(no subject)
Yeeeaaahhh so um? Am I forgiven for taking so ridiculously long if I tell you I published a book? No? Well, here's some funny Alistair and Anders, then. *cough*
Title: There’ll Be No Compromising (Ménage 19)
Words: 1889
Rating: PG
Characters: Alistair/Phi/Zev story: chapter - Alistair, Oghren, Anders, Nathaniel, and the First
Summary: Alistair compiles a list of things he hates about Blackmarsh. It’s long.
<- Previous: Ornaments of Gold
Why would pirates choose to waylay people crossing brackish water into what was supposed to be a haunted marsh? And yet there they were. Mad, this part of the country.
Otherwise the journey was uneventful, and before long Alistair and his party knew they had reached Blackmarsh. It was indeed both black and marshy, although he was happy to find that there were large enough patches of dry land to travel on without too much wading. That, however, was the only pleasant thing about the region. The gloom that hung over everything smelled like rot covered with mildew, with a hint of - perhaps wet dog.
No: he soon corrected that. Wet werewolves. Anders saw them first and hit them with whatever that sick was that mages could throw at people, but they barely seemed to notice it. In the time it took for Alistair and Oghren to draw their weapons, the leader was gargling and clawing at the arrow sticking out of its throat.
Nathaniel’s doing, Alistair thought as he ducked out of the attempted grab at his throat, swinging his sword up into the arm socket the attempt had exposed. He’d missed having an archer.
After a few long, painful minutes, the marsh smelled of rot covered with mildew, human and dwarven sweat, blood, death, and wet, diseased, burning werewolves. “Good shot, that first one,” Alistair panted as Nathaniel checked his spent arrows to see if any could be used again. The archer nodded and looked slightly less dour than usual, but said nothing. “So!” Alistair went on cheerily. “Adding werewolves to the list of things I don’t like about Blackmarsh. I may end up having to write it all down.”
“Whatever happened,” Nathaniel said as he got up from his knees, “it was just before the rebellion against Orlais. Some sort of evil magic was supposed to have wiped out the whole town that used to be here. The story fascinated me when I was a child.” He smirked a little. “I fancied I’d grow up into some sort of grand champion and come here to put everything right.”
“And here you are!”
Nathaniel made a scoffing noise. “Here I am, conscripted into the Wardens as a traitor and the son of a traitor.”
Alistair wagged a finger at him. “Here you are, a Gray Warden, member of the most legendary order of all time. And you’re here in Blackmarsh - and so am I, Maker help us - and with my luck we’re bound to find out what went wrong, and you’ll get to deal with it. Childhood dream realized! We’ll just have to drop the mythic details like riding in on griffins into the story ourselves, later.”
Nathaniel stared in shock at him at first, but slowly, his mouth broadened into something of a grin, and he laughed and shook his head. “Yes, I suppose so. Can we say I shot a werewolf from griffinback? That sounds like it would impress young ladies in the Free Marches, doesn’t it?”
“Ooh!” Anders literally jumped into the conversation. “Can I shoot fireballs from griffinback, then? Or would that spook the griffin? …Or the girl I’m trying to impress, for that matter. I didn’t know we got griffins! When do we get griffins?”
“At about four ales and a bottle of good whiskey,” rumbled Oghren. “But it’s too early in the day to make camp and get drunk, so move it out!”
They found the first darkspawn corpse before any of them started to feel their hackles raise for proximity to live ones. Most likely the work of Kristoff, they agreed, and were able to imagine for several minutes that it was a good sign. But the ruins where a town had been were disturbing, and there was a disturbingly large supply of werewolves, and Anders seemed to be suffering from some chill worse than the sense that somewhere nearby, some darkspawn were still moving.
He seemed to recognize its source at about the same time that Alistair and Nathaniel spotted the camp and headed them toward it. “This place is wrong,” Anders declared, hunching his shoulders in and regarding the land itself with suspicion. “Really, really wrong.”
