Tainted, Chapter 3
Title: Tainted, Chapter 3
Characters: Mahariel, Alistair, Zevran
Rating: T
Words: 2,200
Summary: Tia and Alistair's quest takes them out of Ferelden but there's no escape, even in dreams.
Chapter 1 / Chapter 2
You might wonder why Alistair and I never took more comfort in each other, why we never embraced that feeling of reckless abandon at the end of it all. We're the only ones left, the only ones who truly know what it is that we face. And we face it alone. The Orlesian Wardens… well, with the Blight over they think the threat has passed. We've stopped trying to convince them.
It's just us. Traveling together, sleeping beside each other, even huddling for warmth on the coldest nights. It's not that I haven't thought about it. It's not because he's a shem - I accepted that long ago - or that he's unappealing. It's not even that I still hold some loyalty to Tamlen - though, considering some of the things that have happened, I almost wish it was. It would be so easy to slip away somewhere, to give up the fight, to live out the rest of our days... together.
I remember what it was to give into it, to seek that desperate sort of comfort, to find another to fill that void. But it's never been like that with Alistair; it never will be. Besides, he's never really forgiven me for Antiva.
When we learned that Wynne had returned to the Circle, that Sten had been trying to return to Seheron, it wasn't hard to puzzle out where Zevran had gone. Rumor of five dead Crow masters was enough to confirm my suspicions. And so we traveled north, taking ship across the Waking Sea, eventually taking rooms above the canal district in the heart of Antiva City. Despite his obvious misgivings about leaving home, I can’t help but think that Alistair was more worried about me.
That first night, I stood in the window with the shutters thrown wide, breathing in the salt of the sea, the musky stink of the city below. "A gem," Zevran had called it and I can almost hear the whispered echo of his words. In a way, I suppose it's an apt description - glittering all over to hide the flaws beneath, lighted as if for an eternal carnival. He had wanted to show it to me. We had talked about it, the adventures we would have, lying together in the musky dark of my tent. I never truly believed it, but it was nice to pretend. I suppose it's ironic that I've come here to kill him.
But the city is quiet, the streets deserted. Even I can tell that it's strange. Antiva City had lived with the Crows, had lived with a fear that they could at least understand. This was something different. Those few who I do glimpse on the street below move on hurriedly, disappearing behind shuttered windows and bolted doors. An old, hooded woman leads three children, all holding hands as she pulls them along. I almost want to laugh. The only deaths we have learned of so far are the Crow masters, a few high-ranking underlings. Could the tainted discriminate? Could Zevran? If anything of the man I had known remained, perhaps these people had nothing to fear.
Pride, freedom, immunity to pain… after I left home, after all that had happened, nothing had seemed more beautiful. He was nothing like Tamlen and, really, that had been all it took. There had been a strange sort of nobility there, unafraid to see things for what they were. But even Zevran had to know that Antiva's neighbors were already looking to its borders, that with confusion amongst the Crows, the entire country had become vulnerable. Already rumors of war are brewing. But I have to wonder if he'd care.
As the woman pulls her brood past, a rush of air washes over my face. A lone figure stands where the children had been, tilting his head to grin up at me from beneath lowered brows. Black leathers and golden hair, but by the time the shock of it hits me, he's gone. I blink, leaning out to look toward either end of the street. Nothing. I shudder.
I close the window and, after a moment's thought, slip Avernus' silver dagger through the handles of the shutters. Alistair has the room next door and I wonder again if it might have been wiser to share. In fact, he almost insisted on it. I couldn't tell you why I'd pulled away.
That night, I dream. It's something every Grey Warden learns to recognize, even if we never quite get used to it. They've been quieter since the archdemon's death but this is a nightmare of a different sort. I'm back in Ferelden, in the close darkness of my tent... and I am not alone. Zevran rises above me, smirking down as he pauses to study me. Even on those nights that we had lain tangled and spent, he always looked on the verge of chuckling at some secret jest. Once those smiles had put me at ease.
