Fic - "Never A Choice"
Alistair was confused, disappointed, and maybe a tad livid as well. It was with these wonderful emotions propelling him that he approached Aiden after the group had settled down to camp for the night.
"We need to talk."
And Aiden - cool, calm and collected Aiden - had set aside his poultice making supplies easy as could be, and nodded. "So talk."
The roiling emotions, unable to be contained, exploded from Alistair in a maelstrom. "How could you do that? How could you just…just let him walk free like that? After what he's done?" The words were harsh. Biting. Satisfying. Alistair was certain he'd never felt so justifiably angry before. "To Redcliffe? To Connor? To Eamon?"
Aiden's voice, which at any other point in time would have been jovial, was clipped and controlled when he answered. As if he was hanging from the finest of tethers above a great chasm, and the smallest gust of wind could send him tumbling to the depths below. "And what would you have had me do, Alistair?" He pressed both hands to the log, pushing himself vertical to stand an arm's length from the former Templar. "Would you have had me gut him where he stood? Or left him to rot in that cage, with the vague hope that none of those creatures would return, and be able to get to him through such a flimsy lock?"
"Either of those options would have been preferable to the one you chose!" Alistair was seething, hands gesticulating like a marionette on uneven strings, as he paced in front of their defacto leader. A title he was regretting being responsible for at the moment. "He tried to poison the Arl. On Loghain's orders! Or did you not hear that part? He shouldn't have been allowed to just - just go. Pretty as you please." His voice slipped into a falsetto, bitterness dripping from every syllable. "'Oh, don't mind me as I invade your towns and kill your loved ones! I'm just a free-roaming, murdering maleficar. Nothing to see here!'" Alistair's voice dropped back to a normal register as he closed the gap between them by a foot, meeting Aiden's unwavering gaze. "You should have left his fate for the Arl. He could have destroyed that family. Maker's Breath, he almost destroyed the whole town!" Aiden closed his eyes and dropped his chin, exhaling a shaky breath - still Alistair marched on. "Who are you to decide that he's been punished enough?"
Aiden's eyes snapped open, piercing blue irises locking onto Alistair. His tone icy, but laced with strength. "I'm his friend."
Alistair flinched from the confession like he'd been slapped, stumbling over his own tongue as he tried to redirect. "Well, I know that you two were both at the Circle and all, but -"
"No, you don't know. The Circle is all I have known, Alistair. They got lucky with me. Got me young enough that I have no recollection of life before those walls. And Jowan - Jowan was always there." In contrast to Alistair's rant, Aiden's voice became subdued; each word more deliberate, more sincere as a result. "He is in every single memory that I have, Alistair. Always a good friend. My brother. My sole connection to the rest of that damned place. And so one day, he comes to me, tells me he's met a girl." Aiden's laugh was brittle, short. "But only, he couldn't have fallen for a mage, could he? No. Not Jowan. Because Jowan, you see, has never done anything by halves. Never one to take the easy route. Even his short cuts took ten times as long as the straight way to get somewhere. So the girl had to be, she just had to be, a Chantry sister. But Maker be praised!" Aiden tossed his hands above his head, yelling the last part out to the sky like a prayer, and drawing the attention of some of the other camp inhabitants.
"At least she's just an initiate. Small favors, eh? And it's obvious that they are in love. So, so…In. Love. I spent five minutes in the room with them, and I could feel it pulsating from them in waves. And I figure, there's no way that the First Enchanter and the Knight-Commander don't know what's going on. They're not idiots you see? So when Jowan asked for my help? Help getting the two of them out of there? Free of the circle... to love. There was never a chance that I would say no."
Aiden sucked in a heavy breathe, and paused. Awaiting…what? Alistair had no idea, but he could tell that whatever it was, spewing his own anger and lingering resentment at what the other man would do no good. He slide back a step to try and relieve the air of tension strung between them, and to allow him a chance to collect his thoughts. His tongue darted out to wet his lower lip before he spoke. "I know a thing or two about living under the Chantry's thumb. Trust me when I say that it wasn't all tea parties and happy chanting. And alright, maybe I've never been in love before, but I am familiar with the crazy, strange, and altogether unexpected behaviors it can bring out in people. Or did you miss the part where I explained why I was raised in a barn? But what it doesn't do, is make somebody turn to blood magic."
"No. The Chantry does that just fine on its own." Aiden's demeanor was sour, his mouth pulled into a thin line, and eyebrows drawn down.
