The Rising Son - Chapter Five
“Can I talk to you?”
The words startled her out of a firelit reverie, and she looked up to find Alistair standing in the shadows behind her, shifting his weight from foot to foot like a troubled schoolboy. Some sentry she was turning out to be this evening, if Alistair could manage to sneak up on her.
“No one’s never been able to stop you from talking before.” She softened the barb with an arched brow, but scooted over on the rough log a bit to allow him room. Alistair dropped to a seat beside her, almost graceful without his bulky armor, and she couldn't stop watching him. It was a strange and rare thing to see Alistair in plain clothing.
“I suppose that’s true. The Sisters of the Chantry always said you should stick with what you’re good at.” He tossed another knot of pine onto the sleeping fire, flames leaping up to cast his face into sharp relief and making his features unreadable as he searched the flames for courage. “Ophelia, since you showed up a week ago I’ve been trying to figure out how to say this. I can’t seem to come up with anything eloquent or witty so I’ll have to settle for the bald truth.” He paused, before drawing a deep breath to charge ahead. “I know this may come across as strange, or too little too late but…I wanted to tell you that I’m sorry. For the way things played out three years ago. I did what I thought was the right thing at the time and the right thing blew up in my face.”
Ophelia waited, hoping her heart would stop trying to punch a hole through her chest. She didn’t trust herself with speech at the moment, and settled for a graceless bob of the head. Alistair pinned her with eyes shadowed by the wavering flames, dim sockets she was unable to make out.
“I was so worried about you, you know. Wynne came rushing in to tell me that you were gone, your bed in the infirmary still warm, and no one could find a trace of you or Dog. It wasn’t until someone noticed the missing horse we realized you had left of your own free will and stopped searching for intruders." He stopped, and when he started again his voice sounded tight, strangled. "Do you know what that was like? For three years, three years, there was no word from you. Not even a quick note to say 'Hey, how are you? I'm not dead. You can stop worrying.' Nothing but the cold monthly reports I received from the Grey Wardens to let me know you were still alive.” He picked absently at a moss-furred section of bark alongside his thigh, avoiding her eyes. “I think your leaving broke something in Wynne. She was never quite the same after the effort it took to heal you of the archdemon wounds, and it wasn’t long afterwards that she simply…faded.”
Ophelia had known that Wynne must have passed. There was no way that three years could have gone by without her trying to contact Ophelia if it were otherwise. Still, to have the knowledge confirmed hurt Ophelia more than she had expected it could. She swallowed past the brambles of grief that were clambering up her throat and forced a rasping reply. “I regret that I wasn’t able to see her again. But you didn’t really expect me to stay, did you? To watch you with someone else? You must thing credit me with greater strength than I possess. Or you truly are an idiot."
Alistair shrugged, his wry smile a slash of white in the firelight. “I’ve always been both in awe of your strength, and a complete ignoramus.”
She stared down at her hands, white and webbed with calluses and so frail in the pale light, like crumpled eggshells in her lap. “I couldn’t have stayed Alistair. You told me that I was not Queen material, and that you wanted me to rebuild the Grey Wardens in Ferelden. I think you made it quite clear that I was more useful to you as a warrior than as a woman. And now I can understand that you were right. Because of me, the Grey Wardens have returned in force to Ferelden. This is a far greater service for me to perform than simply making babies. I’m glad you had the foresight I lacked at the time, to recognize what was best for Ferelden.”
“What was best for Ferelden is not necessarily what was best for me. But then that is the plight of a King, no? Duty above all else. No matter the cost.” The bitterness in his voice stung the back of her tongue.
Words flocked inside her head, a dizzying cloud of thoughts that circled so swiftly she was unable to pluck just one from the mass. She reached up to rub at her stinging scar, seeking composure in the familiar pain. “Apology accepted, Alistair. I have neither the energy or the interest to remain angry with you for things that cannot be changed.”
Alistair nodded slowly in agreement, poking absently at the fire with a nearby stick for some minutes as they lapsed into an uneasy silence, lost in their own thoughts.
“So…you and Zevran?” Alistair broke in. He tried for glib and failed miserably, his voice almost cracking.
She heaved a sigh, and shot him a sideways glance. “Are you sure you want to have this conversation?” He nodded, unspoken words held carefully in his mouth. “Honestly Alistair - I was dumped, not dead.”
He gaped at her. “What is that supposed to mean? Were you guys…I mean, did you…?”
“Good night, Alistair.” She got up from the log and shuffled towards her tent, her exhaustion more than physical. “I volunteer you for the next watch.”