He does laugh now - barely a whisper - and my skin crawls. But I can't look away. He's cold, I realize, even as my legs wrap round to pull him close. He buries his face against my neck, newly jagged teeth nipping but never breaking the skin. They move to my ear, whispering slithering words that I cannot understand. He's warm now; why had I ever thought he was cold? I arch my back - remembering, savoring - and for a night, things are almost as they were.
What can I say? Old habits die hard. Besides, it was only a dream.
I wake to tangled, sodden sheets and am suddenly grateful that Alistair and I didn't share a bed. It's a moment before the breeze hits me and I look up to find the shutters of the window thrown wide. My dagger is resting neatly on the bedside table.
I don't mention the dream to Alistair as we begin our day's hunt. The tainted are weakest by day and we've found that many of them create nests of a sort, secure places where their daylight rest will not be disturbed. I lead the way, starting our search in the richest districts of the city. We use the sewers where our way is barred, slipping beneath the guildhouse of the Crows, the manses of the masters that Zevran has killed.
"Do you really think he'd stay here? I mean, it's obvious, isn't it? And too well lit. These sewers seems endless, though, and the canals..."
I snort. "Think of who you're talking about. More likely, Zev will be sleeping in the finest room he can find, probably on the bones of some dead master."
Alistair scowls at my familiar tone and I have to turn my head to hide my flush.
"There are tombs beneath the Chantry. Dark, abandoned. It's certainly dramatic enough."
Now he's thinking. I force a chuckle. "Can you really picture Zev- Zevran sleeping in a Chantry?"
"I guess not."
We do check the tombs, finding nothing, of course. Alistair wants to try the docks but it's already growing dark and I'm suddenly exhausted. But I want to find him, I do. Whether from embarrassment or guilt, the dream has left me driven. Even Alistair notices, but I brush aside his concerns, the arm that he offers me as we make our way back to the inn.
He sits down to eat in the common room, but I make an excuse and retire early to my room. He notices that too.
Again I bar the window with silver and again I dream. It comes quickly, the same as before and I'm terrified to find that I almost welcome it.
Nearly a week we stay in Antiva and every night it is the same. My daylight searches for Zevran's resting place become more vigorous and the dreams keep pace. I'm scratched and bruised, but never in any spot that Alistair might see. Still, he worries and wonders if we might find the city's Circle, find someone to offer healing. He thinks I'm turning, I realize, that the taint has caught up to me early. I assure him that the weather merely disagrees with me. I even cough a bit for emphasis.
On the fifth morning I wake to again find the window open, to again find my dagger on the table. But this time something sits beside it. I pick it up gingerly - an earring, and one I've seen before. Zevran had offered it to me once and I had turned him down. I can't say why, but now I slip it onto a spare boot lace, hanging it round my neck beneath my tunic.
Another day passes without success, though the path we tear through the city is almost frenzied now. Soon enough Alistair's going to grab me by the ear and drag me to one of his healers, I can tell. But Zevran gets to me first.
He's waiting for me that night. I step through my door to find the window open, sense him at my back a heartbeat before he wraps his arms around me. Creators, that strength. But he steps away, circling slowly round the edges of the room, daring me to admire him. I had thought him graceful before, but now he is living shadow, living silk. And yet that smirk is still the same.
"You are hunting me."
"I am."
"And by day." He tsks. "It is hardly fair, hm?"
"When have you ever played fair?"
He's on me then, moving faster than I can see to pull me against him. One hand forces itself roughly between my breasts, pulling free the earring to hold it dangling between us. "Do you still think that you are dreaming, Warden?"
"I am going to kill you."
"I would not have it any other way." There's a chuckle on his lips as they cover mine and - Creators preserve me - I'm giving as good as I get, pulling him back toward the bed. He pauses only long enough to remove his boots, sitting them neatly beside the window and suddenly I'm laughing with him.
When morning comes, I'm more sore than I have ever been, my body a ravaged and aching thing. But never have I felt so alive, so determined. Even Alistair's questions die on his lips as I push past him and out into the sun. I know where we are going now.