Alistair huffed out a sad excuse for a laugh. "Oh, yeah. I must have forgotten about that part of the Chant on account of, you know, it not existing and all."
"You're a Templar, I wouldn't expect you to understand."
"Not a Templar. Was. Nearly. Duncan put a stop to all that. Thank the Maker."
Aiden snorted, "You still have all the training though. Still chose to live by the Chantry's rules for however many years. Still would have taken those vows if Duncan hadn't come along. And you'd probably be out and about, happy as could be, hunting down Jowan or cutting off the heads of poor and unsuspecting apprentices, whose only sin was not being able to make it through their Harrowing with all their sanity intact."
Alistair frowned. "I don't think I'd exactly be happy about it; more likely that I'd be stark raving mad by now. More so than I am of course. But, the rest is fairly accurate, I suppose. Except for the part where you said I had a choice. I didn't. I told you that when we got to Redcliffe, if you recall."
Aiden nodded, "I recall. I recall you saying that's where Arl Eamon sent you. I recall you telling me how you behaved like a petulant child about the whole thing; an attitude that has seemed to carry with you for a number of years, by the way. But really, Alistair? What would they have done if you had chosen to leave? If you had snuck out, in the dark of night, and ran off to some little village, like the ones we pass every other day? Hmm? Perhaps there would have been some sort of token search effort for the bastard son of a King and scullery maid. But you're bright. And resourceful. You could have stayed hidden long enough to outrun those dogs, certainly. And that would have been that. But you didn't, did you? You stayed. You chose to stay."
"I - that is to say - I didn't - it wasn't like that!" Indignation flared bright in Alistair.
"No?" Alistair wasn't so far gone that he didn't notice the mage's hand clench in a fist. Aiden stepped forward, closing the distance between the two of them until they were nose to nose, evidence of slow-simmering rage visible on the high-points of his cheeks. "What was it like for you then? Did they keep you locked up, day in, and day out? With only the cold stone walls and tapestries to look upon? When you attended Chant, did you have to listen again and again about how you were filled with sin? How your very existence was considered evil to most? And at best, how you were only meant to serve those same people? Was all of your correspondence, were all of your notes, looked over for signs of illicit activities? Were you taught how dangerous emotions could be? With the evidence of the Tranquil hovering over you every day? And if you even so much as thought about stepping one foot outside those walls without an armed Templar escort, were you threatened with death? Did they even keep a lovely little vile of your blood as a guarantee? A nice. Short. Leash?"
Alistair swallowed past the lump in his throat, but did not break eye contact with the other Warden. "No. They didn't."
"Then do not talk to me about choice."
"I'll admit I don't know what life was like for you - or for him - in the tower. But that is no excuse for his actions. He chose to do those things! He chose to poison the Arl - he chose to use blood magic!"
Tension drained from Aiden as he let loose a deep-bellied laugh, "And what, my fellow Warden, would you say that the Joining is, hmm?"
Alistair sputtered, his face going red. "That's different!"
"Is it?" Aiden sighed and stepped back, moving to gather his poultice supplies up. The camp was eerie in the silence that followed, most everyone else had retreated from the dying campfire to the safe harbor of their own tents and bed rolls. "Look, what's done is done. Jowan says that he wants to redeem himself. I'm willing to give him that chance. If it makes you sleep easier at night, I won't give him a third one, should it come to that. For now, it's late. And I'm exhausted. If we stand any chance of saving Connor, then we need to make it to the Circle by nightfall tomorrow; which means we have a tedious trek ahead of us. I for one am in need of some rest. I suggest you do the same."
As the mage retreated to his tent, Alistair slumped onto the log where Aiden's supplies had rested, fatigue settling on him like a shroud. He tried to imagine what he would have done, had he been in Aiden's shoes. But the truth of the matter was that he'd never trusted someone the way that Aiden had trusted Jowan. It was hard making friends when you lived in a stable, and Alistair had never meshed well with the other Chantry boys - despite what Aiden might think. The first time he'd ever even know what it meant to feel camaraderie, had been amongst the Grey Warden's. And Alistair's heart was still chilled by the fate that had taken them away. Now they were the only two left… Alistair had to shake himself from the downward spiral his thoughts were journeying. Maybe Aiden was right, and sleep was what he needed most now. With a yawn, he retreated to the warmth of his tent.
Tomorrow was certain to be a long day.
~ End