~~
In her nightmares, the darkspawn gibbered and howled and boiled in the depths of the earth, but they had never turned their yellow eyes toward her, never acknowledged her presence in their midst. This night was different - the darkspawn of her dreams drew ever closer to her, their hot breath fetid in her face as they reached impossibly long arms towards her, licking her cheeks and eyelids with their rough tongues as she was pinned to the ground by the mass of their bodies. Without knife or sword in her dreamworld Ophelia drew breath for the oldest of female weapons, a scream that ripped through the night and shredded her sleep.
Her tent was suddenly alive, as Alistair came crashing through the flap The weight on her chest finally lifted and the shadows in her tent drew into a familiar snarling shape as Alistair brandished his longsword.
“Dog!” Ophelia cried and threw back the covers of her cot and sat up. The Mabari’s head snapped to attention, focus shifting from Alistair to his mistress with a look of drooling, abject adoration. He bounded back to crouch at her side, a wriggling mass of mansized dogflesh.
“Bad boy!” she scolded, and his ears drooped, stubby tail thumping the ground slowly. “What are you doing here? I told you to stay in Highever.”
Alistair lowered his sword and remembered how to breathe. “Oh.” He dropped the word like a sour cherry. “It’s you. I thought I smelled wet dog.”
Dog swept his ears back and shot Ophelia a Look.
“What?” She shrugged and frowned at his whine. “I don’t have to explain him to you. You aren’t even supposed to be here.”
Dog whined again and peered up at Ophelia, doing his burly best to look sad and puppy-eyed.
“Oh, alright! Get up here.” She gripped the sides of the cot as it swayed unsteadily, Dog’s mass threatening to overbalance the small bed as he leapt up. He settled himself into a much smaller space than anything his size should have the ability to occupy at the end of her cot. “You drool on my blankets though and it’s back home with you.”
Dog barked once, a happy sound, and buried his head back onto his forepaws beneath her feet.
“Just what I needed - another male inviting themselves along.” Her pointed glower was split between the two. Dog remained blissfully unaware but the man got the hint.
“Right. I’ll just be getting back to my watch now. Glad to see you’re not dying or anything.” With that, Alistair beat a hasty retreat out the tent, feeling Ophelia’s glare clinging between his shoulderblades like a burr.
~~
Brennan knew it was going to be a rough day the moment his breakfast loaf sprouted a shaft and feathers as he was lifting it to his mouth. He blinked at the offending hunk of bread until his groggy brain put two and two together; that his meal had been made a pincushion and that he should not be sitting upright in plain view at the center of camp. His strangled shout as he flailed off the log he had been seated on drew the rest of his companions running from their own morning rituals to squint in the thin morning light. Lightning and fire sparked from his fingertips as Brennan swept around in the direction the arrow had come, the smell of ozone and charred bread running claws down the back of Ophelia’s throat.
She nodded towards Zevran who was already in motion, and as one they dropped into a steady crouch. She reached out with that not-magic sense of hers, grabbing a double fistful of reality and pulling it ever so slightly sideways until she was little more than a shadow in the eyes of their attackers, and took a moment to glance around unnoticed. Seven men surrounded the camp, bandits that had fallen on hard times. They had the desperate look of a pack of city dogs, all whipcord hunger and hollow eyes.
She crept around to the edge of the camp as the rest of her group squared off, circling behind one of the men where he stood in the shadows of the tree line. The soft snick of her dirk as it left the sheath on her back caused him to flinch and raise his own sword, but before he could finish the motion Ophelia had an edge to his neck.
“Don’t move,” she hissed in his ear, and felt his bobbing throat press against the blade in her hand.
“Drop your weapons, and I will not harm this man! You will be free to leave with your lives!” She shouted into the still clearing. Only a flicker of motion behind the nearest bandit told her than Zevran was out in the woods as well. Brennan was across the camp eyeballing one bandit, spinning the barely restrained birth of a fireball in his hands, and Alistair and Dog were spread between she and Brennan.
Dog had one of the men backed up against a tree, his deep growl carrying across camp. Alistair had his sword and shield out, although in his haste he hadn’t managed to put on his helmet. He was squared off against two other bandits, dirty fighters by the look of them. Ophelia couldn’t loosen the hard knot of dread in her belly. She knew full well how quickly and efficiently a small knife like theirs could find the chinks in Alistair’s heavy armor, and while Brennan knew some spells he was no healer.
