a move. Two longswords meet, and his dagger skitters against Alistair’s shield as it comes to bear. With a laugh, Alistair dodges out of reach again.

“Are you this much of a child in a real fight?” Duncan sighs, but there’s something like a smile hiding at the corner of his mouth.

“Different sort of childish, then,” Alistair informs him cheerfully. “Much more screaming and pants-wetting.”

Duncan sighs in irritation, and Alistair surges forward. There’s a reverberating clang of steel on steel, followed by a flurry of quick strikes. Alistair’s back hits the grass and Duncan’s foot pins his shield, but before he can bring his blade down, Alistair slips his arm from his shield and tumbles out of the way. He sweeps Duncan’s legs out from under him almost as an afterthought, and bounces back to his feet. He switches his sword to a two-handed hold, and Duncan shoves the shield out of reach as he stands back up.

He blocks the next strike with both blades, sword and dagger crossed. Alistair heaves his weight forward, sending Duncan just enough off-balance to avoid getting his sword wrenched away from him. Duncan stumbles back a step, and when he straightens back up, Alistair is half-blading his sword, the tip of the blade level with his nose.

“A tie, then?” Duncan suggests after a moment. Alistair glances down to where the tip of the dagger is tapping at gap in the collar of his armor.

“A tie,” Alistair agrees with a grin, lowering his sword as Duncan pulls his dagger back. There’s a beat, and then, “Best two out of three?”

“Alistair, you are impossible.”

[fulluponcrazy]

@makers-amellody

Katerina stumbled upon him in the garden. She hadn’t been looking for him--didn’t even know he was in Skyhold--so it felt like she really did trip over him. He was leaning against a tree, watching Morrigan’s young boy. He looked...sad. Sadder than the last time she had seen him. But she supposed a lot had changed since then.

“Alistair!”

He jerked away from the tree, startled, and looked at her. For a moment he stared at her blankly, mouthing Katerina? to himself. And then he grinned, and the last decade seemed to melt off of him.

With a beaming smile, Katerina ran at him. Laughing, he caught her around the middle and spun in a circle with her before setting her back on her feet. “What are--the Conclave, I’m guessing?”

She nodded once in confirmation. “But what about you? What are you doing here?”

His smile dimmed, though he tried to force it back into place. “It’s...a really long story. Can we get into it later? At the tavern, maybe.”

“Alright,” she agreed slowly. “But I’m holding you to that.”

--

“...and that’s what’s been going on.”

Katerina stared at him. Slowly, she stood up, circled around the table, and wrapped her arms around him.

Laughing softly, Alistair returned the embrace with one arm. “I’m fine,” he assured her. “I’ve adjusted.”

She flicked the tip of his ear. “You shouldn’t have to adjust to something like this.”

“Mm, no,” he agreed easily, tugging a lock of her hair. “But this entire mess with the Breach shouldn’t be happening either, but it is. Problems happen, and people need to deal with them.”

With a huff, Katerina dropped back down onto her chair. “All of this is a mess,” she grumbled, turning her drink back and forth on the table.

With a snort, Alistair agreed, “Such is the world we live in.” He lifted his drink and tipped his head back as he finished it, before he stood up. Offering her a hand, he said, “Let’s go find some mischief. Liven things up a little bit.”

With a slow smile, Katerina accepted his hand and followed him out the door.

[fulluponcrazy]

"I'm glad you came back safely from..." Well, from the Fade. (HELLO LETS HAVE ANGST)

He offers her a small, crooked smile. “So am I.” Though the words sound heavy and slightly hollow. “I think I’ve had my fill of the Fade for a good long while.” Don’t get him wrong, he was glad he was not dead. But Hawke was dead, when...well, when a Warden should have fixed it.

[fulluponcrazy]

@honnleathrose

It’s a quiet evening as he makes camp for the night, tying his tarp between tree branches, throwing down his bedroll, and gathering wood for a fire. Vera wanders nearby, meandering her way towards the nearby stream for a drink, and Barkspawn hunts for dinner not far off. Skyhold is still two days away, but Alistair is making decent time.

Well, Barkspawn was hunting for dinner. He returns too soon, though, trotting back to the campsite and barking in a vaguely westward direction. He seems more confused than cautious, but Alistair sets a hand on the pommel of his sword regardless.

“Someone out there?” he wonders quietly, looking down at the hound. Barkspawn trots two steps in that direction, whines, and briefly lifts one forepaw to point. That seems like a definitive yes.

Hand still on his sword, just in case, Alistair calls, “Hello?” into the woods.

[fulluponcrazy]

@traitxrteryn

It wasn’t a surprise when other Wardens began to show up at Skyhold’s gates, as word got around that Clarel was dead, there was a new Warden-Commander in Orlais, some of the danger had passed. They came in ones and twos and threes, armor battered and weapons ready.

It was strange, when Lily arrived seeking Fiona. But Alistair would have sat in that stifling, awkward silence for eternity to have avoided the moment when Loghain arrived. All for naught, though, evidently. They avoided each other like a blood plague, paths never meeting, like a pair of weasels dancing past each other.

Until one evening on the battlements, when they finally crossed. They were silent at first, both of them simply regarding the view into the mountains.

“You know,” Alistair muses eventually, “when I was at the chantry I used to scream, sometimes. Just to see if anyone would hear me. Pretty sure if I tried it now the answer would still be a resounding ‘no.’”

Loghain slides him a glance, before his gaze darts towards the mountains again. “From what I’ve heard of what happened, I don’t think Clarel would have listened to anyone.”

Alistair laughs, a strange, strangled, bitter thing, and pulls his flask from his belt. “Maker’s ass, but I must look bad if you’re trying to comfort me.” He tips his head back as he drinks, and he offers Loghain the flask a moment later.

Loghain accepts it, though he hands it back after hardly a single gulp. “You’ll sear your tongue off with that bog water.”

“I’ve adapted,” comes the prim response.

They each shoot a quick glance towards the other, for barely half a heartbeat, before silence falls again and they’re once again watching the mountains, as if the earth might reshape itself right before their eyes.

“What do your Wardens think,” Loghain wonders eventually, the silence cracking, “about having a drunken Fereldan leading them?”

Alistair brings a hand to his chest, very earnestly. “Their abject terror gets me through my days, it does.”

Loghain’s chuckle is slow and weary, and it seems to disappear rather than simply stopping. “A worthy cause, to be sure.”

“I certainly thought so.”

[fulluponcrazy]

@iamthefirechild

“Almost...”

One hand covering her eyes still, Alistair guided her forward with his other hand on her back. The noise, at the very least, made it obvious that they were no longer in the middle of the countryside.

“And...now.”

He pulled his hand away from her eyes and stepped back, as if he was expecting her to bolt off down the road. Behind them, the stone wall and the entryway rose up, and ahead of them, the city of Amaranthine stretched out in a jumble of buildings and criss-crossing roads.

“I told you we’d make it eventually.”

[fulluponcrazy]

" Oh no, you’re cute! ”

For a moment, Alistair looked a bit more startled than the comment really warranted; in all the chaos of the past few months, he couldn’t recall the last time he had been called cute.

His crooked smile was hesitant and there was a nostalgic tinge to it. “Haven’t heard that in a while,” he remarked. In general, and from Lily specifically. “But ‘oh no?’ Really? You didn’t seem to mind before.”