Alistair stopped and considered this as Nathaniel went ahead to investigate the camp. “Is this some mage thing? What do you think is happening?” He wished for Philoméne, not for the first time but for a new reason.
Anders took a few steps in a different direction, then stopped short and started waving his arms into the thick strand of mist ahead of him. “Like this, right here!” he cried, as if it was the tail end of an explanation he’d already given. “You used to be a Templar, didn’t you? Don’t you see that? Don’t you feel it?”
“I wasn’t - ” Alistair dropped the excuse in the middle, took a deep breath, and tried to focus on shifting his senses toward the world the way the mages saw it, faint currents and eddies of potential and light, and… and a dark, sucking hole, there in front of Anders, its edges marked by a sickly green miasma.
Anders nodded. “Yes. That. That’s not just unwholesome magic, and this isn’t the only place I’ve noticed it since we got to the marsh. The Veil itself is damaged here.”
Alistair grimaced. “That’s bad, isn’t it?”
“You might say that. I can’t even tell you how it’s done, if that gives you an idea.”
Nathaniel returned to them, his face back to its usual grimness. “I found a few personal effects that would appear to be Kristoff’s, but the camp isn’t fresh.”
“That’s not good either.” Alistair rolled his shoulders and sighed. “How many hateful things am I up to now? Nine? Well, no point stopping before we reach two digits! The day’s still young!”
Anders hummed and looked off into the distance. “In that case, I think that’s a stone circle over there. If it is, it might shed some light on what’s happening with the Veil.”
It was indeed a stone circle; and while it did not itself reveal much, Nathaniel found a journal nearby and skimmed it quickly. “Anders! Would human sacrifice have anything to do with this problem with the Veil you’re worried about?”
Anders crossed his arms. “Ooh! Yes, I think that certainly would have helped. Can I see that?”
Nathaniel slammed the book shut and handed it over. “Sodding Orlesians. She made herself out to be a hero and then started murdering little girls.” He looked murderous himself.
Alistair frowned. “Who did?”
“The Baroness, apparently,” said Anders, not looking up from the journal. “According to this, she was one of those lovely blood mages who ruin civilized society for the rest of us. And Blackmarsh for human habitation, by the look of it. I wonder what it was she was trying to do.”
“So do I. And now it’s something we might have to find out before we can decide whether we can afford to just let this place and the darkspawn have each other.” He glanced sidelong at Nathaniel. “Just like I said! I’m clever like that.”
“Only who leaves their journal tucked behind a rock out in the open?” Anders wondered aloud, flipping through the pages one more time before he closed it.
“Someone who was interrupted?” Nathaniel mused. “Do you suppose this is something Kristoff would have noticed?”
Alistair shrugged. “I’ve never met him, so I don’t - ah, darkspawn,” he interrupted himself, drawing his sword reflexively and moving toward the source of the dissonant feeling.
To be precise it was more of those gigantic grubs, thanks very much, and Nathaniel and Anders appeared to enjoy them just as much as he did. Between their shots and spells were several helpful cries of “Eugh!” and “What are they?” and the like. The smell they gave off when their chitin was singed was particularly loathsome, nearly enough to choke him when he stepped in to finish them off.
He breathed into his hand for a moment to clear his sinuses. “Right then. Quick review. Yes, they’re disgusting. No, we didn’t see any of these during the Blight, but this is the second time I’ve seen them since. And they seem to have come from…” he paced around a few steps, looking for signs of their passage, then nodded back toward the trees. “That way.”
There were no more grubs - so that was a small blessing, at least - but there was a human body. Not fresh, though mercifully unbloated for a corpse in a marsh; his features were sunken, his flesh ghastly white and unpleasantly thin over the muscles and tendons.
“Wardens,” called a voice with a peculiar cadence Alistair had already learned to associate with talking darkspawn. “You are coming as the Mother said.”