That made six bandits accounted for. Where was the seventh? The answer came in the form of another arrow, whistling beneath her jaw and grazing the back of the hand held to the bandit’s throat before burying itself in a nearby trunk. Frantically she looked around for the seventh man and spotted him, halfway up a nearby tree perched on a thick swaying branch. He smiled grimly, a spash of white across his shadowed face, and notched another arrow to his string, aiming squarely at her chest.
She had enough time to twist reactively as she heard the twang of a bowstring release, feeling the impact against her own armor as feathers sprang from her hostage’s chest. His limp body fell from her grasp as all hell broke loose in the clearing. She vaguely heard the baying of Dog devolve into snarling cracks, the gurgling cry of Zevran’s victim as he bled his life out, the tactile explosion of Brennan’s fireball echoing inside her skull. The bowman took careful aim again and she followed his line of sight, terror sinking its claws deep into her gut.
Alistiar.
He was finished with his two bandits, wading through the pile of limbs he had made short work of, and yelling in her direction. The dawning light clearly highlighted his bare head, and she could see the bandit hold his breath to aim, putting the last bit of tension on the string he would need to send it straight through the King’s skull. Fear drew shivering patterns down her back and she reached desperately to throw her own dagger at the bowman, anything that might buy her a few moments extra, when Zevran appeared at her elbow.
“Up!” He cried, and cupped his bloodied hands at knee level. Nodding, Ophelia placed one bare foot into his hands and with a deceptively strong heave she was airborne, her body somersaulting in the way he had trained her last summer. She landed lightly alongside the bowman, his jaw slack in surprise. Before he had time to react, Ophelia was behind him, one dirk merrily separating his throat from his jugular. The gouting blood arced out, covering her and Zevran in great sheets of crimson before she shoved the body off the branch to thud amidst the rest of her companions where they had gathered below the tree.
They all stared up, and she knew she must cut a strange figure. Like a feral woman, raised by wolves amongst the forest trees. She was barely dressed, without shoes or a helmet, her hair in a wild mane around her head, and she was covered in blood. The fierce grin she couldn’t seem to wipe off her face didn’t help either. Brennan was looking at her like she had grown a second head. Zevran practically glowed with pride, and she knew she would never hear the end of how clever it had been of him to suggest he teach her some of his skills. Dog reared up on the trunk, barking and obviously unhappy at his mistress' impression of a squirrel.
Alistair was gazing up at her, his brown eyes flattened under an expression she couldn’t read.
‘What?” she said irritably, crossing her bloodslicked arms to glare down at the four of them. “Why are you all looking at me like I have grown a second head?”
Alistair seemed to shake himself, and she knew by the mischief creeping back into his grin she was not going to like what he said next.
“You know we can all see your smallclothes from down here, right?”
Fire flooded her face as she cursed her skirted armor and her bad position. Crouching down would only make it worse, and she was too high up to jump. She stood, frozen in mortification as she dithered about how to end the peepshow. She settled for dignified anger, stiffening her spine and glaring down at them imperiously where they were all roaring in laughter. "Very funny. Want to help a girl down now?" The problem solved itself as she misstepped on the slick branch, losing her footing. She felt the horizon tilt away from her as she fell. Years of training drilled into her very bones helped her to twist like a cat mid-air, landing on all fours in a tight crouch on the grass.
Brennan choked on a laugh. "Graceful."
"Ophelia, I'm so sorry!" Alistair sputtered. "I didn't mean for you to fall. Look, we couldn't really see them. Well, maybe a bit. I mean, only a little bit. They're red, aren't they? I mean...forget I said that, they most definitely were not red. Not a bit of red to be found." He wilted. "Look, I'm just going to shut up now. I hope you're OK."
"What happened, did being King suck out what little brains you had left after spending months as our resident punching bag?" She rounded on him, her anger and fear from earlier erupting. "What made you think you could go into a fight without your helmet? Are you suicidal?" She marched over and pushed him in the chest, her bloody fingers leaving red dots on the shining breastplate.
"Well, you weren't wearing a helmet! You're not even wearing shoes! How in the Maker's name do you have the right to yell at me?"
"Because you're the bloody King of Ferelden! You fight smart, or you stay behind. You're not expendable, Alistair!" She was livid, and hurled the words in his face.
'Well, neither are you," he said softly as he held her gaze, and Ophelia felt her anger dry up and blow away. She glared at him halfheartedly for a moment longer.
"I'm going to get cleaned up," she ground out and stalked towards the nearby stream, chin high as she pretended not to notice the three men dissolving into raucous laughter behind her.