I turn away from the uptown districts and head instead for the docks, for the warehouses that wait beside them. I wasn't wrong; Zevran has always prided himself on his taste. I simply forgot that taste can be a unique thing. I follow my nose as much as the stories he once told me, sharing a silent nod with Alistair as we stop before the building. We can sense the darkspawn, sense each other, sense the tainted. But this is something more, a certainty that makes my stomach go cold. We stand before a tanner's shop with apartments above, the whole street stinking of leather.
Alistair goes round the back while I question the owner about other entrances. He's an old man, barrel-chested and strong and he doesn't hesitate to lunge for the sword that he keeps behind the counter. I have to hit him, knocking him unconscious. Of course Zevran would have paid him well.
But Alistair's found an old cellar entrance in a side alley. It's an easy thing to break the lock, even an easy thing to walk down the narrow, creaking stairs.
The crates of tools and barrels of bleaches have been pushed along the walls, the rest of the space given over to a long box of thick-carved wood. Light-sealed, it would be; we've seen its like before. Alistair gives me a wordless clap on the back, but I step away, motioning for him to be ready to open the lid as I silently unsheathe my blade. I nod.
Zev was right; it hardly seems fair. Inside the box, he sleeps stiffly on his back, fingers twined together. He looks dead - naked to the waist and colorless as porcelain, the tattoos that I'd been dragging my nails across thrown into sharp relief. There would be no marks there of course, not for him, but I don't doubt that I will carry the scars he's given me for the rest of my short life.
It's the smile that draws my eyes, that peaceful smirk on the verge of laughter still. This time, at least, I know the joke.
I plunge my dagger home, driving it through his chest, holding it there as he wakes with a bucking gasp. The flames spread outward from the silver, blackening the skin of his chest and it's with a great and jerking effort that he twists his head to look up at me. Again, he grins.
I watch, kneeling as the effort splits his cheeks, the markings there seeming to blacken and spread. A tainted death is never pretty, but I suspect this one will haunt me more than all that we have seen. I'm not wrong.
When nothing more remains, I stand, ripping the earring from my neck and tossing it into the box before turning for the door.
"Let's go home."
Characters: Mahariel, Alistair, Zevran
Rating: T
Words: 2,200
Summary: Tia and Alistair's quest takes them out of Ferelden but there's no escape, even in dreams.
Chapter 1 / Chapter 2
You might wonder why Alistair and I never took more comfort in each other, why we never embraced that feeling of reckless abandon at the end of it all. We're the only ones left, the only ones who truly know what it is that we face. And we face it alone. The Orlesian Wardens… well, with the Blight over they think the threat has passed. We've stopped trying to convince them.
It's just us. Traveling together, sleeping beside each other, even huddling for warmth on the coldest nights. It's not that I haven't thought about it. It's not because he's a shem - I accepted that long ago - or that he's unappealing. It's not even that I still hold some loyalty to Tamlen - though, considering some of the things that have happened, I almost wish it was. It would be so easy to slip away somewhere, to give up the fight, to live out the rest of our days... together.
I remember what it was to give into it, to seek that desperate sort of comfort, to find another to fill that void. But it's never been like that with Alistair; it never will be. Besides, he's never really forgiven me for Antiva.
When we learned that Wynne had returned to the Circle, that Sten had been trying to return to Seheron, it wasn't hard to puzzle out where Zevran had gone. Rumor of five dead Crow masters was enough to confirm my suspicions. And so we traveled north, taking ship across the Waking Sea, eventually taking rooms above the canal district in the heart of Antiva City. Despite his obvious misgivings about leaving home, I can’t help but think that Alistair was more worried about me.
That first night, I stood in the window with the shutters thrown wide, breathing in the salt of the sea, the musky stink of the city below. "A gem," Zevran had called it and I can almost hear the whispered echo of his words. In a way, I suppose it's an apt description - glittering all over to hide the flaws beneath, lighted as if for an eternal carnival. He had wanted to show it to me. We had talked about it, the adventures we would have, lying together in the musky dark of my tent. I never truly believed it, but it was nice to pretend. I suppose it's ironic that I've come here to kill him.
