*Bashful wave*
“Red River Valley” - Marty Robbins and Johnny Cash
From this valley they say you are leaving, / we shall miss your bright eyes and sweet smile./
For you take with you all of the sunshine, / that has brightened our pathway awhile.
They clapped him in irons after they stripped him, then broke his ankle for good measure. Of course, it was a gift in return for those he’d given his guards: one broken nose, one fractured jaw and one dastardly bite to the ear. Souvenirs of the bastard prince. Even as they made him climb each agonizing step up the tower to await the hangman in the morning, he still grit his teeth in an unshakable feral grin.
***************
“Turning Back” - Vashti Bunyan
Indifference is the coldest ground...
After a kick or three to the head, time tended to grow soft around the edges. He heard footsteps and managed to roll his head toward the sound. “Leave us, please.”
“Come to gloat?”
Aedan chuckled softly, “Of course. I get so little distraction these days.”
Alistair’s eyes watered and his tongue felt glued to the back of his throat. “Everyone needs a hobby,” he managed.
The betrayer actually laughed. “Too bad you never learned that. All this time, and you’re still going to die a virgin.”
“Look, either come in and torture me yourself or get out. I’ve wasted enough of my life with you.”
Out of the corner of his eye, Alistair saw the other Warden smile almost gently. This was the most polite he could ever remember the Cousland behaving toward him. “Petty cruelty bores me these days. To the char pile with you then, you’ve served your purpose. I’ll toast you at my wedding.” Aedan snorted at his own joke.
Alistair rolled his head back to the ceiling. “Bad puns? I’m proud! At least I could teach a worthless shite like you something,” he rasped, but the future king was already retreating down the corridor.
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“Guinnevere” - Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young
Guinnevere had green eyes/ like yours, my lady, like yours.
The night wore on insufferably, with Alistair drifting in and out. Finally, there came again the sound of boots. There were voices that barely penetrated the now-familiar haze of pain, and he tried to at least look to the guard unlocking his door. “Good,” he slurred, “Let’s do this.”
But the guard spat blood, just a little, and slumped to the floor. There was a figure in black behind him. She took off a leather mask and asked, “Are you Alistair Warden?” He couldn’t think of anything to say. Those words meant something, but Andraste herself was speaking them.
All that came out of his mouth was, “I’m going to die a virgin.”
Andraste bent over him. “Not if I can help it,” she muttered, then blanched and blushed to the roots of her brown hair. “Not going to die, I mean, not that… I meant… oh, brennt Andraste.” She sighed. “We’re here to rescue you.”
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“Ghost Riders in the Sky” - Willie Nelson and Johnny Cash
As the horsemen passed on by him,/ he heard one call his name…
“My name is Reni, I’m a Warden of the Anderfels. There are four of us here in the tower: myself, and three from Orlais. We’re going to get you out.” She poked at his ankle and he yelped. “Great, I can’t set this by myself. We’ll have to wait for our healer.” She examined him a bit further, painfully, but all he could think about were her eyes.
“Can I kiss you?”
She blinked. “Beg pardon?”
Alistair grinned drunkenly. “I’m going to die in the morning, you know. Can I have a kiss?”
The look she gave him was incredulous at first, then softened to mirth. “Sure, why not? I’m already the knight rescuing the handsome prince from the tower, ja?” She lowered her head and brushed his bruised lips very gently.
Alistair raised his manacled hands to touch her face, but she ducked to unlock his chains. “That was…” he sighed contentedly. “I think… two of my fingers are… dislocated.”
The weight around his wrists dropped away and she looked into his eyes, worried. “Do you have a head injury?”
“Ummm… Only where I hit my head.”
“Fantastic.” She leaned out the cell door and hissed down the hallway, “Gerard, ou etes vous? Aidez-moi!”
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“Hooka-Tooka” - Judy Henske
See that crow up in the sky?/ He don’t walk, he just fly./
He don’t crawl, he don’t run./ Keep on flappin’ to the sun.
“Don’t leave me!” Alistair grabbed at her as she leaned away, pressing hard against a knot on his head. He groaned miserably.
Reni pushed him back onto the ground. “Be still. I’m not leaving you, I’m just calling for the mage.”
She suddenly braced his right hand against her ribs and twisted the two fingers back into place. She slapped her free hand over his mouth to stifle his surprised howl. When she figured he could be trusted to be quiet, she withdrew her hand and started rubbing and massaging along the base of his injured one. “There,” she grumbled with a faint smile, “still want me around?”
This only made Alistair nod his head carefully. “Promise you won’t leave me. Please?”
The young woman laid his hand down and started feeling carefully along his ribs for fractures. “I promise I’ll stay with you until we’re out of here.”
“No.” His good hand captured hers over his collarbone. “Please,” he whispered, “please, don’t leave me alone. Please.”
Reni didn’t look at him for a long moment. “Fine,” she sighed. “I, Reni, pledge to stay by your side for however long you deem that you need me. Or at least until you realize that you’re punch-drunk and send me away. Good enough?” She arched an eyebrow at him and waited.
Alistair searched her face for any trace of deceit, but saw none. “Thank you.”
*******************
“Saint James Infirmary” - Bobby “Blue” Bland
Let her go, let her go boys, god bless her/ wherever she may be./
She can search this whole wide world over/ and not find a sweeter man than me.