The words startled her out of a firelit reverie, and she looked up to find Alistair standing in the shadows behind her, shifting his weight from foot to foot like a troubled schoolboy. Some sentry she was turning out to be this evening, if Alistair could manage to sneak up on her.
“No one’s never been able to stop you from talking before.” She softened the barb with an arched brow, but scooted over on the rough log a bit to allow him room. Alistair dropped to a seat beside her, almost graceful without his bulky armor, and she couldn't stop watching him. It was a strange and rare thing to see Alistair in plain clothing.
“I suppose that’s true. The Sisters of the Chantry always said you should stick with what you’re good at.” He tossed another knot of pine onto the sleeping fire, flames leaping up to cast his face into sharp relief and making his features unreadable as he searched the flames for courage. “Ophelia, since you showed up a week ago I’ve been trying to figure out how to say this. I can’t seem to come up with anything eloquent or witty so I’ll have to settle for the bald truth.” He paused, before drawing a deep breath to charge ahead. “I know this may come across as strange, or too little too late but…I wanted to tell you that I’m sorry. For the way things played out three years ago. I did what I thought was the right thing at the time and the right thing blew up in my face.”
Ophelia waited, hoping her heart would stop trying to punch a hole through her chest. She didn’t trust herself with speech at the moment, and settled for a graceless bob of the head. Alistair pinned her with eyes shadowed by the wavering flames, dim sockets she was unable to make out.
“I was so worried about you, you know. Wynne came rushing in to tell me that you were gone, your bed in the infirmary still warm, and no one could find a trace of you or Dog. It wasn’t until someone noticed the missing horse we realized you had left of your own free will and stopped searching for intruders." He stopped, and when he started again his voice sounded tight, strangled. "Do you know what that was like? For three years, three years, there was no word from you. Not even a quick note to say 'Hey, how are you? I'm not dead. You can stop worrying.' Nothing but the cold monthly reports I received from the Grey Wardens to let me know you were still alive.” He picked absently at a moss-furred section of bark alongside his thigh, avoiding her eyes. “I think your leaving broke something in Wynne. She was never quite the same after the effort it took to heal you of the archdemon wounds, and it wasn’t long afterwards that she simply…faded.”
Ophelia had known that Wynne must have passed. There was no way that three years could have gone by without her trying to contact Ophelia if it were otherwise. Still, to have the knowledge confirmed hurt Ophelia more than she had expected it could. She swallowed past the brambles of grief that were clambering up her throat and forced a rasping reply. “I regret that I wasn’t able to see her again. But you didn’t really expect me to stay, did you? To watch you with someone else? You must thing credit me with greater strength than I possess. Or you truly are an idiot."
Alistair shrugged, his wry smile a slash of white in the firelight. “I’ve always been both in awe of your strength, and a complete ignoramus.”
She stared down at her hands, white and webbed with calluses and so frail in the pale light, like crumpled eggshells in her lap. “I couldn’t have stayed Alistair. You told me that I was not Queen material, and that you wanted me to rebuild the Grey Wardens in Ferelden. I think you made it quite clear that I was more useful to you as a warrior than as a woman. And now I can understand that you were right. Because of me, the Grey Wardens have returned in force to Ferelden. This is a far greater service for me to perform than simply making babies. I’m glad you had the foresight I lacked at the time, to recognize what was best for Ferelden.”
“What was best for Ferelden is not necessarily what was best for me. But then that is the plight of a King, no? Duty above all else. No matter the cost.” The bitterness in his voice stung the back of her tongue.
Words flocked inside her head, a dizzying cloud of thoughts that circled so swiftly she was unable to pluck just one from the mass. She reached up to rub at her stinging scar, seeking composure in the familiar pain. “Apology accepted, Alistair. I have neither the energy or the interest to remain angry with you for things that cannot be changed.”
Alistair nodded slowly in agreement, poking absently at the fire with a nearby stick for some minutes as they lapsed into an uneasy silence, lost in their own thoughts.
“So…you and Zevran?” Alistair broke in. He tried for glib and failed miserably, his voice almost cracking.
She heaved a sigh, and shot him a sideways glance. “Are you sure you want to have this conversation?” He nodded, unspoken words held carefully in his mouth. “Honestly Alistair - I was dumped, not dead.”
He gaped at her. “What is that supposed to mean? Were you guys…I mean, did you…?”
“Good night, Alistair.” She got up from the log and shuffled towards her tent, her exhaustion more than physical. “I volunteer you for the next watch.”