But the city is quiet, the streets deserted. Even I can tell that it's strange. Antiva City had lived with the Crows, had lived with a fear that they could at least understand. This was something different. Those few who I do glimpse on the street below move on hurriedly, disappearing behind shuttered windows and bolted doors. An old, hooded woman leads three children, all holding hands as she pulls them along. I almost want to laugh. The only deaths we have learned of so far are the Crow masters, a few high-ranking underlings. Could the tainted discriminate? Could Zevran? If anything of the man I had known remained, perhaps these people had nothing to fear.
Pride, freedom, immunity to pain… after I left home, after all that had happened, nothing had seemed more beautiful. He was nothing like Tamlen and, really, that had been all it took. There had been a strange sort of nobility there, unafraid to see things for what they were. But even Zevran had to know that Antiva's neighbors were already looking to its borders, that with confusion amongst the Crows, the entire country had become vulnerable. Already rumors of war are brewing. But I have to wonder if he'd care.
As the woman pulls her brood past, a rush of air washes over my face. A lone figure stands where the children had been, tilting his head to grin up at me from beneath lowered brows. Black leathers and golden hair, but by the time the shock of it hits me, he's gone. I blink, leaning out to look toward either end of the street. Nothing. I shudder.
I close the window and, after a moment's thought, slip Avernus' silver dagger through the handles of the shutters. Alistair has the room next door and I wonder again if it might have been wiser to share. In fact, he almost insisted on it. I couldn't tell you why I'd pulled away.
That night, I dream. It's something every Grey Warden learns to recognize, even if we never quite get used to it. They've been quieter since the archdemon's death but this is a nightmare of a different sort. I'm back in Ferelden, in the close darkness of my tent... and I am not alone. Zevran rises above me, smirking down as he pauses to study me. Even on those nights that we had lain tangled and spent, he always looked on the verge of chuckling at some secret jest. Once those smiles had put me at ease.
He does laugh now - barely a whisper - and my skin crawls. But I can't look away. He's cold, I realize, even as my legs wrap round to pull him close. He buries his face against my neck, newly jagged teeth nipping but never breaking the skin. They move to my ear, whispering slithering words that I cannot understand. He's warm now; why had I ever thought he was cold? I arch my back - remembering, savoring - and for a night, things are almost as they were.
What can I say? Old habits die hard. Besides, it was only a dream.
I wake to tangled, sodden sheets and am suddenly grateful that Alistair and I didn't share a bed. It's a moment before the breeze hits me and I look up to find the shutters of the window thrown wide. My dagger is resting neatly on the bedside table.
I don't mention the dream to Alistair as we begin our day's hunt. The tainted are weakest by day and we've found that many of them create nests of a sort, secure places where their daylight rest will not be disturbed. I lead the way, starting our search in the richest districts of the city. We use the sewers where our way is barred, slipping beneath the guildhouse of the Crows, the manses of the masters that Zevran has killed.
"Do you really think he'd stay here? I mean, it's obvious, isn't it? And too well lit. These sewers seems endless, though, and the canals..."
I snort. "Think of who you're talking about. More likely, Zev will be sleeping in the finest room he can find, probably on the bones of some dead master."
Alistair scowls at my familiar tone and I have to turn my head to hide my flush.
"There are tombs beneath the Chantry. Dark, abandoned. It's certainly dramatic enough."
Now he's thinking. I force a chuckle. "Can you really picture Zev- Zevran sleeping in a Chantry?"
"I guess not."
We do check the tombs, finding nothing, of course. Alistair wants to try the docks but it's already growing dark and I'm suddenly exhausted. But I want to find him, I do. Whether from embarrassment or guilt, the dream has left me driven. Even Alistair notices, but I brush aside his concerns, the arm that he offers me as we make our way back to the inn.
He sits down to eat in the common room, but I make an excuse and retire early to my room. He notices that too.
Again I bar the window with silver and again I dream. It comes quickly, the same as before and I'm terrified to find that I almost welcome it.