With an annoyed growl, Alistair rose from crouching over the dead man. “Darkspawn! You are talking as Warden history says you can’t. Stop trying to make us look bad to the new recruits.”
There was a moment’s pause, as if the thing was confused by his response, although it was difficult to read what little facial expression it might have. “The First is not caring about your recruits or your history!” it declared at last. “The First is caring only about the Mother!”
“Well!” Anders chimed in. “It’s good to care about your mother. I’m sure she’ll miss you.” With that, he raised his staff.
The First stepped back, raising his hand. “Wait! The First is not to be fighting. Only to be sending a message from the Mother.”
All four of them scoffed and Oghren hefted his axe meaningfully, but Alistair was too curious to let it pass. “I don’t suppose this message tells us whether this dead man was Kristoff?”
“A Warden. The First knows not which. Wardens are all looking the same to him.” He blinked and looked down at Oghren, and added, “Except the dwarf.”
“Ooh,” Oghren growled. “I’m special. That mean I get the first swing?”
“The message,” Alistair said.
“Wardens are helping the Emissary. The Mother is not desiring this.”
Alistair’s eyes narrowed. “Sorry to be disappointing you, but the Wardens aren’t having any sodding idea who the Emissary or the Mother is, so we’re certainly not to be taking sides. Mostly we’d just be liking you to take this back down into your tunnels and leaving us alone for a few thousand years like you’re being supposed to. Ing.”
Nathaniel sidled a little closer to Alistair, his bow raised meaningfully but not yet drawn. “You don’t normally do the talking, do you?” he mumbled.
“Was it obvious?”
“It does not matter,” the First said, without any apparent notice or interest. “She is not permitting you to further his plan.” He raised his hand -
The whole world twisted out from under their feet and was wrenched away, and for just a split second Alistair was able to add to his list of things to hate about Blackmarsh that it could depart from him so suddenly. But instead of nothing, it was replaced by… some howling wrongness ripping at his senses, and especially his fading Templar instincts. He was still fighting the vertigo when he realized that part of the noise he heard was the voice of the First howling in indignation.
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Title: There’ll Be No Compromising (Ménage 19)
Words: 1889
Rating: PG
Characters: Alistair/Phi/Zev story: chapter - Alistair, Oghren, Anders, Nathaniel, and the First
Summary: Alistair compiles a list of things he hates about Blackmarsh. It’s long.
<- Previous: Ornaments of Gold
Why would pirates choose to waylay people crossing brackish water into what was supposed to be a haunted marsh? And yet there they were. Mad, this part of the country.
Otherwise the journey was uneventful, and before long Alistair and his party knew they had reached Blackmarsh. It was indeed both black and marshy, although he was happy to find that there were large enough patches of dry land to travel on without too much wading. That, however, was the only pleasant thing about the region. The gloom that hung over everything smelled like rot covered with mildew, with a hint of - perhaps wet dog.
No: he soon corrected that. Wet werewolves. Anders saw them first and hit them with whatever that sick was that mages could throw at people, but they barely seemed to notice it. In the time it took for Alistair and Oghren to draw their weapons, the leader was gargling and clawing at the arrow sticking out of its throat.
Nathaniel’s doing, Alistair thought as he ducked out of the attempted grab at his throat, swinging his sword up into the arm socket the attempt had exposed. He’d missed having an archer.
After a few long, painful minutes, the marsh smelled of rot covered with mildew, human and dwarven sweat, blood, death, and wet, diseased, burning werewolves. “Good shot, that first one,” Alistair panted as Nathaniel checked his spent arrows to see if any could be used again. The archer nodded and looked slightly less dour than usual, but said nothing. “So!” Alistair went on cheerily. “Adding werewolves to the list of things I don’t like about Blackmarsh. I may end up having to write it all down.”
“Whatever happened,” Nathaniel said as he got up from his knees, “it was just before the rebellion against Orlais. Some sort of evil magic was supposed to have wiped out the whole town that used to be here. The story fascinated me when I was a child.” He smirked a little. “I fancied I’d grow up into some sort of grand champion and come here to put everything right.”