~~
In her nightmares, the darkspawn gibbered and howled and boiled in the depths of the earth, but they had never turned their yellow eyes toward her, never acknowledged her presence in their midst. This night was different - the darkspawn of her dreams drew ever closer to her, their hot breath fetid in her face as they reached impossibly long arms towards her, licking her cheeks and eyelids with their rough tongues as she was pinned to the ground by the mass of their bodies. Without knife or sword in her dreamworld Ophelia drew breath for the oldest of female weapons, a scream that ripped through the night and shredded her sleep.
Her tent was suddenly alive, as Alistair came crashing through the flap The weight on her chest finally lifted and the shadows in her tent drew into a familiar snarling shape as Alistair brandished his longsword.
“Dog!” Ophelia cried and threw back the covers of her cot and sat up. The Mabari’s head snapped to attention, focus shifting from Alistair to his mistress with a look of drooling, abject adoration. He bounded back to crouch at her side, a wriggling mass of mansized dogflesh.
“Bad boy!” she scolded, and his ears drooped, stubby tail thumping the ground slowly. “What are you doing here? I told you to stay in Highever.”
Alistair lowered his sword and remembered how to breathe. “Oh.” He dropped the word like a sour cherry. “It’s you. I thought I smelled wet dog.”
Dog swept his ears back and shot Ophelia a Look.
“What?” She shrugged and frowned at his whine. “I don’t have to explain him to you. You aren’t even supposed to be here.”
Dog whined again and peered up at Ophelia, doing his burly best to look sad and puppy-eyed.
“Oh, alright! Get up here.” She gripped the sides of the cot as it swayed unsteadily, Dog’s mass threatening to overbalance the small bed as he leapt up. He settled himself into a much smaller space than anything his size should have the ability to occupy at the end of her cot. “You drool on my blankets though and it’s back home with you.”
Dog barked once, a happy sound, and buried his head back onto his forepaws beneath her feet.
“Just what I needed - another male inviting themselves along.” Her pointed glower was split between the two. Dog remained blissfully unaware but the man got the hint.
“Right. I’ll just be getting back to my watch now. Glad to see you’re not dying or anything.” With that, Alistair beat a hasty retreat out the tent, feeling Ophelia’s glare clinging between his shoulderblades like a burr.
~~
Brennan knew it was going to be a rough day the moment his breakfast loaf sprouted a shaft and feathers as he was lifting it to his mouth. He blinked at the offending hunk of bread until his groggy brain put two and two together; that his meal had been made a pincushion and that he should not be sitting upright in plain view at the center of camp. His strangled shout as he flailed off the log he had been seated on drew the rest of his companions running from their own morning rituals to squint in the thin morning light. Lightning and fire sparked from his fingertips as Brennan swept around in the direction the arrow had come, the smell of ozone and charred bread running claws down the back of Ophelia’s throat.
She nodded towards Zevran who was already in motion, and as one they dropped into a steady crouch. She reached out with that not-magic sense of hers, grabbing a double fistful of reality and pulling it ever so slightly sideways until she was little more than a shadow in the eyes of their attackers, and took a moment to glance around unnoticed. Seven men surrounded the camp, bandits that had fallen on hard times. They had the desperate look of a pack of city dogs, all whipcord hunger and hollow eyes.
She crept around to the edge of the camp as the rest of her group squared off, circling behind one of the men where he stood in the shadows of the tree line. The soft snick of her dirk as it left the sheath on her back caused him to flinch and raise his own sword, but before he could finish the motion Ophelia had an edge to his neck.
“Don’t move,” she hissed in his ear, and felt his bobbing throat press against the blade in her hand.
“Drop your weapons, and I will not harm this man! You will be free to leave with your lives!” She shouted into the still clearing. Only a flicker of motion behind the nearest bandit told her than Zevran was out in the woods as well. Brennan was across the camp eyeballing one bandit, spinning the barely restrained birth of a fireball in his hands, and Alistair and Dog were spread between she and Brennan.
Dog had one of the men backed up against a tree, his deep growl carrying across camp. Alistair had his sword and shield out, although in his haste he hadn’t managed to put on his helmet. He was squared off against two other bandits, dirty fighters by the look of them. Ophelia couldn’t loosen the hard knot of dread in her belly. She knew full well how quickly and efficiently a small knife like theirs could find the chinks in Alistair’s heavy armor, and while Brennan knew some spells he was no healer.