When his head cleared, Alistair was almost certain he’d crushed the wrists that Reni had so generously offered to let him grip while Gerard set Alistair’s blackened ankle. He ground the back of his head into her lap and screamed, but there was a flash of blue light that came just as quickly and eased the pain. She mopped his forehead with a wet handkerchief and muttered soothingly in her clipped, crisp accent as Gerard quickly splinted the ankle with wood from a broken desk. It was only when the healer produced a rough prisoner’s outfit that Alistair realized he was in his smallclothes.
He was almost shocked when Reni ignored his blushing and gingerly helped him to dress in the linen shirt and trousers. Aedan would have gone out of his way to mock or insult. She left him momentarily to rummage through a chest, throwing whatever objects she could fit into a pack he recognized as his own. When she returned, Alistair was certain she misinterpreted the look of shy gratitude, but he didn’t correct her.
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“Lucinda” - Tom Waits
I made a wish on a sliver of moonlight,/ a sly grin and a bowl full of stars,/
like a kid who captures a firefly/ and leaves it only to die in a jar.
There was a commotion in the hallway that stopped the three Wardens in mid-stride, but it was only the remaining two, engaged in a argument. There was a whip-thin elf with graying hair who was speaking in a low, reasonable tone. The antagonist was a pretty, middle-aged woman with straight black hair, a large nose and square jaw. She raised a finger and pointed emphatically in his direction. Reni stiffened and opened her stance, a hand curling lazily around one of the longswords on her back. Gerard saw the gesture and his eyes widened, and he barked a couple of words to the bickering man and woman. The elf frowned, but held out a placating hand to Reni. He looked at the black-haired Warden and said something low and very soothing. Alistair moved close to Reni’s ear. “What are they fighting about?”
“You,” she whispered. “Riordan wanted to stay to gather information, but Ann-Marie wants you to stay instead. She wants to force him back to Orlais.” His stomach flopped. Of course they’d take Riordan over him. Riordan was one of theirs, and far more valuable. “I won’t allow it, so she’s now blaming me.”
“Why?”
The woman’s face crumpled and she began to shake with silent tears as she walked away. “Ann-Marie is Riordan’s wife.”
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“Kathy’s Song” - Simon and Garfunkle
And so you see I have come to doubt/ all that I one held as true./
I stand alone without beliefs,/ the only truth I know is you.
“Quickly, now.” The Wardens wore the identical suits of black leather armor that melted into the shadows. Alistair felt like a lumbering parade carriage by comparison. His ankle meant that Reni and their leader, the elf Tomine, had to carry him down the stairs and across the courtyard. There were no guards, no witnesses, and Alistair spared a guilty thought for dead men. A cart waited for them in an alley at the bottom of a very long and nerve-wracking hill. The others helped Alistair up into the back and threw a hooded cloak over him. Reni sat next to him with a long, relieved sigh. She pushed back her hair and Alistair saw the pointed tips of her ears. She caught him staring and left her hands in place while giving him a questioning look. He suddenly wanted to tell her that she was beautiful, but swallowed hard and gave her a grateful smile instead. She let her hair drop back into place.
“Now,” she said, “we take a boat out of Denerim to Orlais. Do you understand what this means?”
Alistair still felt foggy. “Not really…?”
“It means,” she said evenly, “that you may never see Ferelden again.”
That got through to him. “Oh.”
After a moment, Reni reached out and squeezed his fingers. “Alistair, do you trust me when I say it will be alright?”
The quickness of his answer surprised him. “Yes. I do.”
************************************
“Long Gone” - Syd Barrett
She was long gone, long long gone/ she was gone gone, the bigger they come,/
the larger her hand, ‘til no one understands/ why for so long she’d been gone.
Aboard the ship, Reni remained a bit of a mystery. She brought him books, food, and even helped him with his poultices and exorcises for his ankle. Still, she rarely spoke beyond a joke or vague pleasantries. She slept on her bedroll on the floor and he watched her sleep sometimes, twitching in the grip of some nightmare or another. Almost two weeks passed before he felt comfortable enough wake her one night and pour her some cold tea. She sipped at it quietly for a while before Alistair found the nerve to ask, “So that, um, pledge you made on top of the tower… is that why you’ve stayed with me all this time?”
She cocked her head and studied him for a moment. “Is someone keeping a promise to you such a foreign concept?”
Her eyes stayed on him as she drank her tea and he sat in stunned silence. Alistair mulled it over for a bit, but it never crossed his mind to release her from her vow.
*******************************
“The Trawlerman’s Song” - Vashti Bunyan
I love coming home from far across the sea,/
and taking up my walking cane,/ and passing through the trees./
I wander on the hillside,/ the doggie at my heel,/
The braken waves a welcome to me/ “Where have you been?/
We’ve missed you a great deal!”
They traveled to Orlais, stopping in a small port town where the wardens maintained an outpost. This, Reni informed him, was where they would be staying for four months before the next available ship left for the Anderfels. She set them up in a small cabin at the outskirts of the town. It was one large room with a fireplace and a single, comfortable bed. As always, Reni spread her bedroll on the floor and would brook no argument over the sleeping arrangements.
The first night, Alistair woke shaking from a recurring nightmare: flashes of battle, and Duncan’s face, torn and bloodied. He curled in on himself and wept quietly, but he soon felt arms slip around his shoulders. He was surprised at first, but allowed his face to settle into Reni’s neck and he sobbed at her kindness as much as his sorrow.