“And here you are!”
Nathaniel made a scoffing noise. “Here I am, conscripted into the Wardens as a traitor and the son of a traitor.”
Alistair wagged a finger at him. “Here you are, a Gray Warden, member of the most legendary order of all time. And you’re here in Blackmarsh - and so am I, Maker help us - and with my luck we’re bound to find out what went wrong, and you’ll get to deal with it. Childhood dream realized! We’ll just have to drop the mythic details like riding in on griffins into the story ourselves, later.”
Nathaniel stared in shock at him at first, but slowly, his mouth broadened into something of a grin, and he laughed and shook his head. “Yes, I suppose so. Can we say I shot a werewolf from griffinback? That sounds like it would impress young ladies in the Free Marches, doesn’t it?”
“Ooh!” Anders literally jumped into the conversation. “Can I shoot fireballs from griffinback, then? Or would that spook the griffin? …Or the girl I’m trying to impress, for that matter. I didn’t know we got griffins! When do we get griffins?”
“At about four ales and a bottle of good whiskey,” rumbled Oghren. “But it’s too early in the day to make camp and get drunk, so move it out!”
They found the first darkspawn corpse before any of them started to feel their hackles raise for proximity to live ones. Most likely the work of Kristoff, they agreed, and were able to imagine for several minutes that it was a good sign. But the ruins where a town had been were disturbing, and there was a disturbingly large supply of werewolves, and Anders seemed to be suffering from some chill worse than the sense that somewhere nearby, some darkspawn were still moving.
He seemed to recognize its source at about the same time that Alistair and Nathaniel spotted the camp and headed them toward it. “This place is wrong,” Anders declared, hunching his shoulders in and regarding the land itself with suspicion. “Really, really wrong.”
Alistair stopped and considered this as Nathaniel went ahead to investigate the camp. “Is this some mage thing? What do you think is happening?” He wished for Philoméne, not for the first time but for a new reason.
Anders took a few steps in a different direction, then stopped short and started waving his arms into the thick strand of mist ahead of him. “Like this, right here!” he cried, as if it was the tail end of an explanation he’d already given. “You used to be a Templar, didn’t you? Don’t you see that? Don’t you feel it?”
“I wasn’t - ” Alistair dropped the excuse in the middle, took a deep breath, and tried to focus on shifting his senses toward the world the way the mages saw it, faint currents and eddies of potential and light, and… and a dark, sucking hole, there in front of Anders, its edges marked by a sickly green miasma.
Anders nodded. “Yes. That. That’s not just unwholesome magic, and this isn’t the only place I’ve noticed it since we got to the marsh. The Veil itself is damaged here.”
Alistair grimaced. “That’s bad, isn’t it?”
“You might say that. I can’t even tell you how it’s done, if that gives you an idea.”
Nathaniel returned to them, his face back to its usual grimness. “I found a few personal effects that would appear to be Kristoff’s, but the camp isn’t fresh.”
“That’s not good either.” Alistair rolled his shoulders and sighed. “How many hateful things am I up to now? Nine? Well, no point stopping before we reach two digits! The day’s still young!”
Anders hummed and looked off into the distance. “In that case, I think that’s a stone circle over there. If it is, it might shed some light on what’s happening with the Veil.”
It was indeed a stone circle; and while it did not itself reveal much, Nathaniel found a journal nearby and skimmed it quickly. “Anders! Would human sacrifice have anything to do with this problem with the Veil you’re worried about?”
Anders crossed his arms. “Ooh! Yes, I think that certainly would have helped. Can I see that?”
Nathaniel slammed the book shut and handed it over. “Sodding Orlesians. She made herself out to be a hero and then started murdering little girls.” He looked murderous himself.
Alistair frowned. “Who did?”