Nearly a week we stay in Antiva and every night it is the same. My daylight searches for Zevran's resting place become more vigorous and the dreams keep pace. I'm scratched and bruised, but never in any spot that Alistair might see. Still, he worries and wonders if we might find the city's Circle, find someone to offer healing. He thinks I'm turning, I realize, that the taint has caught up to me early. I assure him that the weather merely disagrees with me. I even cough a bit for emphasis.
On the fifth morning I wake to again find the window open, to again find my dagger on the table. But this time something sits beside it. I pick it up gingerly - an earring, and one I've seen before. Zevran had offered it to me once and I had turned him down. I can't say why, but now I slip it onto a spare boot lace, hanging it round my neck beneath my tunic.
Another day passes without success, though the path we tear through the city is almost frenzied now. Soon enough Alistair's going to grab me by the ear and drag me to one of his healers, I can tell. But Zevran gets to me first.
He's waiting for me that night. I step through my door to find the window open, sense him at my back a heartbeat before he wraps his arms around me. Creators, that strength. But he steps away, circling slowly round the edges of the room, daring me to admire him. I had thought him graceful before, but now he is living shadow, living silk. And yet that smirk is still the same.
"You are hunting me."
"I am."
"And by day." He tsks. "It is hardly fair, hm?"
"When have you ever played fair?"
He's on me then, moving faster than I can see to pull me against him. One hand forces itself roughly between my breasts, pulling free the earring to hold it dangling between us. "Do you still think that you are dreaming, Warden?"
"I am going to kill you."
"I would not have it any other way." There's a chuckle on his lips as they cover mine and - Creators preserve me - I'm giving as good as I get, pulling him back toward the bed. He pauses only long enough to remove his boots, sitting them neatly beside the window and suddenly I'm laughing with him.
When morning comes, I'm more sore than I have ever been, my body a ravaged and aching thing. But never have I felt so alive, so determined. Even Alistair's questions die on his lips as I push past him and out into the sun. I know where we are going now.
I turn away from the uptown districts and head instead for the docks, for the warehouses that wait beside them. I wasn't wrong; Zevran has always prided himself on his taste. I simply forgot that taste can be a unique thing. I follow my nose as much as the stories he once told me, sharing a silent nod with Alistair as we stop before the building. We can sense the darkspawn, sense each other, sense the tainted. But this is something more, a certainty that makes my stomach go cold. We stand before a tanner's shop with apartments above, the whole street stinking of leather.
Alistair goes round the back while I question the owner about other entrances. He's an old man, barrel-chested and strong and he doesn't hesitate to lunge for the sword that he keeps behind the counter. I have to hit him, knocking him unconscious. Of course Zevran would have paid him well.
But Alistair's found an old cellar entrance in a side alley. It's an easy thing to break the lock, even an easy thing to walk down the narrow, creaking stairs.
The crates of tools and barrels of bleaches have been pushed along the walls, the rest of the space given over to a long box of thick-carved wood. Light-sealed, it would be; we've seen its like before. Alistair gives me a wordless clap on the back, but I step away, motioning for him to be ready to open the lid as I silently unsheathe my blade. I nod.
Zev was right; it hardly seems fair. Inside the box, he sleeps stiffly on his back, fingers twined together. He looks dead - naked to the waist and colorless as porcelain, the tattoos that I'd been dragging my nails across thrown into sharp relief. There would be no marks there of course, not for him, but I don't doubt that I will carry the scars he's given me for the rest of my short life.
It's the smile that draws my eyes, that peaceful smirk on the verge of laughter still. This time, at least, I know the joke.
I plunge my dagger home, driving it through his chest, holding it there as he wakes with a bucking gasp. The flames spread outward from the silver, blackening the skin of his chest and it's with a great and jerking effort that he twists his head to look up at me. Again, he grins.
I watch, kneeling as the effort splits his cheeks, the markings there seeming to blacken and spread. A tainted death is never pretty, but I suspect this one will haunt me more than all that we have seen. I'm not wrong.
When nothing more remains, I stand, ripping the earring from my neck and tossing it into the box before turning for the door.
"Let's go home."