Fanfic: Blood Poison
Alistair returned to the campsite, his arms loaded with wood. He counted the tents; it appeared that tonight Zevran and Neria would sleep apart. Leliana would lose the bet to Oghren.
Neria called from across the clearing, “First watch with me tonight, Alistair?”
“Er.. yes,” he said as he stacked the wood, hearing the surprise in his own voice.
“I was thinking about Goldanna.” Neria sounded as awkward as he felt when they were alone. She lifted her hand toward a firefly in the warming spring night, curiosity briefly in her eyes, and his love for her felt like a sore tooth when prodded by the tongue.
“What, her? Wasn’t that, what, a year ago winter? Worried that we forgot her birthday?”
Didn’t even get a smile out of her. She turned, playing with her gauntlets in a fidgety way and avoiding his eye. He became tense. “Well I was thinking about family to tell you the truth,” she said. “You know, I was too young to remember my family and I was thinking, you know, about our joining? My joining, I mean.”
“Your joining,” he repeated slowly. “Neria, what is this about?”
“I remembered the other night about what you said.” She continued in a forging-on-despite-the-odds way. She was rather reminding him of himself. “ At the ritual. You said, ‘Join us, brothers and sisters.’ You called me sister.” Her eyebrows lifted and she finally looked at him. “And I was thinking about what you said it was like with the other Wardens. And we share blood, in a way,” she added insistently. “We have the same type of blood.”
She stopped as if to catch her breath. “Did you bump your head or something?” he asked, leaning against a tree and starting to smile. “I don’t remember you ever being quite so eloquent.”
“Shut up,” she said briskly. “What I mean is, look, I’ll come right out and say it. We’re family, I think. You called me sister the first day you knew me.” Was she turning red? “So you’re my brother. I mean, you can be my brother. If you want to be.” She turned halfway away, twisting the finger on her glove hard, and tossed her head like a skittish mare.
“That’s… that’s actually quite sweet of you,” he said. He also used the gentlest tone he could muster up, being mindful of that time she’d accidentally burned his right eyebrow off.
She shot a sidelong glance at him in the shadows. “So you’ll do it?”
“Yes.”
“You’ll be my brother?”
“Yes.”
“And I can be your sister.”
“Y-yes.” He was starting to laugh at how flustered she was. She walked off at this and up the trail she rounded a tree. When he followed her, he found her sitting on a rock, fists under her chin.
“So if we’re family now, can I talk to you about this man you’re seeing? I don’t know if I think he’s quite good enough for my little sister.”
She threw a stick at him. It went ptaaang against his breastplate. “Shut up.”
Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 NSFW Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Part 7 Part 8 Part 9 Part 10 Part 11 Part 11a NSFW