“The Baroness, apparently,” said Anders, not looking up from the journal. “According to this, she was one of those lovely blood mages who ruin civilized society for the rest of us. And Blackmarsh for human habitation, by the look of it. I wonder what it was she was trying to do.”
“So do I. And now it’s something we might have to find out before we can decide whether we can afford to just let this place and the darkspawn have each other.” He glanced sidelong at Nathaniel. “Just like I said! I’m clever like that.”
“Only who leaves their journal tucked behind a rock out in the open?” Anders wondered aloud, flipping through the pages one more time before he closed it.
“Someone who was interrupted?” Nathaniel mused. “Do you suppose this is something Kristoff would have noticed?”
Alistair shrugged. “I’ve never met him, so I don’t - ah, darkspawn,” he interrupted himself, drawing his sword reflexively and moving toward the source of the dissonant feeling.
To be precise it was more of those gigantic grubs, thanks very much, and Nathaniel and Anders appeared to enjoy them just as much as he did. Between their shots and spells were several helpful cries of “Eugh!” and “What are they?” and the like. The smell they gave off when their chitin was singed was particularly loathsome, nearly enough to choke him when he stepped in to finish them off.
He breathed into his hand for a moment to clear his sinuses. “Right then. Quick review. Yes, they’re disgusting. No, we didn’t see any of these during the Blight, but this is the second time I’ve seen them since. And they seem to have come from…” he paced around a few steps, looking for signs of their passage, then nodded back toward the trees. “That way.”
There were no more grubs - so that was a small blessing, at least - but there was a human body. Not fresh, though mercifully unbloated for a corpse in a marsh; his features were sunken, his flesh ghastly white and unpleasantly thin over the muscles and tendons.
“Wardens,” called a voice with a peculiar cadence Alistair had already learned to associate with talking darkspawn. “You are coming as the Mother said.”
With an annoyed growl, Alistair rose from crouching over the dead man. “Darkspawn! You are talking as Warden history says you can’t. Stop trying to make us look bad to the new recruits.”
There was a moment’s pause, as if the thing was confused by his response, although it was difficult to read what little facial expression it might have. “The First is not caring about your recruits or your history!” it declared at last. “The First is caring only about the Mother!”
“Well!” Anders chimed in. “It’s good to care about your mother. I’m sure she’ll miss you.” With that, he raised his staff.
The First stepped back, raising his hand. “Wait! The First is not to be fighting. Only to be sending a message from the Mother.”
All four of them scoffed and Oghren hefted his axe meaningfully, but Alistair was too curious to let it pass. “I don’t suppose this message tells us whether this dead man was Kristoff?”
“A Warden. The First knows not which. Wardens are all looking the same to him.” He blinked and looked down at Oghren, and added, “Except the dwarf.”
“Ooh,” Oghren growled. “I’m special. That mean I get the first swing?”
“The message,” Alistair said.
“Wardens are helping the Emissary. The Mother is not desiring this.”
Alistair’s eyes narrowed. “Sorry to be disappointing you, but the Wardens aren’t having any sodding idea who the Emissary or the Mother is, so we’re certainly not to be taking sides. Mostly we’d just be liking you to take this back down into your tunnels and leaving us alone for a few thousand years like you’re being supposed to. Ing.”
Nathaniel sidled a little closer to Alistair, his bow raised meaningfully but not yet drawn. “You don’t normally do the talking, do you?” he mumbled.
“Was it obvious?”
“It does not matter,” the First said, without any apparent notice or interest. “She is not permitting you to further his plan.” He raised his hand -
The whole world twisted out from under their feet and was wrenched away, and for just a split second Alistair was able to add to his list of things to hate about Blackmarsh that it could depart from him so suddenly. But instead of nothing, it was replaced by… some howling wrongness ripping at his senses, and especially his fading Templar instincts. He was still fighting the vertigo when he realized that part of the noise he heard was the voice of the First howling in indignation.
Back to Phi's Index