That made six bandits accounted for. Where was the seventh? The answer came in the form of another arrow, whistling beneath her jaw and grazing the back of the hand held to the bandit’s throat before burying itself in a nearby trunk. Frantically she looked around for the seventh man and spotted him, halfway up a nearby tree perched on a thick swaying branch. He smiled grimly, a spash of white across his shadowed face, and notched another arrow to his string, aiming squarely at her chest.
She had enough time to twist reactively as she heard the twang of a bowstring release, feeling the impact against her own armor as feathers sprang from her hostage’s chest. His limp body fell from her grasp as all hell broke loose in the clearing. She vaguely heard the baying of Dog devolve into snarling cracks, the gurgling cry of Zevran’s victim as he bled his life out, the tactile explosion of Brennan’s fireball echoing inside her skull. The bowman took careful aim again and she followed his line of sight, terror sinking its claws deep into her gut.
Alistiar.
He was finished with his two bandits, wading through the pile of limbs he had made short work of, and yelling in her direction. The dawning light clearly highlighted his bare head, and she could see the bandit hold his breath to aim, putting the last bit of tension on the string he would need to send it straight through the King’s skull. Fear drew shivering patterns down her back and she reached desperately to throw her own dagger at the bowman, anything that might buy her a few moments extra, when Zevran appeared at her elbow.
“Up!” He cried, and cupped his bloodied hands at knee level. Nodding, Ophelia placed one bare foot into his hands and with a deceptively strong heave she was airborne, her body somersaulting in the way he had trained her last summer. She landed lightly alongside the bowman, his jaw slack in surprise. Before he had time to react, Ophelia was behind him, one dirk merrily separating his throat from his jugular. The gouting blood arced out, covering her and Zevran in great sheets of crimson before she shoved the body off the branch to thud amidst the rest of her companions where they had gathered below the tree.
They all stared up, and she knew she must cut a strange figure. Like a feral woman, raised by wolves amongst the forest trees. She was barely dressed, without shoes or a helmet, her hair in a wild mane around her head, and she was covered in blood. The fierce grin she couldn’t seem to wipe off her face didn’t help either. Brennan was looking at her like she had grown a second head. Zevran practically glowed with pride, and she knew she would never hear the end of how clever it had been of him to suggest he teach her some of his skills. Dog reared up on the trunk, barking and obviously unhappy at his mistress' impression of a squirrel.
Alistair was gazing up at her, his brown eyes flattened under an expression she couldn’t read.
‘What?” she said irritably, crossing her bloodslicked arms to glare down at the four of them. “Why are you all looking at me like I have grown a second head?”
Alistair seemed to shake himself, and she knew by the mischief creeping back into his grin she was not going to like what he said next.
“You know we can all see your smallclothes from down here, right?”
Fire flooded her face as she cursed her skirted armor and her bad position. Crouching down would only make it worse, and she was too high up to jump. She stood, frozen in mortification as she dithered about how to end the peepshow. She settled for dignified anger, stiffening her spine and glaring down at them imperiously where they were all roaring in laughter. "Very funny. Want to help a girl down now?" The problem solved itself as she misstepped on the slick branch, losing her footing. She felt the horizon tilt away from her as she fell. Years of training drilled into her very bones helped her to twist like a cat mid-air, landing on all fours in a tight crouch on the grass.
Brennan choked on a laugh. "Graceful."
"Ophelia, I'm so sorry!" Alistair sputtered. "I didn't mean for you to fall. Look, we couldn't really see them. Well, maybe a bit. I mean, only a little bit. They're red, aren't they? I mean...forget I said that, they most definitely were not red. Not a bit of red to be found." He wilted. "Look, I'm just going to shut up now. I hope you're OK."
"What happened, did being King suck out what little brains you had left after spending months as our resident punching bag?" She rounded on him, her anger and fear from earlier erupting. "What made you think you could go into a fight without your helmet? Are you suicidal?" She marched over and pushed him in the chest, her bloody fingers leaving red dots on the shining breastplate.
"Well, you weren't wearing a helmet! You're not even wearing shoes! How in the Maker's name do you have the right to yell at me?"
"Because you're the bloody King of Ferelden! You fight smart, or you stay behind. You're not expendable, Alistair!" She was livid, and hurled the words in his face.
'Well, neither are you," he said softly as he held her gaze, and Ophelia felt her anger dry up and blow away. She glared at him halfheartedly for a moment longer.
"I'm going to get cleaned up," she ground out and stalked towards the nearby stream, chin high as she pretended not to notice the three men dissolving into raucous laughter behind her.